The Post Where I Rave About My Writing Workshop

Let me begin earlier in the story.

Since last September I have been writing feverishly. My wife and I settled into a nice place with enough room for an office, and enough space for peace and quiet from the outside world. It's been an incredibly productive couple of months for me (haven't written this much since grad school). But I'm not just producing, I'm focusing, shaping, planning, more than ever before, and it's thanks to my writing workshop.

Over the past few months, Beth, Genevieve, and Josh have provided me with perhaps the best insight and advice I've ever received. Jammed poems flow again. Underdeveloped poems put on some weight and take on a swagger. That which is broken is repaired. The manuscript I'm working on is taking shape.

I know that not all workshops are great fits for everyone. I can't make this a post about how everyone should go join a workshop. There are some workshops that are just going to suck. See Don Colburn's poem "In the Workshop After I Read My Poem Aloud" for a comic look at this.

However, there may be a recipe for a workshop that's as productive as the one I'm in.

First, our goals are similar--we can pool wisdom and resources as we work toward those goals.

Our commitment is similar. Every week we show up and get the job done.

We pull our weight (okay, I'm always a few hours late with my submissions).

We support each other. Encouragement and advice come in equal parts, and as I mentioned before, we share resources, insights, and knowledge.

We trust each other. There are different styles at work here--and different genres too--but we trust each other to be intelligent, open-minded, careful readers. Furthermore, I'm taking risks that I wasn't willing to take before because I trust that my readers are there to help my work, push my work, and support me emotionally as I take risks.

On a side note: are we friends? Well, yes. We don't walk arm-in-arm down the sidewalk marveling at the blossoms, but we like and respect each other. In other words, I don't know if we're "I'll-help-you-move-the-body" friends, but some boxes of books? No problem. Is this an important ingredient? It might be.

Back to the ingredients. We're small. Yup, there's no way around this. We're not a movement, not a school, not a factory: we're a workshop.

Finally, this workshop "works" because all of the members would be fussing over their own writing even without the workshop. I moved, and I began writing daily. And, on my own, I was planning and shaping and focusing, but I wanted more. By the time the workshop began two months later, I was anxious for some feedback. I won't lie, the workshop keeps me writing when I don't feel motivated (once or twice over the past few months, and that's another great thing about workshops) but if we all lacked the individual drive this workshop would fall apart.

So to my gang, the band, the workshop, the cougars, the wildcats, the wolverines, whatever we're we're calling ourselves this week. My friends, thank you.
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