The Weekend Writer: Getting Ready for OUR School Year

September is upon us, the time of year when writers' organizations start running workshops.  During the pandemic years, some organizations ran virtual workshops, and when things became less dire, they moved to hybrid programs, an in-house workshop for the locals and a virtual one for me. 

How I love a virtual writers' workshop.

I've gone on here before about the benefits of virtual workshops: Less expense, less of a time commitment, less travel--none at all, in fact. So let's just take a look at what's being offered this year.

Your Choices Are:

Off Campus Writers' Workshop. The Off Campus Writers Workshop out of the Chicago area is my favorite workshop site. The organization is eighty years old and may be the oldest of its type in the U.S. They offer something every Thursday morning from September into May. That's Central Time, by the way. Is Thursday morning inconvenient for you? OCWW records all workshops and sends registrants a copy that they can access at their leisure for a week. This is your cheapest option, at least, the cheapest I've found. Workshops are $25 each for nonmembers, $10 for members. Membership is only $40 a year, with the year ending in the summer. Membership pays for itself in workshop discounts. I know. I'm a member. Workshop leaders are writers, most with some kind of teaching experience, many with academic teaching experience. I've seen some pretty big name people there. Want to stick to generative workshops, nothing lecture-like? They've got some.  This year's workshop schedule. 

Thurber House. I've also attended a couple of workshops through the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. These workshops are a little more expensive than OCWW's, and the prices vary. They are still a buy, especially when you consider many writers' workshops are through conferences, so you have to pay for a day or more of attendance, even if there's only one workshop you're interested in. This fall's workshop schedule. These are evening workshops at Eastern time

Pioneer Vally Writers' Workshop. The Pioneer Valley Writers' Workshop in Northampton, Massachusetts is totally new to me. I only just heard about it. (I already can't remember how, but I think BlueSky had something to do with it.) Their pricing is also higher than OCWW's, though, once again, a good buy. And get this...they offer gift cards. This fall's workshop schedule. Most of these are Saturday workshops at 1:00 PM, but check carefully. I hope to make it to Anna North's Friday evening essay workshop in December. I read her novel, Outlawed, this summer, and liked it a great deal. Again, Eastern Time.

Are There More Virtual Writers' Workshops Out There?

I'm guessing the answer to that question is "Yes." Which is too bad for me, because I have a ridiculously long list of workshops I want to attend this year just from these three organizations.

Time Management Tuesday: The Ultimate Temporal Landmark For Writers...NaNoWriMo!

The Off Campus Writers' Workshop in Chicago publishes an on-line column, About Write, on writing-related material. The most recent offering, by Susan Bearman, is  National Novel Writing Month: you should give NaNoWriMo a go   Sadly, I didn't give National Novel Writing Month a thought until I saw this article. Once I did give it a thought, I realized that I could use this temporal landmark this year.

Remember, temporal landmarks are special occasions and calendar dates that mark out a period of time that's different from what came before and creates an opportunity for a fresh start. For hundreds of thousands of writers over a number of years now, National Novel Writing Month has become that special occasion and calendar date that creates opportunities for starting to write a new book.

Or, you can become a rogue writer, as Susan describes herself, and use the NaNoWriMo period to write something other than a novel. She'll be working on short stories. I'm going to be going rogue, too, and working on what I'm calling a "tonal revision" of a book-length work I finished earlier this year. My plan at that time was to put the manuscript away for a while and then work on heightening intensity all the way through the book and revise the last chapter. But when? Time was passing. Then Susan Bearman reminded me that NaNoWriMo is coming up. And I immediately assigned that job to that month.   

While I'm a little late with this, I'm going to share that I have a number of blog posts on preparing for National Novel Writing Month. The more work you have done on the various elements of your story--characters, plot, setting, theme, voice--the easier it will be to get down to real work. I actually had the good luck last week to take a workshop that relates to next month's work. I'm also doing practical life prep--getting ahead on cooking. I do quite a bit of cooking but will be doing less next month.

Susan Bearman's article is not about prepping for NaNoWriMo but on encouraging people to try it at all. One of her reasons involves building writing community. I'm interested in paying attention to that next month. I'm shifting my writing interests from children's lit to short-form writing for adults. Dipping my foot into other communities would be a good idea for me.

 I'm also being careful about how I frame NaNoWriMo preparation. It was probably October 16th or 17th when I realized I could be doing NaNoWriMo this year. Instead of allowing myself to think that this was out of the question for me because an important planning month was half over, I thought that I had half a month to plan.

Today we have seven days left to plan. I'm going to submit two short-form manuscripts to editors and maybe rough out a few blog posts before the 31st. And then, of course, I'm going to do more cooking. 

How Can I Keep From Singing Zoom's Praises?

Let's all pause so I can rave once again about how much I love Zoom workshops. At around 9:40 this morning, we decided we weren't going to do a hiking day. I raced down the hall to my laptop and registered for this morning's workshop with the Off Campus Writers' Workshop in Chicago. It was being held at 9:30 their time, 10:30 mine. It ended up being an excellent workshop led by Suzanna Calkins on a subject I can use next month.

You cannot turn on a dime like that and get to a workshop half a country away that's starting in 50 minutes without Zoom. Also, because I joined the OCWW this year, this morning's workshop only cost me $10.

I don't know if I'll ever get over being amazed by things like this.

But that's not all!

After attending a two-and-a-half hour workshop--from Chicago, remember--we made another last-minute decision to do a one-hour walk this afternoon around a reservoir in eastern Connecticut. Not just any walk, a beautiful walk.

Look at these phragmites! We've never happened to see them at this time of year. Yes, they are an invasive species here that is destroying the native cat tails. But, man, I can't deny these were pretty spectacular looking.

As great as this walk was, it was better because I'd been to a workshop--and a good one--just a few hours before. How can I not love the technology that made this possible?

Then I got a rejection late in the afternoon. But that's how you know you're working, right?

The Weekend Writer: But Then A Workshop You Thought Was Going To Be A Bust Provides A Lot Of Value

Last month I did a Weekend Writer post on workshops, inspired by one I'd just taken that made my all-time worst list. This past Thursday I had a very different workshop experience.

 I took a workshop on humor writing, Using Humor to Deepen Emotional Impact with Kathleen Rooney through the Off Campus Writers' Workshop. No sooner had the workshop started then I realized that I had misread the workshop description. It was about humor and poetry, something I don't write, though I became interested in prose poetry a few years ago. I've dabbled in it. Barely.

Well, the mistake was totally mine. I knew I had taken an OCWW workshop with Rooney before and decided to put aside regret about my ineptitude, live in the moment, and see what happens.

What happened was a terrific workshop with excellent use of handouts. I came away with some new knowledge of humor terms (call backs! durational humor!) and the name of a George Orwell essay that I've found on-line but haven't yet read. (Funny, But Not Vulgar. And, no, I've never thought of George Orwell as being funny, either.) There were also a couple of opportunities to write, and I came away with what I think could be the beginning of one of those prose poems I've been dabbling in. Barely.

This was a really well-planned and well-executed workshop. On top of that, it was hybrid, meaning Rooney was speaking to a live group as well as a Zoom audience. Those don't always workout seamlessly. This one did.

I am particularly hopeful about the bit of writing I did in this workshop, because back in 2021 I took that other workshop with Kathleen Rooney that I mentioned earlier. It was on writing flash fiction and nonfiction. Looking back on my notes, I see that the work I did to a writing prompt in that workshop became my essay Enough, which was published four months later at Kitchen Tales. 

So Weekend Writers, while sometimes we have to suck it up when we stick ourselves with a disappointing workshop, sometimes we have to keep our minds open to what a workshop can offer us.

  

The Weekend Writer: Rethinking A Traditional Piece Of Writing Advice

Earlier this month, I attended another excellent Zoom program sponsored by the Off Campus Writers' Workshop in Chicago. If you're available on Thursday mornings, this is a great source for inexpensive and short workshops with accomplished writers, editors, and writing teachers.

Editor Panel: Which Literary Magazines and Journals Are Looking For Your Work with Joshua Bohnsack  (editor of TriQuarterly) Sue Cho (multiple editorial positions), Hattie Fletcher (former managing editor of Creative Nonfiction), and Aram Mrjoian (an editor-at-large at the Chicago Review of Books and an associate editor at Guernica) is a case in point. The panelists were better prepared than the members of other panels I've seen. Many panels, in my experience, end up being some people shooting the breeze. These particular panelists also prepared sophisticated handouts that I have not had time to dig into but am looking forward to.

The Takeaway For Us This Weekend

One of these panelists, and I am sad to say I cannot recall which one and my notes are failing me on this, made a very interesting point regarding some traditional writing/publishing advice. Usually, he said, writers are advised to keep submitting a rejected manuscript. As soon as one place says, "No," send it out to another. He suggested we do something else.

If five to seven editors have rejected a manuscript without offering any kind of feedback, it's time, he said, to consider doing some revising. 

I actually have revised rejected work between submissions, but I had always considered that to be an anxiety-related issue and not good writing practice. So someone is feeling good about herself today.

Virtual Writing Class Opportunities

My Classroom

Both Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio and the Off Campus Writers' Workshop in Chicago, Illinois have announced their 2022-2023 writing class schedules. I have a list of two workshops with Thurber and seven with OCWW I'm interested in taking. Without leaving my desk in central Connecticut. 

I've taken classes with both organizations in the past, when they were fully remote. This year it appears that most of the classes will be some kind of  hybrid, so I have no experience to offer on how well that  works. But the prices ($25 to $50) and convenience make them well worth it to me to try some.

Benefits of Zoom Workshops

• You don't have to limit yourself to workshops in your geographic area, ones that you can actually get your body to. That opens up a great many more options.
• You don't have to commit time to travel.  
• You don't have to commit time to conferences, where many writers' workshops are found. I can't be the only person who doesn't want to spend an entire day at a conference in order to take the one workshop being offered that interests me.
• The workshops at Thurber and OCWW, whether Zoom or in-person, are far cheaper than many traditional workshops. With OCWW workshops, you can bring the price down even more by becoming a member.
• You may be able to experiment with a workshop on some type of writing you don't normally do because the time and financial commitment are so low.
• Many of the instructors are not just experienced writers but experienced writing teachers.

The Workshop Schedules

• Thurber House workshop offerings. 
• Off Campus Writers Workshop offerings.

While I won't be attending any of these workshops on-site, I have been to Thurber House.