Today was an earlier 8am start. I was feeling okay in the morning and then had breakfast and felt bad again. I made it onto the bus and hoped I was going to make it through the day. We were off to see the Galleria Borghese, an art gallery. The good thing was that it was going to be inside, so no sun! Still, I was feeling pretty bad by the time we got there, but seeing my favorite tour guide cheered me up.
The museum has a wonderful policy of only letting a few
people in at a time for a limited time, so I was able to actually appreciate
the art rather than me experience at The Vatican where there’s so many people
you don’t have the room to fully appreciate everything. There were some good
painting there including my favorite with a woman and a unicorn. The real
masterpieces are the marble sculptures by Bernini. First there’s the sculpture
of Apollo and Daphne which is beautiful! It’s amazing the detail present. The other
Bernini sculpture I was impressed with, even though the tour guide didn’t find
it all impressive, was the sculpture of Hades and Persephone. It’s famous
because Hades fingers look at if they are indenting in her flesh – and this is
made out of marble! It is exquisite. The detail and movement you get from the
piece is breathtaking. Soon, our time was up. I was able to pop in
the gift shop and pick up a few postcards of my favorite pieces before heading
back to the bus. 
The bus took us back to the hotel for afternoon classes, but
first there was lunch. Although I had been feeling better during the Galleria
Borghese I still wanted to take it easy. I went to lunch at the restaurant with
some Spalding students and had just a plain salad. Mary had gotten a cheeseburger
and French fries and they were so good I had to get them as well so I had an
extended lunch, but it was something I definitely needed.
Afternoon classes included workshop, where my work was
discussed, and our Faculty Book-in-Common discussion. Work shopping a piece is a
strange yet wonderful experience. It’s amazing to me to have so many people
read your piece and point to the same thing or argue about a certain character.
My group was really great and pointing out things that I hadn’t thought of, but
once they pointed it out I agreed completely. They also helped me fix some
things that I wasn’t happy with and picked up on some things that were really
strong. Spalding is a great place for your first work shopped piece. I felt
safe. I didn’t feel attacked, but yet still got the criticism that I needed. I
wish I had made it clearer that my selection was from chapter 2 because a lot
of their questions had to do with information that was presented in chapter 1.
Overall, I got a lot out of it and it makes me want to write again.
That desire to write has really grown more and more as I’ve
been here. Everyone, the Fellini lecturer, the tour guides, the faculty, the
students, all refer to us as writers. It’s not something I had really considered
before. I thought of writing as more of a hobby, or something that I did on the
side. But I’m really starting to believe in myself as a writer and think of
myself as a writer. This residency has given me that.
Our discussion about Love and Gelato with the YA group was
really good. It’s nice to be able to be critical of a book while at the same
time enjoy the book.
For dinner, I stayed in the hotel and had another plate of
fries and a large bottle of water. Dinner conversation was interesting and it
was a great end to the night. Of course, the night wasn’t really over yet. I
still had a revision to do.
After your piece is workshopped, you have to revise just a
page to share with the group the next day. I didn’t have a lot of time to work
on my revision, so I wanted to choose a scene that was easy to make changes and
be the most beneficial to me. I choose my volleyball scene and worked on it
most of the night, but I still wasn’t quite done with it when I went to bed
knowing I had to finish it in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment