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.
Re: Tyr’s comment about imitation.
He’s right about imitation helping lots. I once tried to write in the inimitable Cherryh style (Merovingian Nights, if you want to know.) Never finished it, but it taught me more about self-editing than I have ever learned anywhere else, amid all the classes and workshops and writing groups I’ve attended over the years–including two with the master herself.
I think it was focus: really looking at the vocabulary choices and the grammar structures, and the way the information for the story is doled out. I had tried to imitate other writers before (Andre Norton…) but it didn’t ‘click’ until the Cherryh experiment.
Thank you, CJ. For everything you are and everything you do.
onion in fish and chip batter?????? how disgusting … 🙁 you poor things …
They put onion powder in the fish and chips batter, used onion stock in the corned beef and cabbage, onions or shallots in every pasta dish, you name it, and declared they were an Irish pub. If you ever go to Missoula, MT, avoid The Stone of Accord. Last year they were good. This year they must have one of the scrubbers doing the cooking.
A bad crit can be awful, but a good crit can be an amazingly productive experience. When I was back in college (BFA art) we were encouraged to record or have someone take notes during major crits. The idea was that it was too easy to concentrate on the negative information rather than the positive.
I took notes during a mid-term crit for a friend. To all appearances it was devastating. Except that it also gave her many good ideas about positive directions her work could take based on the work she had done. She said later that if she had not had my notes she would never have stayed in the program. That crit gave her the courage to be find her own direction. By senior year she was one of the department ‘stars’. ( influential student)
I’ve done several hands on workshops. Two of them have given me years of ideas, made me ask questions and made me try to articulate what I do. However, I find that I have to be careful about this as it is far to easy to let the words take the place of the object.
I’m with purplejulian……. onion in batter!! UGH!!
The workshopping advice here holds for nonfiction, too. I teach writing to college freshmen, many of whom are not native speakers, many more of whom come from an English 1.5 background in which English is not the language they speak at home even though they were born in the US. Grammar’s a trick for them, as is spelling. We do a lot of in-class workshopping and out of class conferencing, and the first thing I always do is tell them what I think they’re trying to say, so we can adjust accordingly. Then we move onto something positive, and then what they need to work on. But the advantage there is it’s essays and nonfiction, and they’re expecting to be critiqued. They’re terrified, but braced (and usually pleasantly surprised).
The one and only fiction workshop I ever did, for teenagers, was… dramatic. Traumatic. I tried the “look, writing is hard” approach, and got sneering disdain from one girl who was sure that meant I was deficient, because SHE had no trouble at all. The rest of the event was spent balancing her attitude against the hideously shy and the earnestly interested in the work of writing (we weren’t even talking publication, just technique). If we’d had actual manuscripts to share, I shudder to think what would have happened.
I served as troubleshooter for the Vietnamese students who had come in en masse and confused, and thus inherited every other nationality the school couldn’t cope with. One Thai studen came to me: “Tee-chah, wot is a whacha?” Mmm, say I. How did you hear it? What did they say?
“Whacha got?” Aha. Big difference between the classic “What do you have?” and “Whacha got?” And American students think Latin is hard!
There’s so much I could say about editing and writing, but I think I’ll keep it to two things.
One, I know it’s hard for me to take criticism of my writing. I get defensive. “But my baby’s not ugly!” OK, but your baby drools and messes in his diapers just like any baby. He may also be cute as the dickens. But he’s not perfect; it’s part of the charm…and human nature. It can be hard to remember that, though, when someone else points out that your baby looks a bit strange. 🙂 The thing is, I have editing experience. I know what it’s like to see someone else’s work, to see talented storytelling, but to see some issues that could use some polish. (Baby powder? ed, your analogy has stretch marks. Haha.) I have seen that most writers/artists want criticism, but have some emotional trouble with negative criticisms, even when they know those are valid and put constructively.
Two, talent shines through. Good storytelling or poetry or for non-fiction, simple, clear presentation of information so someone can learn from it, all depend on how a person puts words together. That talent will show through when the writer/storyteller follows the rules or transcends them, but he or she must know the rules enough to know why and when to break them, or else the sense is lost, let alone the nuance. Talent can show through, despite poor grammar and spelling and non-standard English, especially in storytelling or poetry, but again, it’s important to know the norms, the guidelines or rules, so that you really know how to use all the tools of a writer or storyteller. If you want to tell me that your writing needs to be that way to get across a certain style or characterization, okay, then let me see that. Great, if that’s so. Go ahead and break the rules if need be, but be able to state the reasons why you did. And if you write an amazing story or poem, that is really all the proof I need. Above all, engage me. Get me interested. Fire up my imagination. Make the story or poem so good, I don’t notice the little stuff.
(I always had an odd reaction to Hemingway: He can tell a good story, but his grammar and style often made me want to get out a pen to edit, even in high school. 😉 :p )
You too?
Hemingway needed to paragraph.
And it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at it: when you hear a negative about your story, your back goes up, more so if it’s justified. I’m sure Will Shakespeare had a litter of kittens over cuts made in his plays or an actor changing a line. I’m sure Milton was an absolute ravening lunatic if somebody suggested a line be changed. I’m sure Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) went and soused down a fifth of whiskey and didn’t speak for hours when somebody criticized his work.
One is never immune. And if Papa Hemingway read what I said above he’d explode, about the way I’m sure he exploded at his editors and told them to keep their blue pencils off.
Sometimes even Homer should take advice. 😉