Two weeks ago today I returned home after attending Dean Wesley Smith’s Character Voice and Setting writing workshop. It was a fantastic class – we covered everything that I’d hoped to learn. On top of that, one of the short stories I wrote for a homework assignment wanted to be a novel, so I’m now working on a new novel! The assignment was to write a short story for one of two pretend anthologies: Gangsters Galore or Shamrocks, Selkies, and Sidhe, Oh My! To save my life I couldn’t think of a gangster story, so I turned to Wikipedia and came up with a story that I’m having a lot of fun working on. (I couldn’t figure out how to squeeze in shamrocks in time to finish the homework assignment, but maybe they’ll make it into the novel.) The working title is The Selkie and the Sidhe.

Dean and his wife Kris teach their workshops in Lincoln City, Oregon, which is right on the coast. Most of the writers stay at the Historic Anchor Inn, which is a very unique place. Here are a few photos which should illustrate that more clearly.

my soap holder

this cute little guy guarded my cabin door

one of the bedroom lamps

I was able to squeeze in time to make a few edits to my first novel, With Perfect Clarity, for the first few days of class, but finally had to table that as the homework assignments got more intense. I wrapped up the edits last weekend, and have sent the manuscript to Cindie Geddes at Lucky Bat Books. I’m self-publishing this novel, but I decided to work with an editor for several reasons, the most critical of which is that I’ve never published a novel before and I’ll feel a lot better if someone else gives it the once-over.

My ‘reward’ for sending off the manuscript was sewing a dress. I’m not sure how I came up with this idea…in the past 15 years I’ve sewn a pair of pajamas and some subpar curtains, so even I am baffled. This morning I managed to sew on the first sleeve…inside out…