nervous tics about leech brains

Leeches have 32 brains? Really? And exactly what Deep Thoughts do leeches think?

Water's fine today. Wet. As always. Yesterday was wet too. Pretty sure about that. Warm though. That much is good at least. I like warm. I'd like it better inside...I'm thirsty. Nothing to drink in how long? Did something come by yesterday? It was wet, I think. And warm. But I was thirsty. This sucks. No wait. I suck. Or I'm supposed to suck, anyway, and if I did I would not be so thirsty. Still wet. What's that? Cloudy. Something moving the water. Cool: a leg. Dinner time.

Anyway...

I hope that today's class was valuable. From the clarification of the WS to the all-class sample conferences, things felt pretty solid from my perspective (but I sometimes have a pretty skewed perspective).

The important things to keep in mind about conferences are:

• A conference requires dialogue
• You (the writer) control the conference
• The goal of the conference is to provide the creator of the piece concrete ideas for the next draft
• The writer is not the piece; the writer is the creator of the piece. The writer is the god of the piece, able to do with it as he or she will. Give the writer new ideas!
• Always be specific!
• Don't worry about grammar until later drafts (except for randomly changing tenses: note these every time)
• Authors: don't let the conference end before you get everything you need from it!

As a general rule, you should always have two copies of a current piece with you, in case we have time for in-class conferences.

Tomorrow: P2P confs and optional RW in 2/3H; P2P confs in CW.

J: nervous tics
music: A Nervous Tic of the Head to the Left--Andrew Bird