pres.umptuo.us

A week from today I will be in Iowa attending the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. The University of Iowa offers writing workshops, either lasting for a week or just a weekend, each specializing on different topics and helping to further writing and the various techniques.

Why Iowa? The Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa was “the first creative writing degree program in the United States” and “is the model for the numerous creative writing programs offered throughout the country today.” I researched a few other summer writing programs as well, but many of them have an application process where you must be selected to attend. With the ISWF it’s just fork over the dough and you can attend as many as you like, so long as you’re over 18.

A recent article gives a good rundown of what happens at this festival, and from the photos it looks like it’ll be a lot more fun than I had imagined, cause I figured I’d just be staring at flat land all the time and sitting in a field of corn. But look at that, there’s a freakin’ river going through the campus, and I can go “imbibe” myself at the local college bars. And there’s Amish! Sweet!

As to why I’m going — I decided a while ago that I wanted to become a writer. I don’t remember off the top of my head how I came to that conclusion, but with some recollecting I’m sure it’ll come back to me. But the ISWF should be a big step for me in continuing that and hopefully reaching my goal.

I’ve also made the decision to just pour out all my thoughts and keep a running log while I’m in Iowa, so we shall see how that goes. I’ll be a lot more candid, so prepare for some rather “bloggy” entries. As for whether I’ll continue that after I return, that shall remain to be seen.

On a related note, I ran across this excellent article today entitled “Why Do You Work So Hard? Is it maybe time to quit your safe job and follow your path and infuriate the establishment?” There isn’t anything all that new in the article that everybody hasn’t though at one time or another about their life/job/career, but it does have some great examples.

Case in point No. 3: Not long ago, the CEO of one of the largest and most powerful international real estate firms in the nation quit his job. Stepped down. Not, as you might imagine, for retirement and not to play more golf and not to travel the world staying only in Four Seasons suites, but to work on rebuilding his relationship with his estranged wife.

My insider source tells me it was one of the most touching, and unexpected, and incredibly rare corporate memos they had ever seen. No one — I mean no one in this culture is supposed to quit a job like that just for, what again? Love? Relationship? It’s simply not done. But of course, it absolutely should be.

Here’s to pursuing our dreams.