Archive for October 11th, 2009
A Kinder, Gentler Workshop
October 11th, 2009 Posted 1:57 am
When I was in graduate school, every semester the writers were required to take a “workshop” class. This was where you went to have your soul sucked out through your nostrils with coffee straws. Or at least that’s what it felt like. One of the Austin SCBWI members (and a phenomenal writer) Margo Rabb, wrote a piece about this. She tells it like it is/was. I’m with her on the tequila shots.
Today, I had the great good fortune to attend a kinder, gentler workshop at the REI store in Round Rock (yes, strange venue, with constant announcements about sales in the shoe department on the intercom) led by author Chris Eboch. Announcements aside, it was a delight. I went in with no expectations, since this was my first workshop in decades (and I knew that at the first sign of coffee straws, I was outta there), but it was very useful, and not at all painful. I think, in fact, I can use what I did today to dig myself out of the hole I was in last week on my new MG novel…
Plus, my friends Shelli and Lindsay were there, and I went upstairs and bought a new pair of shoes on sale right after the workshop. Those announcements worked!
New shoes make everything better. Now that I think of it, if they had held our graduate writing workshops in a shoe store, that might have helped…
Nah.
Posted in Children's Fiction, Miscellaneous
