We were late getting there because it turned out the Stars on Ice tix we bought without looking at dates back at Nationals were for Friday night…and we started out with OSG driving at oh-God-thirty on Saturday.
Among first things was to meet with Azureblu’s friend Linda, who had wanted to give me some things Azureblu wanted handed on—a very nice person, Linda, who has had a very, very difficult time since Azureblu’s passing.
I had the writer’s workshop, 4 hours of continuous panel with Jane and 6 very anxious participants, which is extremely stressful, 4 hours of trying hard to be accurate, to remember who was whom, and to be Simon Cowel and Paula Abdul simultaneously, making jokes to keep it light, but trying never to step on delicate new-writer toes or to seem to aim at any particular person; and after that, I was just glum and worthless the whole rest of the day. They had me scheduled for a reading, which I missed, because it didn’t occur to me there could be another stressful one-hour personal performance an hour after that death-march of a 4 hour workshop. And it took me 2 days to figure out how to read the new experiment in programming listing so I could actually find my panels. They’re going to fix that next year.
I had no food, going into it all. Supper was abysmal, at an Irish pub they called the Stone of Accord, but which should have been named the Irish Onion. After being assured the fish and chips with mayonnaise instead of tartar (glug) should have NO onion—it was in the batter on the fish. Ugh. Service was abysmal: every time I asked for more mayo, they’d serve me a teaspoon of it. I had to ask 3 times, and still was short of enough. And afterward began to suffer the pains and immediate swelling of joints that attend onion.
I did get some sleep, skipping all parties turning in early; so did Jane, and so did OSG—we all 3 shared the room, which backs onto a babbling brook, in cool temperatures: the hotel room is a slice of heaven, and that helped a lot.
Sunday, I was feeling much more cheerful: had a nice breakfast without onions, free, with the hotel. I still had trouble reading the schedule and showing up. I was first handed a sheet on which dates, but not days were listed, and I had trouble reading the microprint because allergy had my eyes tearing up so badly even my glasses couldn’t help. And then they pointed to a place in the MAIN program where it listed events by writer. But then that turned out to have items which had been removed from programming, and not to have items which had been added…it’s an aphorism as old as fandom that you NEVER believe a schedule in the fancy program book for that very reason…and I managed to find one reading, one panel, and thanks to someone asking—a third. But others were for Monday, after the hour of our departure back to Spokane and Mead respectively. I have never had so much trouble finding my panels.
Sunday night Jane and I hung out with Patty and Mike Briggs, [Patricia Briggs, lately known for urban fantasy, but who writes really neat classic fantasy as well] and had pizza and listened to Mike play filk guitar; and talked writing. OSG went off art-auctioning and ended up hot-tubbing and partying. When our little confab in Patty and Mike’s room broke up, I went off to bed, like a sane person, at midnight; Jane joined OSG and came back with a bloody nose and a very happy OSG at 4 am.
I attempted to ignore the riot and sleep, but only managed a couple more hours til it was up, breakfast and pack. The con was rainy and cold, and the weather persisted all the way with huge stretches of roadwork in the mountains…a hard drive. We’d left our kittehs at home and so had OSG, so we were very eager to get home and see how the house had fared.
OSG has to work—Jane and I headed for supper at the Swinging Door, followed by a documentary on the Little Ice Age—Jane slept through it, still nursing a very sore nose and teeth, and we both turned in with our respective kittehs, who were very glad the Food Sources had returned mostly undamaged.
One is glad you got back safely, and got some sleep, too.
Having never been to a Con, I have no idea what it’s like for the panel members, but if they’re anxious, then it makes for a difficult time for all, and it would seem their anxiety was infectious.
See you in two weeks, and hopefully, you’ll be well rested. I know that after a 1,700 mile drive, WarriorofWorry, Xheralt, and I are going to need some sleep.
Most panels are not stressful: they’re usually fun. Writing workshops ARE stressful, because people come in having had stress for 4 weeks at least, having sent in their manuscripts, and now get to hear what professionals think about these manuscripts, in public. Some writers are sharks and like to tear these people apart, and workshoppers know it. Jane and I try not to—try really hard; but it’s 4 hours of keep your antennae up and sensitive to small cues from the workshoppers as to how they’re understanding what you’re saying, while trying to explain highly abstract techniques to people who don’t know all the terms…
Someone likened a writer at a writers’ workshop to an employer going in to an interview to fire someone, and having that interview last 4 hours. Brutal for both sides.
You take care on your own drive!
I had left my comment while you were still typing here. I apologize because I reread the blog and other things are much clearer.
What happened to Jane that she got a bloody nose and sore teeth? Is it the allergy to onion? I hope she’s feeling better.
Poor Jane had a wee bit too much fun at the con and did an accidental face-plant, resulting in some road rash (see her own blog for more). We hope for her speedy recovery, sans carpet.
Is a workshop designed to be more broad, thus less personal? Longer but less intense? Maybe one-on-one critiques would be better? I’ve had both kinds. Nightmare scenarios can ensue from either type–but at least with a one-on-one, you can be precise and direct with the ones who don’t need extensive help, and just because it’s up close and personal, doesn’t mean you have to line edit.
I like your description of what it feels like. Funny, in a really horrifying fashion.
Horrifying is the word for it. We do it for 2 reasons: to oblige the con, who gives us a free membership for our work on panels, etc, and 2) to help people trying to write.
But it is brutal, and doesn’t make the con fun. Jane and I really agonize over what to tell people, how not to scare them, how not to ruin what could be a nice hobby for them even if they’re quite a ways from publishable, how not to be rude, and how to make people who are stressed to the point of high bloodpressure relax and not have a meltdown in the panel room.
We have told them we are going to lay out a year from the job at miscon and just not do it next year, which will make less work (Jane must have put in 20 man-hours on those manuscripts) and less stress and exhaustion at the convention. People will get to see a more perky ‘us’ on panels and maybe we won’t be so stressed and headachy we can’t read the damn panel list when we get through, eh?
I went to a six-week writing program 10 years ago, and it was 3 hours of group critique EVERY DAY. I learned HUGE amounts of vital information about my writing and what I was doing wrong, but came out of the program unable to write at all — my internal editor screamed at every other word. I had to start writing other types of fiction in order to write anything at all, and my internal editor STILL won’t let me send anything out. On the plus side, what I’ve been writing is leagues better than what I was writing before… I just can’t let go of it…
It hadn’t occurred to me that it would be stressful for you guys too. 🙁 Beware writing workshops…
That’s one reason I’m not real big on things like Clarion and other extended workshops. You’re in a concentration camp environment being battered constantly by opinions which may or may not compliment each other.
You can learn a lot, but you can also become hamstrung. There are a few who come out glowing about these things but a lot more who don’t dare say (at least in public) exactly what you’ve just said.
I have met soo many people who majored in art, graduated, then didn’t do another thing in art for years, if ever, because of the same problem.
Personally, I was lucky. I was a math/physics major who took a painting course because I wanted to learn how to work with something other than colored pencils. It was horrific. I ended up doing everything I could to get out of the class. I passed (in fact, I got an A…on potential…long story) and didn’t sign up for the next semester.
I’d never have touched a paint brush again if the head of the art department hadn’t cornered me on campus and asked why I wasn’t signed up for his class (the third in the series… I’d had him for drawing classes the year before.) He told me to get in and paint. He didn’t care what, just get in and paint.
Saved my artistic ass, he did. I was the rare lucky one, I think.
In all fairness, we were warned on Day One that this might happen. On the other hand, by the time we were warned we were already there. I, of course, didn’t think it would happen to me. 😉 There were many positive things said as well as negative things, and I did try to remember the encouraging remarks as well as learn from the critical ones. But, still, it was a bit like walking the edge of a cliff and suddenly realizing you’d lost your footing. Maybe you learn to glide, maybe you plummet to the ground, (maybe a bit of both), but it’s still a damn long climb back up.
I think we all need to get cornered by that professor…
I hope your mouth heals okay!!
Been lurking on your site for awhile, thought I should show myself. Just finished Deceiver (which meant I just finished rereading the series from Destroyer on just for the sheer pleasure of it.) Favorite scene Cajeiri and Lord Geigi having tea together. I realized what great deep affection I have for all the characters, and it was such fun to see Cajeiri starting to mature in this volume. Have loved everything you have written, was delighted with the sequel to Cyteen (which of course gave me an excuse to reread it), and I can’t wait for the new volume in Foreigner series-Deceiver ended with more of a cliff-hanger than usual!
Take care.
Welcome in!
I really feel sorry for you and Jane, CJ! I had a writing workshop years ago and I swear I was the only one of the fifteen or so that wasn’t staring at the writer with big, hopeful, puppy-dog eyes, waiting to be told that their work was a masterpiece, ready for publishing, and why hadn’t they submitted it yet and started raking in the big bucks?
One of the wannabes burst into tears and insisted there wasn’t ANYTHING wrong with her grammar, the writer just hadn’t “understood it properly.” Another haughtily informed the writer that she had been working on her piece for simply ages and no more tweaking needed to be done. Another said she had just written it last night, but it was in a finished state since she “didn’t write first drafts.” A lot of the rest didn’t seem to understand that there were such things as technique, character, viewpoint, tense, etc.
I was kinda stunned and felt really bad for the writer, who I think had been blackmailed into managing the workshop.
My philosophy is that you must learn to take criticism before you can give it.
The same goes for leadership. You must learn to take orders, before, you can give them. I have had to train leadership into the unwilling to listen many times. Both in the military and on wildland fires. If it were a less dangerous situation I would let them fall on their faces and maybe learn from their mistakes. Unfortunately, their well-being is not the only one on the line. So I let them fall as far as I can on a limited safety line. I have had to pull the inexperienced and over-confident out of the fire several times “literately”
But I was there once, but unlike most, I actually learned from my mistakes.
Currently, I am about half-way done with the manuscript for my first full-length novel and I would welcome criticism, be it good, bad, or ugly.
I have been working mainly in a vacuum and finally feel I have something worth sharing. Not being a social animal, and being over seven feet tall, I don’t go out much if I can help it. So I have no desire to attend Cons. Though a workshop would be pretty cool.
One of the beautiful things about cons is that nobody there starts being a social animal. We tend to be hermits for various reasons, but everyone is made to feel welcome, and we actually find the joy of being social.
I didn’t do anything in HS, but when I went to my first con, I found people that actually like to talk about important and interesting things! I found a place to belong. And I know a lot of people have shared that experience. It’s a gathering of the most interesting and accepting people humanity produces.
One of the best parts of the con was the geek/drag queen fashion parade (or something…not technically a costume contest, cuz no one “won” anything.) One of the “ladies” was crowding, if not over seven feet and was one of the big hits of the evening.
What I’m trying to say is, while the normal problems of getting through doorways would still be there, you w/b welcomed for yourself.
Maybe if I was in a Darth Vader costume or something. I have spent the majority of my life in one form or other of federal service, so I don’t know how to act around people. It has put me in a permanent state of culture shock and heightened awareness that makes most social situations difficult at best. But I do appreciate the sentiment.
Oi…that’s one reason I always try to find that positive thing to say first. The best input (outside of CJ) I ever got was from Pat Lobrutto, and the first 10 min of our 15 min conversation all boiled down to “is this what you’re trying to do?” i.e. he was making sure we were on the same page before he started making suggestions. This, to me, is vital. You need to prove to the author/artist that you’ve made some attempt to understand their work before you start telling them how to change it. There are so many options for destinations, you need to be sure your goals are the same before steering the boat.
Did I mention punctuation? One of the guys had a military fic piece that had been written as one long run on of “battle language.” His excuse was that “it sounds like that during battle and in people’s heads.” I actually lost my mind at that and pointed out that people didn’t read that way. I still kinda regret not asking when his 17-year old backside had ever been in battle.
The thing is…you can DO that for the actual moments he’s in battle, but if the whole thing is done that way, it’s just annoying and without the contrast, the reader doesn’t get sucked into that battle moment.
What writers need to understand is that you’ve got to give a reader something they recognize in which to get “grounded” before taking them on the fantasy ride.
Yep, as momentary thing, it’s fine. Just not 50 pages of Bryce slammed his seat around barking at Cary Fire Dammit Their in range what are you waiting for Carey swor a mighty oath Thats a false target it aint them Bryce Bryce leaps for the gun and freeze dammit and then and then and then at the same time…
He just thought he was cultivating a STYLE.
I think that it must be a dreadful experience for both sides in such a situation. It puts a heavy load on the writer to try and do a fair and yet honest assessment of the manuscript. For the budding author, it must be weeks of terror wondering how badly they are going to be savaged.
I do a fair number of peer reviewed documents – really short books – either as the author or the reviewer and it is very, very hard to get the balance right. I normally do a sandwich of good-bad-good but sometimes, it is a real challenge to come up with anything good to say. It’s also pretty hard when it is my turn to be reviewed and get the feedback – even when I know what has been submitted is good.
My hats off to both of you for the efforts you put into such a hard task.
Oh and if you guys are ever in the UK we can make sure you get a Jane / CJ friendly meal cooked up for you.
Yep. Been there, got the tee-shirt. I work hard to try to head off that sort of thing: I tell them some of my own early mistakes, some of them crossing nicely with their own, I try to make it clear we all had to learn, and that there’s more than one right way, but that y’know, proofreading is good, grammar is your paintbrush and words are your paints, and pacing is your sense of composition. We try to make analogies that will make sense. We try to do what 6 previous English teachers have failed to do—make it clear that spellcheckers will not do it, no computerized grammar checker is adequate, and you can no more write effectively while disdaining mastery of grammar and spelling and accurate word use than you can repair cars without a moveable light, a set of appropriate wrenches, and a screwdriver. A lot of would-be writers, for various reasons including the teacher, have exited school with a cultivated disdain for Rules of any kind. A certain newish group has gotten here believing that creativity is all it is, all that matters, and rules can always be bent past breaking, and that they will be lauded for originality.
And here we are saying the detested meticulous Rules absolutely all-out matter. Why? Because you are going to tweak them very, very subtly for certain effects, and you cannot operate that way if you haven’t a clue what the rule is.
I’m here to suggest that 4 years of Latin and two years of French or German will help you immensely.
I’m here to suggest that reading those 3-4 very fine print pages of Webster’s International Dictionary (the ones that summarize all of English grammar quite effectively in 3-4 pages) should be a weekly chore until you understand it. THEN you can go romp.
Poetry is nice, but words strung without a grammatical backbone are kinda moooshy when you poke them, like raw chicken without bones. Ewww.
When I went through school in the UK the theory was you did not teach grammar. We learned the difference between a noun and a verb. If you were lucky they told you what an adjective was. Tenses were limited to three (past, present and future) and punctuation was limited to ” ‘ . , and that was it.
My other half though went through the Italian school system at the same time and was taught latin as a basis for understanding Italian and then led onto other languages. English then Italian, then French and German and fluent enough to pass a native speaker in any of them. She’s proof of exactly what you have said.
My school was on record as saying “You can teach a monkey to spell” and as a result did not get beyond one rule and that was I before E except after C…. so I just about get by in English and in later life trying to understand other languages without the basic building blocks of grammar has proven to be very hard.
Oh and we have a style guide at work that we have to follow when we write our stuff. It is only three words long “Noun. Noun. Verb”. The sound you can hear? That’s Shakespeare turning in his grave.
In high school, I didn’t learn much from English classes. English was in the throes of ‘transitional’ grammar at the time, which led to those incomprehensible sentence diagramming trees, ornamented with phrases like ‘Noun Phrase 2’. Bleah. I got more good out of my Latin class, whose teacher taught classical English as well, and hammered into our heads things like classes of verbs (nominative, accusative, dative, etc..) which are so necessary for properly parsing Latin. Latin did more to teach me proper English grammar than the ‘real’ English class. This same teacher also taught AP English, and gave us some of the best examples of literature going; at least by the end of the class we could understand something of what makes good writing good. Thank you, Mrs. Carlson.
Wow! I guess I’m showing my age….we had to diagram sentences from sixth grade on. They drove me *crazy* but I learned….even the difference between feeling bad and feeling badly.
The lack of knowledge of grammar was brought home when I was in a graduate art history class. After the first exam several students (seniors all) couldn’t understand why they failed until the professor explained that no one had written a complete sentence in their essays. “Art history is about communication. I expect you to be able to write clear, concise language etc.” I did a few tutorials and was amazed that most had not the vaguest notion of a topic sentence.
A definite failure to communicate!
On a happier note, glad to hear that you are back and reasonably well. It sounds like Jane and OSG had quite a party!
FWIW, Smartcat, I was diagramming sentences in 1996 – so you can’t be that old. 🙂
My sister teaches biology and genetics and does the same thing with her essay questions. They either answer in English with something remotely like complete sentences and proper grammar, or they don’t pass.
She’s the one who actually taught me something about grammar. Never learned a thing from my English classes. They were so relieved to get someone who wrote complete sentences, they never got beyond that do address things like agreement.
Like Apf, but in the US, I suffered through “new math” and rule-less English. Luckily, like chondrite, I took – Latin! I agree, that class taught me more grammar (and vocabulary) than any other formal education. (Reading at least 2-5 books a week didn’t hurt either. If I can’t formally diagram a sentence, at least I know where it sounds wrong.)
I’ve done a fair amount of beta reading, it’s far more difficult than one would think to strike that Simon/Paula balance. I can’t even imagine doing a workshop like Miscon’s.
Worse, some people are just convinced the rules aren’t germane to their work of genius. Sometimes I have to drag out the line a music professor used on us about composition: “If you don’t know the rules, then you’re not bending or breaking them, you’re just (um, diddling) around!”
(P.S Yes, we’ll drive very carefully, and hopefully keep Joe off the roofs!)
My general tactic in a workshop, or when asked about any piece of writing or art, is to find at least one positive thing to say before addressing the main negative. Sometimes there are more of both, but that’s what I need to find to start. Sometimes that’s harder than others. This time, it was really hard to find that positive note, but I did…that’s part of what I was finalizing on the trip over.
I wrote out a two page piece (posted on my blog, if anyone’s interested) that was the basics of what they all needed to work on, then tried to address something about each. It was a very different approach this time. Much more generic. But it was very tough. Much easier to talk about the finesses than about the very basics of grammar.
I did the first part without Carolyn, then she came in, obviously upset, so I was trying to carry on while worrying about her. This, after we got to the con just five minutes before the start of the workshop.
We’ve had easier starts to cons, I can assure you.
That positive-negative-positive guideline has always been helpful to me when I’m editing for people, but you ain’t kidding when you say it’s sometimes hard!
I guess I just don’t get the disconnect between what some people read that’s been published and what they produce as “masterpieces.” Can’t they tell that words are misspelled, that punctuation is missing, that sentences don’t make sense?
I don’t think my work is publishable yet because of issues with voice, pacing, and characterization, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s readable! :end rant: 😀
I’m glad I didn’t go this year after reading all the comments. Heh. I had no idea it was that painful for you. I won’t be coming next year either now, as my eldest graduates from HS that weekend. I am still thankful for the advice I got from both of you last year, and am well on my way to finishing a novel now after a massive rewrite for tense and perspective. Maybe it was actually better the way it worked out for me, although I would rather just buy you gals drinks and chat all evening. 🙂
When you critique someone’s work, you want to help. Offer advice. But if you start off with criticism, you’ve lost them. You’ve set an adversarial tone in the first thirty seconds. They will not hear one word past that, no matter how awesome the fix you have to offer. Another mistake is to hold all the positive things to the end of the critique, hoping the last things you say will hold the most impact. Too often, it sounds false or disingenuous.
The very best critiques are conversations, with give and take. But it’s a difficult proposition, because on one side of the table you might have an author all too ready to be defensive, and the person giving the critique all too ready to jump in with what bothered them.
A more gentle approach works better. Start with the carrot before you pull out the stick. If it’s a really big stick–then throw in a big dose of encouragement to go back and try again. That is an honest answer, and the truth of the matter. There is no sugar coating on that.
People tend to have some kind of misconception that if you are really talented at something it’s super easy. That’s why they think that first draft is a masterpiece–they’ve got talent—and that’s all it takes, right?
Certainly not. Nothing of worth is easily made. There is no shame in having to rethink, redraft, reconsider, redo.
Think Ringo Starr said it best: If ya wanna to sing the Blues, ya gotta pay your dues, and ya know it don’t come easy.
Quote of the day: “Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger.”
-Franklin P. Jones
Dear Ms. Cherryh,
Your comments about spelling and grammar hit home. I had the benefit of a mostly private school education with only 2 years in public school and that was Lowell High School in San Francisco which was private in all but name. I had 2 years of
Latin in grade school, 4 years of French in high school and a demanding history teacher for whom we wrote a thousand words a week where spelling and grammar counted and no spell check in 1962.
I hate the current world of writing where form counts for nothing. I strive for clarity and economy in my writing. A reader’s time is valuable and I don’t want to waste it.
Phil Brown
If you’re not bleeding over it, it isn’t art.
Most of the writers I really appreciate have at one time or another
tried consciously to write like authors they admire. Forcing your
self to imitate helps a lot.
The nervous system is set up to do things via imitation as the key
to the learning process. The haphazard nature of modern schools is
a sign that we forgot how to be apprentices, because of a desire
to easily produce masters.
CJ is a very difficult author to imitate…GRIN
tyr: CJ is a very difficult author to imitate
THIS! 😀
CJ, you have an amazingly distinctive style and voice and it is incredibly hard to try to imitate. Also, it is incredibly hard to steer away from when writing my own stuff, because even my characters love your characters and want to be like them!