Quite awhile back--so it seems, anyway--I wrote a bit about a year-long workshop, the purpose of which was to produce a novel entire; that is, a polished manuscript ready for shopping around. Long story short: yes, I got in, no, I didn't sign up.
Lynn was very positive about the 30 pages I'd sent, in a genuine way that didn't seem to have anything to do with the fact that I would have been paying her money to go through this workshop (although, of course, it flatters me to believe that). That's something you've got to be careful of: there are lots of editors/publishers/agents and what-have-yous out there who will tell you that you'll get published if you just give them x amount of dollars and take their course or workshop and maybe watch their cat while they're in Tahoe.
But that's not what Lynn was about; she was much more concerned that I get this book out of my head and onto paper in any way I could, whether that involved her particular workshop or not. Complimentary words were spoken about my chops that didn't involve much in the way of rectal smoke.
But in the end, there were financial considerations, and, much more importantly, the sense that the project (and, more likely, its author) isn't a good fit for this particular methodology. Finished in a year? Maybe. But if, in the middle of chapter twenty, I have a smashing idea for a short story, I need to feel free to run off and spend four weeks on that at the expense of chapter twenty-one. It's not so much a matter of not being committed to the novel as it is being committed to whatever strikes me as worth doing at any particular moment, whether that's a book, a short, a poem, or copy for a packet of chips.
Still, it was nice to get such a positive response to those 30 pages. I'm not much for pats on the head: that nebulous, "I really liked the way you use language" sort of criticism that does absolutely nothing to help anyone further their craft and is often, in crit groups or workshops, offered with the hidden expectation of reciprocation. It's fine to hear that something's decent, but I need to know where The Suck is. If something's good it doesn't need to be fixed--at least, not right away--so I don't care much about it.
That said, what strikes me as worth doing in this particular moment apparently isn't much of anything at all, which is another way of saying "uncommitted," and that makes me a lump and a terrible person who needs to be beaten about the head with the hardcover edition of W.T. Johnson's Stop Being a Prat and Write You Slothful Puking Dilettante.
As I've mentioned before, I refuse to turn this venue into a detailed portrait of my psychology. Writing, like all acts of creation, requires a healthy amount of outward-directed energy, and in certain states of mind such energy is damnably hard to come by.
Nonetheless: I've got an unfinished story mewling over there by the wardrobe, a half-made bloody mess, and it's cruel of me to leave it cold and alone and blind in its naked lack.
Lynn was very positive about the 30 pages I'd sent, in a genuine way that didn't seem to have anything to do with the fact that I would have been paying her money to go through this workshop (although, of course, it flatters me to believe that). That's something you've got to be careful of: there are lots of editors/publishers/agents and what-have-yous out there who will tell you that you'll get published if you just give them x amount of dollars and take their course or workshop and maybe watch their cat while they're in Tahoe.
But that's not what Lynn was about; she was much more concerned that I get this book out of my head and onto paper in any way I could, whether that involved her particular workshop or not. Complimentary words were spoken about my chops that didn't involve much in the way of rectal smoke.
But in the end, there were financial considerations, and, much more importantly, the sense that the project (and, more likely, its author) isn't a good fit for this particular methodology. Finished in a year? Maybe. But if, in the middle of chapter twenty, I have a smashing idea for a short story, I need to feel free to run off and spend four weeks on that at the expense of chapter twenty-one. It's not so much a matter of not being committed to the novel as it is being committed to whatever strikes me as worth doing at any particular moment, whether that's a book, a short, a poem, or copy for a packet of chips.
Still, it was nice to get such a positive response to those 30 pages. I'm not much for pats on the head: that nebulous, "I really liked the way you use language" sort of criticism that does absolutely nothing to help anyone further their craft and is often, in crit groups or workshops, offered with the hidden expectation of reciprocation. It's fine to hear that something's decent, but I need to know where The Suck is. If something's good it doesn't need to be fixed--at least, not right away--so I don't care much about it.
That said, what strikes me as worth doing in this particular moment apparently isn't much of anything at all, which is another way of saying "uncommitted," and that makes me a lump and a terrible person who needs to be beaten about the head with the hardcover edition of W.T. Johnson's Stop Being a Prat and Write You Slothful Puking Dilettante.
As I've mentioned before, I refuse to turn this venue into a detailed portrait of my psychology. Writing, like all acts of creation, requires a healthy amount of outward-directed energy, and in certain states of mind such energy is damnably hard to come by.
Nonetheless: I've got an unfinished story mewling over there by the wardrobe, a half-made bloody mess, and it's cruel of me to leave it cold and alone and blind in its naked lack.
Leave a comment