Broken record

Another great day with Mr VDM. He’s the first tutor that has actually given ‘lectures’ before the crits. I mean, Sean provided extremely valuable info sessions about the ‘business’ of writing, and Jack… Well, Jack provided an abundance of wonderful info mixed in amongst a lifetime’s worth of anecdotes, which was delightful and also beneficial to all of us. But Jeff has actually written bullet points on the white board.
Bullet points. Of information. Information about writing, no less.
Then we had a set of very useful crits — in my opinion. To use Jack’s expression: let’s not blow smoke up each other’s asses. Jeff’s advice in the crits was very useful and, again in my opinion, could probably be taken on board more whole-heartedly. (Of course, this is coming from the woman who kicked kittens in her crits today, so many people may not agree with my opinions.)
Then La Cuisinista (aka tallaudrey aka La Chouette Mlle Slatter) and I went into town and hunted down a gold belt for me to wear to our fancy dinner on Thursday night.* The hunt was difficult, and we were flagging, but our stubbornness refused to let us quit until the object of our search had been found and bought. Success is sweet, my friends.
Tonight, the lovely petermball and Chris Lynch, ex-Clarionites extraordinaire, are coming on down to Kelvin Grove to wax poetic about the beauties of post-Clarion life. I am looking forward to their spiels, not least because we’ll be sitting in an air-conditioned common room while they impress us with their successes.
It’s bloody humid today. We hates the humidity.**

*I’ll be wearing more than a belt, btw.
**Of course, it could be worse. We could be in Victoria. So I will keep my whinging to a minimum.