I had hoped to get this up last week but two days after the Whidbey conference ended, the family and I took off for Montana and grandma’s one hundred first birthday. One of my most trusted readers needed my revised manuscript by the 6^th, and I needed to get two other projects in by the 10^th. It was in short total insanity in my heart and mind for this last week since the conference ended.  It was excellent however: among other things I got a much needed distraction from the sinking feeling that everything was about to change yet again*.

Bharti Kirchner, Sarah Martinez, Priscilla Long
Photo courtesy Loretta Matson

In the virtual triumvirate of writers and teachers that makes up the bulk of who I learn from these days, most of you already know Priscilla Long is at the top. In that cosmic way things work out, I got to drive her back and forth from the conference!

This meant an additional six hours with my hero, above and beyond the three hour class on the sentence she gave the first day of the conference. I tried to limit my gushing to five minutes, it may have been more but I hope it was always in context.  It was incredible to listen to Priscilla and Carolyn Wright, (another presenter) discuss poetry, scholarship in the internet age, Vietnam and activism, grammar and punctuation, and to have discussions with her about one of my favorite writing books: Robert Olen Butler’s, “From Where You Dream.”

I asked her and Carolyn what they thought about the fracturing of our minds due to advances in technology. This is an issue that Franzen’s comments got me curious enough about to poll anyone over fifty. We also talked about Junot Diaz, and my recent essay for Line Zero after I asked if I could steal a quote from Susan Sontag that she used in her class. And to top it all off, she looked at the first few pages of my novel and gave me excellent feedback on it as well. She confirmed in the voice that holds the most authority possible, that I am on the right track and the instincts I had about my novel were right, plus she gave me suggestions on concrete things to do to make it better. In the sea of voices and opinions we all wade through in pursuit of a better book, sometimes it is hardest  to learn to listen to our own first, and also figure out when it is best to listen to others, and who those others will be.

I take away not only the practical lessons and suggestions she gave me, both at the conference, and during the car ride, but also this lesson: if I keep trying to move forward, working as hard as I can, I will be rewarded--eventually. Events around this conference and in the past month have also given me confirmation of this. Lately I have been presented with bigger and better opportunities, more useful and insightful feedback, and the growing certainty that I have found my place. For every muddy mud puddle of uncertainty I wade through; the times when one too many people say, “it’s not believable,” or the looks on my children’s faces leave me feeling like a bad mother, or hubby’s comments confirm I am an inattentive wife, I make adjustments as I can and continue on, clinging to the words of authors I admire to get through. This time I got my first vision of how excellent it could all be if I keep at it, and I got a good dose of much needed encouragement.

*Separate blog post to follow.