Well, the time is really upon us. I'm waking up before 4 tomorrow morning so I can get to Detroit by 5:30 and on the plane by 7. I should be in Seattle around noon. Clarion-ho!

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I officially took down the paypal donation page today. Most of the money raised by the page went into the initial $200 deposit, but I transferred the remainder into my bank account and took it out today so I can pay it in Seattle on Sunday, together with the rest of the money I've begged, borrowed or earned substitute-teacing for that purpose. It's just by a hair's breadth, but it's gonna happen.

Many thanks to the honor roll of those who donated--Steph & Patrick, Kameron Hurley, Jeff Vandermeer, Julia Reynolds, James Jackowski, April Lott, Colleen Lindsay, Scott Martin and David Levine. Also profound thanks to Matt Cheney, Gwenda Bond, Kameron Hurley, Steph, Patrick and anyone I missed for plugging the donation page on their own blogs. The solidarity of other impoverished writers for what is at the end of the day the cause of, um, me having fun at sf-writers-summer-camp (and improving my writing) is inspiring and humbling. I'm not going to forget it.

An interesting, somewhat positive side effect of the severity and duration of the financial crisis is that I've been almost totally free from normal pre-Clarion jitters. This is the time I'm supposed to be full of happy, nervous excitement and terror, wondering whether I'm going to be able to write anything, about having my stuff critiqued by amazing writers, etc. Fortunately, the part of my brain that should be freaking out about that stuff has been fully occupied freaking out about money.

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So, yeah, here we are. Had the big last-time-in-months bar-hop with Amanda, Richard and Les last night. Now I'm in the middle of packing, waiting for my laundry to finish. Yikes.

As promised, I will be blogging CW2006. Look for an update by this time next week at the latest.