attend a writer's workshop

I’m checking this off as done, instead of dropped, because I feel like I have really accomplished my goal, even though I didn’t go to a workshop per se.

Last night I went to a “meetup” as planned, and it was really great. There were 9 people there, half of whom were clearly more capable and accomplished writers than I, and the other half may have been as well, albeit less clearly. I will submit something for the next meeting, and I expect to get great feedback and commentary on my writing, style, characters, etc. If it makes me a better writer, and makes me want to write more, then I have achieved my goal.

I may just check this off after all, though in a way I had not expected.

While I would love to go to one of those three-day overnight retreats with 10-20 fellow wannabe writers, and enjoy the insightful learning while eating lobster risotto and swapping shoulder-massages, which I have always presumed was the centerpiece of such events, I’m now quite sure that there is a far cheaper way to move to the next level in my writing. _{“You mean stop writing run on sentences?”, “Shh, he’s getting to the point now…”}

I’ve joined a “writer’s meetup”. Didn’t know meetup was a noun, exactly, and having one for writers seems like an oxymoron, but I digress. These meetups are apparently running rampant across Connecticut, and I had no idea until someone approached me about joining one for reading books and watching classic movies. Once I got to their website, I found three on writing right here in CT. Digging into it more, I was pleased and surprised to learn that they are much more serious than the Coffee shops and wire-rims concept I’ve enjoyed in the past. These writers post their fiction or non-fiction on a file-server, and then meet to discuss each persons work. Free critique from other writer wannabe’s is a step in the right direction along the path of publishing my work, right? _{“I thought you said he was getting to the point.”}

Anyway, long story short _{“yeah, right”}, my first writer’s meetup is this Thursday in New Haven, and I’m very excited. It’s inspired me to re-package some of my recent works so that I can upload them and get feedback. So if I’m writing completed pieces, and presenting them to others in a fairly safe environment, and providing reviews to others of their unpublished work, perhaps I’m getting all that I wanted from the writer’s workshop after all. Well, except for that lobster risotto.

If all goes well, I’ll check off this task as done!

This has to move down the priority list for a while, as I make room for the action items needed to bring me through this life transition. I’ve decided not to dump it for now, but I may if I don’t have enough room on 43T.

to go and do this artist retreat. i’m thinking, though, that I might just want to do a “Group therapy” version of the Artist’s Way, and a 12 week course would need to be local. I guess I’d better get surfing the web!

I spent a little time on this yesterday. There are actually several writer’s retreats, workshops and seminars in New England. I haven’t narrowed it down yet, but I think the next thing is to figure out when I want to do it. With the Belize trip coming up, Rochester in May and Paris in June, it would either need to happen along side some work travel, or it would have to wait until July.

So I noticed that I have a bunch of writing-oriented tasks on my list, and it seems to me I should start with this one. I don’t know where to begin, though. Anybody got any suggestions?