That’s what I felt like when I got not one but two school related pieces of mail. One was my advisor’s notes on my final packet. On that, I finally felt like I’d gotten the hang of things and it went fairly smooth all around. Not that I didn’t have my week of freak-out just before it was due, but the essays came easy (easier than usual), the writing seemed to hit a stride, and my revision of my short story nailed some important changes.
The other envelope was my workshop materials. That’s the moment when I thought to myself “the new phone book’s here!” because, well, just because. It’s a reference to a Steve Martin film, and if you get the reference then you’ll know how absurdly I viewed my own excitement. The workshop reading is work! It isn’t like I was published in an anthology. Sure, my name’s on the cover, but so are ten other people’s, and we all have to read the contents and take notes and make articulate comments on that reading in a month.
As work goes, this should be a bit easier this time around. Only one semester in but I feel like I’ve got a better handle on how to approach this stuff. Yeah, I’m gonna let some of that end-o-semester cockiness strut around for a couple more days before hunkering down with the old pencil and the critical eye.
All I have to do now is not try to place faces with names on the workshop book and constantly ask myself “are they gonna like me?” I need to refocus that energy on the MG novel. And that picture book biography of a silent move star. And I need to start playing with Scrivener.
And, and and…
