My First Workshop!!

What a fun day today!! I had my first official short story workshop in one of my fiction writing classes today. I was really, REALLY nervous, I’ve never had a piece actually workshopped before. Actually, I’ve never even written a short story before!
It was extremely helpful and made me feel so much more confident about my writing!! All of my classmates offered super helpful advice in the workshop session.

I wrote a piece that was nonlinear, and I think it paid off. Some people really appreciated the way the timeline was constructed but some people suggested that they’d prefer a linear store. I think it’s best that this story be kept in its nonlinear construction, it’s what feels right for the story and that’s what matters!!

Some people also commented that they weren’t sure if they were ok not knowing a whole lot about one of the characters. Although I didn’t intentionally leave out description of this character I’m glad that I did…because he was supposed to play a sort of “absent” role…so it happened to work out that my unknowingly not developing a character is something I’m ok with, and something I may choose to look into more to try and make him more “absent” while conveying that his absence is important to the story.

What’s really cool is that I get all these comments and suggestions, and I get to pick and choose what I agree with and what I take into account when I go to do my revision…because it’s MY piece!! :)

I put a lot of effort into reading each piece and making comments on each piece that I feel are useful to the writer. I wish though, that I could say everybody does the same for me. Though many people spoke up in class, not as many people left comments on my piece that I felt were useful, and some people didn’t really seem to give the piece a good read—I had several people write questions to me that were answered somewhere in the piece itself. The tradeoff though is that many people did write incredibly useful comments and suggestions.

Overall, I really appreciated my first workshop session. I took a lot out of it and have decided to give this piece a while to sit, hold onto all the comments that were written to me, and go back to make some revisions in a month or two. Who knows, maybe someday it’ll be the first piece I submit for a chance at publication!!

This experience of putting my writing OUT THERE for people to read and ponder and critique has been wonderful, and I came away from it feeling more like a writer than I think I ever have before.

Maybe in the midst of continuing work on my novel I can continue writing and revising short stories to put into a collection…wouldn’t that be neat?!?

I’ve given myself a lot of work to do by taking these two fiction classes, especially with everything else going on, but so far I have absolutely no regrets. There’s nothing better than putting myself out there and taking risks on my writing, and creating a community of fellow readers and writers who all support each other!

I’m hoping this is all making sense…right now all of my own thoughts about the workshop day are still jumbled in my mind, but I wanted to let you all know how things are going!!

Who else has put a piece out there for people to read and offer suggestions on? What was the experience like for you? I have another piece being workshopped in my other fiction class on Thursday, I'll be sure to post how that goes!

I'm sorry and...I like ellipses today!

I’ve been getting yelled at. A lot. By a certain friend of mine who is definitely keeping her promise about encouraging me to continue this project of mine. So, this is especially for her, although I clearly need to update!!

The semester just started a few weeks ago and (and I hope everybody is as excited as I am for this) I have two, count ‘em…TWO fiction workshop classes! In. A. Row. So…I’m doing a ton of writing!! So far these classes have been A-MA-ZING. I’m learning tons from both classes, and it’s tons of different stuff instead of hearing the same lecture twice in a row. I’ve left class every day, just having my mind blown by an understanding of a new concept, or a new understanding of a familiar concept…and I’m excited to go home and do my homework!! And, homework could obviously be nothing other than reading a lot of stories and writing a lot of stories, as well as short writing and brainstorming exercises. And reading other students’ stories—as well as critiquing and editing. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a class that I feel has been REALLY worth my time…so to have two in a row has been so much fun so far!! I’m sure toward the end of the semester I won’t think it’s as much fun but it’ll be well worth the effort.

As far as my book goes, I went to a friend’s wedding (actually two friends marrying each other) last month and wound up being upset about something that evening…so I came home and wrote to introduce the second character. Apparently my focus on this project is fueled by frustration…who knew?! I should be using that emotion more to my advantage I guess.

Currently…I’m working on two shorter fiction pieces that I’m hoping will actually incorporate into the book at some point. They may need some tweaks. They will need some tweaks…considering they’re in first person and the book is in third person. But I’m excited to be writing new material and excited about the potential that material has. I’m actually pretty proud of the piece I just submitted to be workshopped. For those of you who know me well enough, you know that it’s not often that I’m excited for people to read my work, at least not my fiction work. And I know it’s crazy. I’ve been writing for long enough it shouldn’t really freak me out to have other people reading what I’m writing. But…I think that’s a fear that all writers struggle with. As weird as this is, I’m completely comfortable writing stuff to put on here (so…I should probably post more often, yeah?!) even though it goes out on the web for anybody to stumble across. I guess it’s just the relative anonymity that makes it so easy to do. And that this is just my thought process….but not the result of my thought process.

Does anybody else struggle with having their work read by peers, or strangers, or family and friends?

I’m also really sad that the seasons are changing so quickly!! What the HECK is that about?? I’m hoping that writing a story set in the summer heat will keep me warm as the cooler weather comes. Everybody knows how much I hate being cold!!

And…I just have to add one thing that I think is completely insane. I started developing my main character for the book last spring. Recently I met someone who has the exact same name and looks identical to the character I made. Insane!! It was just so weird to realize that the other day. Surely it must be a sign I’m doing something right…!

OK…I have two things to add I guess. I also think everybody should read the new MFA Confidential blog on WritersDigest.com. The new writer’s name is Jessie Morrison; she is in the MFA program at Columbia College in Chicago. So far she’s fantastic!!

And…that’s all for now. Really guys, if you see me slacking please yell at me and throw candy at me, or maybe books. That might hurt. I’m sure that now that I’m investing some serious time and though to the craft I’ll be posting more regularly, but reminders are still awesome!!