Gotham Writers' Workshop

I'm back at Gotham (ooh, that makes me sound Batman-ly). Gotham Writers' Workshop is an online and real life (in New York City) writing school. I discovered it soon after being bitten by the writing bug and it has shaved years, perhaps centuries, off my learning curve.

The curriculum is taught by writers. Ten weeks. No grades. Perfect-for-me!

We read a lot, we critique each other's work, and the instructor gives us stand up criticism or praise as they deem necessary. I actually have to work hard to get good responses, but they are EARNED, and that counts for much in my book.

I've learned more in that environment than anywhere else. It's made me think that maybe what I want to do when I grow up is be a writer. I'm lucky to be at a place in life where I can pursue this idea. I also feel it is leading me to get an MFA (Master's in Fine Arts - Creative Writing).

Do I think that everyone needs to take this path? Not at all. Do I think I could be a good writer without one? Yes, I think I could be. So, why the degree?

I have this delusion that someone will be helped by my disclosure and decision making, so humor me.

First, my father, a great influence on me and a very smart person, always said that he didn't care if I got degrees, he just wanted me to be well-educated. I took that to heart and have been in school for most of my adult life. I'm just now finishing my Bachelor's degree, but I have some 210 quarter units under my belt (most degrees are equal to 120 or so). There. Well-educated.

In the writing department, I want to write Literary Fiction. The heavy stuff. The stuff of complex constructs, and intelligent discourse on the trials of humanity, you know - life. I think the way to learn this particular type of writing is best done through a master's program at a university. I think I could learn it on my own, given enough time, but I started this whole thing with about half my life (I hope) behind me, a full-time job and a family. School will shave years off the learning curve again.

I think anyone can benefit from more education. It's one of those things you can never have enough of. I haven't yet applied to any MFA programs, and maybe I'll change my mind over the next few years, but for now, Gotham is filling my need for intense learning and growth. Thanks, Gotham.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

Learning Things I Thought I Already Knew

I had to spend four hours of a day off at a class today. Usually it is an annoying but necessary part of life, like sitting in the doctor's office. Today, I actually learned something about people; in particular about their character.

That makes me a happy girl. The class was about increasing levels of customer satisfaction, but the difference in this class (from the usual boring drivel) was twofold. One, we had a nice, personable, enthusiastic, and interested teacher. Two, she brought up the idea of relating to people the way THEY want, not the way YOU want to relate to them. This has great ramifications for writing and creating character.

If we look at all the external and internal forces that affect someone's personal style, we cannot overlook things like inherent personality, age, culture and the like. But we often do, because WE are a certain personality, age, culture. Can you see where this is enlightening? I thought I knew this already, because the pieces-parts are fairly instinctive for me. I don't have trouble communicating with others.

In my writing, my characters tend to be variations of me. While that may be interesting for a short time, unless I can develop characters that are multidimensional, yet act in a congruent manner (i.e. they are believable), my stories will go nowhere. If I define them at some level by all these factors that real people have, a full, dynamic character will rise off the page.

In class we took tests that told us what "type" of communication style we had. It occurred to me that my CHARACTERS could also take those tests, or I could make them fit a certain style because, hey, they do what I say (most of the time). I can use this information to create depth and subtle traits which will round out their action for an engaging, character based story. THAT is what I want to write.

These personality tests have been around for ages, but I never thought of using them in terms of defining a character. I will certainly take back everything I learned and use it to my company's advantage. Seriously. I like being a team player and having a job right now is a good thing. I'm just thrilled that I can use it in my writing also. I might as well, I use just about all the rest of my life.

So, personality tests - check. I'll give it a try. It seems so logical, I don't know why I've never thought of it before.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

Word of the Day

I didn't have a particular subject in mind when I started my writing day this morning, so I tend to get time-sucked by the Internet on such occasions. I do actively look for something though. I try Stumble, or the random page on Wikipedia. Sometimes I actually turn to the English homework I'm supposed to be doing to see if anything catches my fancy there.

Today, good old English came to my rescue. I love words. I like to collect them and pin them up on my office cork board in pretty fonts because to me, words are art. I also like being the smart aleck I was born to be by learning any kind of new and/or hard words that I can actually sneak into daily conversation.

My favorite word is obstreperous. It means being a pain in the a**, basically. I identify with that word. Today though, I was reading an essay about Poe and stumbled across two words that I had heard before, but they somehow struck me in a different way. You know how you can pick a word, say it over and over until suddenly, it doesn't mean anything anymore? Did you ever do that when you were a kid? Well, if you did, then you may have some understanding of why "indefinitiveness" struck me funny today. Not haha funny, funny strange. Both that word and "suggestiveness" were used in the same sentence describing Poe's writing.

Sometimes I love Poe, and sometimes I think he's a weird dude. I love The Raven, but The Tell-Tale Heart is messed up. So for this literary reviewer to say that his writing has "suggestiveness" and "indefinitiveness" in the same sentence gave me the giggles. Why can't we just say it's weird? Why do we go to the big words and use them in such a way that no one knows what we are talking about? I mean, of course, the collective "we."

I like scholarly essays as much as the next girl (which is not that much), and sometimes I get a lot out of them. But for this one, I wanted to yell at her after fourteen pages of using language this way (snooze worthy), and implore her to "just say he's weird and we don't know what he meant half the time!"

Which brings me to my current thought - what if I do this sometimes? What if, because I like words and enjoy showing off that I love them, I write stuff that makes readers want to yell at me? I certainly hope that is not the case. In fact, I would say that my style of prose is rather spare and simple. I like to move the reader with the idea, the thought behind the words, and not necessarily the powerful words themselves.

It is an odd realization about myself, that my current style belies my vocabulary. I think this is a good thing. I can learn to weave a fabric of language that is more precise, more intense. I'm not sure anyone can learn to have the intent of writing. Once I know what it is I want to say, the entire language is at my disposal to convey it. If I have nothing to say in the first place, no thought, or stance, or invocation unique to me, then all the words in the language could not fill that void.

Funny how far you can go from finding a word of the day, to realizing something about yourself you never thought of before. Thought, language. I'm very glad to have both.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

Reading Fun

I've been having a huge amount of reading fun thanks to a little contest for the best first paragraphs. I've waded through about 700 of the close to 2700 entries (gasp!) and am just tickled at all the different voices and ideas out there. Plus, since I'm NOT going to read my boring English homework, at least I'm learning something and not wasting six hours playing Bejeweled.

Although, I do think hand-eye coordination is to be practiced every once in a while.

I've noticed something. When trying to read that volume of material, I have started skipping if a sentence is awkward in any way, or if a word is used wrong, or the voice does not capture me. Fewer and fewer stick out. Hmmmmmm. Maybe he's SHOWING us something instead of trying to TELL us. Hmmmmmmm.

I will endeavor to read them all. I'm going to print out all 600 pages and really read them. I think there are some fabulous writing minds out there, and I intend to, for free, learn what I can from technique, style, and masterful creation. Plus, it will be interesting to see if I pick what anyone else (Nathan) would. I have to say, I wouldn't pick mine. I think the voice is okay, but it didn't flow nicely. Now that I've read all those others, I see what is lacking in mine. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I have a better idea of what "good" is.

Just now, this minute the contest is closed. 2651 entries. I guessed 3000 so I was a little short, but I have to go now and start reading.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

Central Coast Writers' Conference

I went to my very first writing conference on Friday and Saturday at Cuesta College which is near my home. A big plus for being close by, and I went to school there for my nursing degree. I didn't know anyone, but I met lots of nice folks and actually learned something. I tend to be optimistic, so even if something was not stellar, I was easily able to overlook it because most of the offerings were better than I hoped.

I got tons of insight in the dialog workshop by Kirsten Menger-Anderson who wrote a fabulous collection of short stories called Doctor Olaf Van Schuler's Brain. More on that in another post (but I highly recommend it). Dialog kills me sometimes. I think it is critical to do it well, better than well. She had us do a short writing exercise, with dialog of course, and then asked a few to read theirs out loud. I discovered that I was a chicken.

I'm rarely a chicken, so dialog must still be the thing I think I do least well. Funny thing though, I didn't really think anyone who read theirs aloud was significantly better than mine. So, if I'm not intimidated, why the hesitation? Maybe because I'm new in the environment and don't want to come across like a know-it-all (at this point my Dad would spit his teeth across the room, because I never hesitated to be a know-it-all before), or perhaps I am still unsure of my place in this part of the writing world.

The other workshop that I found very valuable was Point of Narration vs Point of View taught by Charlotte Cook. She is a publisher and a writer and is exceedingly comfortable and capable in front of and interacting with an audience. She gave some tangible examples of what to consider when making the choices inherent in writing that transcended her immediate subject matter. Thank you Charlotte.

The other bright spot was hooking up with a few writers who plan on doing NaNoWriMo in November. NaNo stands for National Novel Writing Month (November) and the title plus .org will find you at a website that sponsors the "contest." I say "contest" with the quotes because you are in a contest with yourself to produce 50,000 words of a novel. If you do that, you win. It's going to be nice to have friends in the same wicked boat.

Tomorrow, I'll post my personal NaNo goals and tell you a little about the book I'm planning.

All I know is that I am glad I got my feet wet at a smaller conference. I discovered that I like them and that they are worthwhile. The folks that put it on did a lot of work, and they seemed rather likable. So, I recommend it.

Peace,

Jo Taylor

Glimmer Train

Yeah! Happy Dance! We got our copy of Glimmer Train today.

What is that you ask?

Glimmer Train is something I'd never personally heard of until December of last year (2008 - we're being current, currently). It is a wonderful literary publication that is a collection of short stories. I write short stories, and it is the type of publication in which I (Margaret's Mom) would someday like to be published. So it's a big deal. I usually spend the three or four days after receiving my quarterly publication reading, reading, happily reading. And hopefully learning something about writing short stories.

I've been writing a short story for a class on point of view that has been giving me fits. Mostly because the teacher, whom I like, is having us compose the story from a point of conflict first, then filling in beginning and resolutions. Bass ackward. I've never written a story like this and I'm not sure I'll ever do it again, but I actually am learning something. I'm not sure what it is yet, it hasn't "gelled" so that I could actually describe said nugget of learning, but I have that learning feeling. Kind of like that loving feeling, but not quite. I digress.

All I'm saying is that it's good to do something different. Not just different THINGS, but different methods, ideas, paths help us learn something about the preferred method, idea, or path. Could be that we like it best. Could be that we've been doing it 100% wrong all our lives. Hmmm, sounds like a good premise for a story . . .

Peace,

Margaret's Mom