AWW Day 2

For the second night in a row, I have closed down the chapel.  My Hindman friends, which there are now so many more, will know exactly what this means.  For two nights, I have unplugged the lights on the chapel.  This is monumental in my world.  I have honestly never known time to move at this pace.  My readers know what an issue time is for me.  This is a beautiful thing.

My novel truly came home today.  My novel was conceived here at Hindman, and in coming home it has found it's truth.  I had my one-on-one conference with Silas House today.  Twice he said that he didn't feel "qualified" to critique my novel because it is, in part, genre fiction.  This comment hurt me, because I don't want to isolate my readers because I am writing genre fiction, and I feel that Silas is in the audience I want to write for.  But, and this is an enormous BUT, he got it.  All the things that "just didn't work" for my peers and the professionals at TMWW, worked for him.  All these experimental things that I am trying to accomplish, and there are many, he got them.  He understood them.  He said to me, that he liked or that he loved the way that I did certain things, and it was those "things" that I was trying to do.

No, my manuscript is not perfect.  It has problems, it has weaknesses, it has areas that need complete reconstruction, but he got it.

I have been validated.

I am an Appalachian Writer.