Home safe and sound, with a much-needed sleep under my belt (had only one and a half hours' sleep between Friday night party and Saturday flight home...).

So now that I'm back, I will ironically begin to write my Clarion blog. Time to unleash screaming temporal doom! Entries will be backdated, with new posts linking to each week once they're done.

In sum: Clarion South 2007? Totally worth it. I critted, I wrote, I drank from the magic chocolate river. Tomorrow, back into writing!

Day zero of Clarion South. The first task (after claiming a room and dumping luggage) was to assemble an oscillating pedestal fan. Clearly a subtle test of patience (little fiddly screws) and self-confidence (will it explode when you turn it on?).

Student accomodation has a certain Spartan prison-cell quality to it, with painted cinder-block walls and a weird stucco/metal slat ceiling, but I've never really cared what temporary accomodation looks like. The important thing is, I now have two more desks to cover with Stuff :).

Everyone's nice, as friendly as seventeen strangers can be with only a few hours' chat. We haven't had much of a chance to discover common interests outside of the obvious, so every conversation is a new round of getting-to-know-you.

(The minute the university's IT guy finished hooking up the internet connections in our rooms, all six of us went to check emails and flists and whatever else the series of tubes offers. Doors open, of course. It wasn't like we were antisocial.

Such a bunch of writers. Hee!)

Anyway, I'm ridiculously tired for 9:30pm, so enough of this. Tomorrow, IT BEGINS!

Well, all my bags are packed, and I'm ready to go. You know, I think there's a song like that ;).

Pre-Clarion jitters? Check.
Research and story ideas and notes all organised on a private Peanut Butter Wiki? Check.
Packing and unpacking and repacking and swearing and finding a bigger bag? Check.

Onward!