It's really cool when...

...your fiction professor tells you that you're a very talented writer.

Yeah, it sort of made my week. :)

Into the Fire: First Workshop

In the words of Tom Bailey, my fiction professor:

"We're not in Selinsgrove anymore. We're in some serious shit now."

Today was our first real workshop day. Dun dun DUNNNNNN! For those of you who don't know, workshops are days when everyone comes to class having read one or two people's stories, and they discuss them (what works, doesn't work, what needs clarification). The person whose work is being discussed can't talk; they have to sit there and listen.

We'd done a mini-workshop earlier in the semester, but this was our first full-out workshop. And of course, my short story wound up at the front of the line. My short-short had gone first in our mini-workshop, and I think Tom is using me as the class guinea pig.

I was nervous, but the workshop went so well! Tom gave me a lot of compliments on my details, even saying I had some "damn good lines". Needless to say, I wanted to dance in my chair. I wanted to prove that I'm a good writer, and I feel satisfied after today.

Not that I don't still have a ton of work ahead of me. I'm playing around with another different beginning (I changed it for the first time after my conference with Tom last week) and need to add more background on some character dynamics. But my story has evolved so much in the past two weeks. It's so cool!

My goodies from workshop.

embracing change

It's been a while since I posted, but I've been busy immersing myself in my new school, Susquehanna University. It's only been three weeks, but I've learned more about fiction than in my two years at my other school. Tom Bailey, my professor, is brilliant. I had a conference with him on Wednesday to discuss the short story I'm writing for class. I was thrilled when he said my opening paragraph reminded him of something John Steinbeck wrote, but I was less than thrilled when he told me I needed to cut it. It didn't add anything to my story, at least not the story Tom saw in my piece.

He showed me where my real story was, bypassing the dialogue I'd forced into the piece to create some external conflict. My real story was much more subtle. He also informed me that my narrator was not seventeen like I'd written her, but thirteen. These were all things I'd never thought twice about before, but now that I see them, I can't imagine them being any other way.

I'm learning to embrace change here, slicing paragraphs I worked so hard to craft and changing major plot points. But I know I--and my story--will be stronger because of it.

Tom is awesome, but his handwriting is like Sanskrit. I need a decoder to translate it.