Workshop Partners
Jul. 30th, 2008 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alanajoliQuick link: writer Dan Copulsky is looking for small contributions to his novel: short biographies in the voices of sixth grade students. You can learn more about it from his recent entry.
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I have been quite verbose in a couple of recent comments on other people's blogs about editors, writing partners, and workshopping pieces. This started when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias posted about writing groups and continued in yesterday's post from jimhines about when a story is good enough to submit. Both of these posts come down to a similar thing for me: I'm not a good solitary writer. I need feedback. I'd love for my feedback to be from other writers, where we switch off pieces weekly over coffee and actually do a full on creative-writing-workshop, "in-the-box" style feedback session. (Basically, what I'd really love to do is recreate my college creative writing courses in real-time, but like that Avenue Q song says, you can't actually go back to college. At least, in my case, not without taking the GREs.)
Notably, I haven't found local writers for whom this is also the ideal scenario (or, if I have, they haven't expressed sharing this desire--not that I'm particularly vocal about it, myself). So my coffee shop dream being a bit on hold, I decided that if I'm going to get serious about this fiction writing thing and stop putting off projects until right up to the deadline (and then realizing I don't have the time to make a piece as good as I want), I ought to develop some sort of actual system and engage someone in providing feedback--which also provides me with accountability. So I called up first reader Arielle (who I've mentioned here from time to time) and asked if she was ready to take our reader/writer relationship to the next level. She very generously said yes, as long as it didn't interfere with her work at the publishing house that serves as her real job. (It is not a fiction publisher, so there are no conflicts of interest, just for the record.) So we've set up a schedule where I'll be sending her something--whatever I'm working on, finished or drafty--every two weeks. I also made a deal with my sister that I'm going to check in with her about her goals if she'll check in with me about mine, and that extra accountability should help out.
Because, really, having two partial scenes done in the WIP is not where I want to be. And having three or four short stories just sort of half-existing isn't any fun either. So here's hoping that giving me that little extra push (thanks ladies!) is exactly what I need to get motivated.
--
I have been quite verbose in a couple of recent comments on other people's blogs about editors, writing partners, and workshopping pieces. This started when
sartorias posted about writing groups and continued in yesterday's post from jimhines about when a story is good enough to submit. Both of these posts come down to a similar thing for me: I'm not a good solitary writer. I need feedback. I'd love for my feedback to be from other writers, where we switch off pieces weekly over coffee and actually do a full on creative-writing-workshop, "in-the-box" style feedback session. (Basically, what I'd really love to do is recreate my college creative writing courses in real-time, but like that Avenue Q song says, you can't actually go back to college. At least, in my case, not without taking the GREs.)Notably, I haven't found local writers for whom this is also the ideal scenario (or, if I have, they haven't expressed sharing this desire--not that I'm particularly vocal about it, myself). So my coffee shop dream being a bit on hold, I decided that if I'm going to get serious about this fiction writing thing and stop putting off projects until right up to the deadline (and then realizing I don't have the time to make a piece as good as I want), I ought to develop some sort of actual system and engage someone in providing feedback--which also provides me with accountability. So I called up first reader Arielle (who I've mentioned here from time to time) and asked if she was ready to take our reader/writer relationship to the next level. She very generously said yes, as long as it didn't interfere with her work at the publishing house that serves as her real job. (It is not a fiction publisher, so there are no conflicts of interest, just for the record.) So we've set up a schedule where I'll be sending her something--whatever I'm working on, finished or drafty--every two weeks. I also made a deal with my sister that I'm going to check in with her about her goals if she'll check in with me about mine, and that extra accountability should help out.
Because, really, having two partial scenes done in the WIP is not where I want to be. And having three or four short stories just sort of half-existing isn't any fun either. So here's hoping that giving me that little extra push (thanks ladies!) is exactly what I need to get motivated.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 03:03 pm (UTC)Read for Read
Date: 2008-08-09 05:39 pm (UTC)Re: Read for Read
Date: 2008-08-12 03:06 pm (UTC)Best of luck to you finding creative partners!