Packet 1...

SENT.

Man, I can't tell you how good that feels.

I'm officially 16 packets in to my MFA, with just 4 to go. I think I'll celebrate by watching the end of "500 Days of Summer," a movie I half started to watch while doing the dishes this afternoon. (The little nine-inch TV with built-in DVD player made a pit-stop on the kitchen counter on its way to the Salvation Army... which may have actually been its salvation. I have a feeling it's not going anywhere now.)

My Packet 1 Celebration -- which is already starting in my head, complete with confetti and champagne -- is much appreciated, though it will be short-lived. Tomorrow I have to get busy on the writing I actually get paid to do and that I've been putting off as I cranked out this packet.

Thank goodness it never stops. I continue to feel so lucky to be able to do what I love to do -- no matter how crazy it gets.

Calling All Readers

I'm beginning work on my graduation lecture for VCFA, and could really use your help. Can anyone recommend a book in which an urban writer has written a rural, small-town character badly, or as a caricature? (I'm thinking the book equivalent of the Cohen Bros. movie, Fargo.)

I'll be lecturing about writing rural characters -- and would love to gather some examples of authors who've done it poorly, using:

* exaggeration
* generalizations
* belitting or contempt
* humor that laughs at, rather than with, the character
* overemphasizing rural dialogue

The character can have a fleeting role in the book, or can be a main character. Please let me know if you have any recommendations. I'll be eternally grateful! Thanks!

Jen's World: Can I Be Cloned?

This week, Flashback Friday is being replaced by Current Friday.

Granted, "Current Friday" doesn't have the same ring to it -- but since Wednesday's column went live on the P-B site today, I thought I'd post it here for you, as well.

I wrote this week's Jen's World column from my MFA residency in Vermont -- where I felt the pull to be in two places at once. You can read about it here.

Video Tuesday

Coming up in tomorrow's Post-Bulletin...

What Is this Phenonemon Called?

Well, I'm back from Vermont safe-and-sound -- sufficiently cooled and pooled after my 11-day VCFA residency. But the weirdest thing is happening to me. I'm seeing my MFA friends e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

Does this happen to you?

This morning at Dunn Bros., as I scrawled out next week's column, I heard one of the graduate assistants talking to her friend in the couch next to me. When I glanced her way, I realized the "grad assistant" had aged about 10 years over the weekend and cut her hair short. Also, she lives in Chicago.

At the pool on Friday afternoon, I saw one of the people from my workshop walking to the cabana in her flowered one-piece suit. Even though she's in Boston.

And at the Farmer's Market yesterday? I caught a glimpse of two faculty members and one of my dorm roomies. Wisconsin, Washington, New York.

It seems to be some kind of initiation of re-entry. After each of my four residencies, I've jerked my head in the direction of someone who isn't who I think they should be. Maybe it's my mind's way of connecting these two disparate worlds I love. Or maybe I'm jet lagged.

Whatever the reason, it's been nice to revisit VCFA -- if even in error -- for a few minutes these last couple of days. Though I miss my family tremendously while in Vermont, the opportunity to focus solely on school (no laundry, no errands, no cooking) is a luxury.

But now it's on to real world, back to balancing family and work with packet deadlines and writing exercises. Bring it on.

Playing Tourist

Though I've spent more than 40 days in Montpelier over the last couple of years, I'd never made it down to the state capitol building until today. (Of course, I chose the 90-plus degree afternoon to take an hour walk!)

Man. This is really a beautiful town. Here are some pics I shot today:

Literary Bliss

If you don't count the spotty Internet access and lack of air conditioning (and I don't), life is great in Vermont. I've spent the last seven days attending lectures and readings and workshops and hanging out with other writers. I suppose in some -- and probably many -- circles, this would be considered geeky. But all I can say is: Life is good.




The campus here is beautiful and seeped with history, and Montpelier is the quintessential New England town. Since the campus actually sits up on a hill, I try to squeeze in time every couple days to venture down, down, down the hill and into town, where there are several bookshops, a fantastic old library and some cool restaurants. Every time I'm here, I wish I could take my family and all my friends along to experience Vermont and VCFA with me.




To my great excitement, I landed my first choice advisor for the coming semester. I'll be working with Sara Mansfield Taber, who has done a great deal of writing and teaching. She's actually my workshop leader during this residency, as well, and I've been impressed by her feedback and insight. I think it's going to be a fabulous final semester for me.





Final semester -- wow. I'm constantly reminded that I'm almost done here at VCFA. In six months, which will undoubtedly fly by, I'll have finished my MFA and will be back for my graduation residency. As hard as it is to be away from my family and "real life" during the residencies... this really is a fantastic experience.

Can I Get a V-C-F-A?

It's that time of year again -- time for me to trek over to Montpelier for my MFA residency at VCFA. (That's Vermont College of Fine Arts -- or, as I discovered to my great glee last winter when I sent a box that way and ran out of room on the mailing label: Vermont College of F.Arts. I'm still laughing about that.)

I have one last semester left of my program and it's going to be a doozie. Over the course of the next six months, I'll write a lecture AND finish my creative thesis. This residency is kind of the gateway to all that, though, and a chance to spend nearly two weeks with a bunch of great people. Also, I get three squares a day without having to wash a single dish.

I don't know how much time I'll have to blog while I'm away at school -- but I'll try to stop in more than a few times. See you then!

Homework

This summer, I'll celebrate 10 years as a freelance writer. And let me tell you, I know how lucky I am to work from home. My flexible schedule means I get to be the one who sends my kiddos off to school in the morning and greets them when they come home in the afternoon. It means I can chaperone field trips, meet friends for lunch, run errands before the 5 o'clock rush, and take off for a long weekend without submitting PTO forms. Frankly, the savings on shoes and dress clothes alone is enough to throw a party.

Funny thing, though: The benefits are also the detriments. My world is nothing if not a blurring of the lines. Without the 8-to-5, work wiggles its way in to evenings and weekends--while family and community obligations like to set up shop right there in the middle of the day. And those long weekends? You bet I take them -- but I also take my laptop right along with me.

Take today's to-do list: Chaperone the 2nd-grade field trip to the Olmsted County History Center. Write the end-of-program report for an arts grant. Answer reader mail from last week's column. Stress out over my sons' class sizes, and daydream about starting my own private school. Clean the bathroom, which was recently hit by Hurricane Christian and Bergen (and, yes, Hurricane Jen). Do the dishes. Wonder if it's going to rain like they say it will before hauling out the hose for the potatoes I finally planted yesterday. Attend a school volunteer dessert, which I really have no time to squeeze in -- except that it's DESSERT. Run to OfficeMax when I realize I'm out of the paper AND the ink I need in order to -- oh yeah -- work.

That last line best describes how my days have felt lately: "Oh yeah -- work." It's always the easiest thing to put off, isn't it?

Today, work entails tweaking an essay I wrote earlier in the semester. I have to send it to VCFA today in order to make my next workshop deadline. (A "workshop" is a session in which a writer sits in a room with a dozen other writers, listening to them talk about the pros and cons of his/her story or essay. Did I mention that the writer -- in this case, me -- isn't allowed to speak?)

I'm sending a piece titled, "After". The essay, which currently stands at 22 pages (but must miraculously top out at 20 by 4 p.m.!), intertwines two unrelated stories -- one of which explores how my grandmother is coping with my grandfather's death. I'll include a small excerpt at the end of this post.

Which, it turns out, is where we are now. (As much as I've stalled, it turns out that essay isn't going to trim itself into a tidy 20 pages....)

Wishing you the peace -- or the controlled chaos -- you long for! I've found that either option is fantastic, really, in its own way.



An excerpt from AFTER
My grandma and I take the boys to the zoo. We're checking out the blowfish when my grandma calls out in pain and grabs her arm.

“What happened?” I ask as my hand flies to my neck where I can feel my heart beating too fast. “Are you okay?” I'm the last person anyone wants nearby in an emergency. I panic.

“I'm fine,” she says. “Just a pain.”

By the time we get to the shark tank, it's happened again. Twice.

“Seriously, Grandma,” I say. “Do we need to leave?”

She takes a step closer to me. “If anything happens, my keys are right here.” She pulls them out of her shorts pocket and jingles them in front of my face. “See? Here.”
She returns the keys to her pocket and says, “I'm going to go find a water fountain and take an Ascriptin.” As she shuffles away, I hear her mumble, “I've learned just not to worry too much. If it's my time, it's my time.”

Two hours later, after feeding the giraffes, protecting our bags from the goats at the petting zoo, and taking a 40-second, $18 ride on the water taxi with the boys, we head for home. My grandma—who did not have a heart attack and die in the aquarium—sits low beside me, barely seeing over the steering wheel of her Park Avenue. We're just a few blocks from the house when she makes an unexpected turn. She likes to take odd routes sometimes just to shake things up, so I don't say anything. Thirty seconds later, she asks, “Where am I?”

“You just turned off Sun City Boulevard,” I say. “You're two blocks from home.”

“Oh!”' she says, covering her mouth. “I did that last time, too.” She slows down to pull into the next street.

“No, Grandma—you can't turn here,” I tell her. “This is a cul-de-sac, a dead-end.”

“I know where I am,” she says, annoyed. “I like to go this way.”