Starting January 1st -- tomorrow -- submissions open for Viable Paradise. I attended in 2006, kirizal went in 2005 (I played was support spouse). As a writer, it was completely life-changing.

Personally, I attended because I wanted to feel like I was a writer instead of an artist with a hobby for words. I got that, and then some. The socializing was great, the lectures were incredibly useful and the access to professionals -- writers and editors both -- was worth more than I think it would be possible to pay. Being on Martha's Vineyard doesn't hurt.

In my case 5 days was enough to realign the molecular structure of my creative impulse. I've got a great deal more energy to spend on writing, and I've got vastly better tools to work on the raw material with.

If you're thinking about attending a writer's workshop of any sort, follow the link up there. It's the real deal.

Labor day was miserable hot. 97 degrees in Oceanside. We tried to keep cool in the house because all our regular air-conditioned hangouts were clogged with people. Even sitting in the bedroom with all the doors and windows closed up and the little portable AC blasting on full I couldn't get the temperature lower than 85. By the end of the day I had a gut-sick migraine and we stayed in a hotel.

It only took a few days for the weather to radically shift. Autumn fell into place like a Tetris block, and now it's lovely.

During the run of nasty heat, I was pretty regularly getting headaches and then taking excedrin. I ended up surfing a pretty large caffeine wave. Those always crash. So, I've switched from coffee to tea. The last three or four days I've been having a nice pot of lapsang souchong every morning. This is especially pleasant for me since it's a ritual that's permanently associated with Viable Paradise for me. I attended twice. Once as a support spouse and once as a student. Both times I had lapsang in the morning.

It's the kind of memory that's clearer for being threaded on a chain of days. All told I probably made myself tea ten times on Martha's Vineyard, but the circumstances were so similar that it's like a single memory. The dull yellow of the kitchen flourescent. The small laminated cabinet. The stainless sink. The refridgerator directly behind, the tiny travel pot on the glowing stove element. This whistle of the water. The whitewashed ceiling beams. The solidity of a poured-floor (there's only a single room in our house that's directly on the foundation, all the others are wooden floors -- I'm used to the creak and gentle give). Sometimes it was cool, sometimes it was warm. When I was finished brewing the tea I'd drink it sitting at the little table near the fireplace. Sometimes I'd read, sometimes just eat and drink with the sound of trees outside.

It all comes back as soon as I take a sip of lapsang now.

This makes me very happy.