Arvon creative writing workshop part 3
Nov. 18th, 2009 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321I did a lot of writing at my Yorkshire writing workshop, and some of it was in the form of a log of my feelings and responses day-by-day.
12.10.09 First evening.
I love this so much. I am so happy here. Walking about the grounds of Lumb Bank, I was so happy I wanted to cry. I love talking and thinking about this and hearing the authors talk about narrative. By the way, I know heaps more theory than any of these people. I just also know more practice (through fandom! --- I have _had_ the dialogue and the feedback). I also love talking about _narrative_.
13.10.09
Today I am so terrified, and also disheartened, with a sort of plunging fear at the core that I just can't manage this plot. I tell myself just to forge on, that this is what I'm here for, to learn how to plough on through these sinkholes of terror but a paralysing worry nags at me: that I've set myself up for failure, that this is just too ambitious. It's so hard!
15.10.09
In Hebden Bridge, I felt dizzy several times, found it physical torment to have to sit on a backless barstool, and arrived back in a sweat. I forged on with rubbish writing, scribbled in the café in such bad handwriting that I would _not_ be able even to read it back to myself. I abandoned work on either of my nano drafts and started a story with a scene based on Queneau'esque writing exercises. I feel sobered and chastened and brought up against reality, and it's harsh. I haven't yet got a novel. I now need to write one, using the tools I've gathered. Experimental snippets, I know, are not a novel (but may generate one).
Self-indulgent prose with alliteration and quirky metaphors is not a novel, either, nor are self-contained little scenes. There is no fandom out there, reading automatically to love your characters, no matter what, and no fandom to indulge in the self-indulgence of the minutiae of sex.
17.10.09 Saturday. Just before leaving Hebden Bridge.
I had a big Erfolgserlebnis last night, but also unexpected because people fell about laughing (even when I wasn't primarily trying to achieve comedy) and said I could be a performance poet (i.e. they were taken by my fragments not by a _novel_ idea). Also, no one said anything about the idea of Tusk. They loved the two men in a pub, though; they loved the pastichiness. I learned to work and write through the pain. I learned to face some harsh truths and realities. I practised prioritising the writing absolutely and writing gibberish in my notebook feeling dizzy and faint and practically ill, and returning in a breathless sweat but there was no internet and nothing else to do but keep on going. So I did style exercises with a totally new situation and characters. I copied paragraphs sentence for sentence, switching round actual words and names. That's how I wrote myself out of the hole.
Writing comes from writing. Good writing comes from writing rubbish. Diarise the dishwasher. You don't have to plan a huge novel arc out beforehand; you can feel your way into one single scene. The happiness I feel now is a more fundamental happiness than the one I felt at the start of the week. I am humbler. I also have a road map.
The first draft is my canon.
Each scene can have its own first draft. Quantity (nano) is not quality. Write your way into and around a scene. Write it four times in various styles (à la Queneau) and by your fifth time, you might have something usable.
Overall on Arvon: I was in a place where writing was the priority. This is very unusual and precious.
12.10.09 First evening.
I love this so much. I am so happy here. Walking about the grounds of Lumb Bank, I was so happy I wanted to cry. I love talking and thinking about this and hearing the authors talk about narrative. By the way, I know heaps more theory than any of these people. I just also know more practice (through fandom! --- I have _had_ the dialogue and the feedback). I also love talking about _narrative_.
13.10.09
Today I am so terrified, and also disheartened, with a sort of plunging fear at the core that I just can't manage this plot. I tell myself just to forge on, that this is what I'm here for, to learn how to plough on through these sinkholes of terror but a paralysing worry nags at me: that I've set myself up for failure, that this is just too ambitious. It's so hard!
15.10.09
In Hebden Bridge, I felt dizzy several times, found it physical torment to have to sit on a backless barstool, and arrived back in a sweat. I forged on with rubbish writing, scribbled in the café in such bad handwriting that I would _not_ be able even to read it back to myself. I abandoned work on either of my nano drafts and started a story with a scene based on Queneau'esque writing exercises. I feel sobered and chastened and brought up against reality, and it's harsh. I haven't yet got a novel. I now need to write one, using the tools I've gathered. Experimental snippets, I know, are not a novel (but may generate one).
Self-indulgent prose with alliteration and quirky metaphors is not a novel, either, nor are self-contained little scenes. There is no fandom out there, reading automatically to love your characters, no matter what, and no fandom to indulge in the self-indulgence of the minutiae of sex.
17.10.09 Saturday. Just before leaving Hebden Bridge.
I had a big Erfolgserlebnis last night, but also unexpected because people fell about laughing (even when I wasn't primarily trying to achieve comedy) and said I could be a performance poet (i.e. they were taken by my fragments not by a _novel_ idea). Also, no one said anything about the idea of Tusk. They loved the two men in a pub, though; they loved the pastichiness. I learned to work and write through the pain. I learned to face some harsh truths and realities. I practised prioritising the writing absolutely and writing gibberish in my notebook feeling dizzy and faint and practically ill, and returning in a breathless sweat but there was no internet and nothing else to do but keep on going. So I did style exercises with a totally new situation and characters. I copied paragraphs sentence for sentence, switching round actual words and names. That's how I wrote myself out of the hole.
Writing comes from writing. Good writing comes from writing rubbish. Diarise the dishwasher. You don't have to plan a huge novel arc out beforehand; you can feel your way into one single scene. The happiness I feel now is a more fundamental happiness than the one I felt at the start of the week. I am humbler. I also have a road map.
The first draft is my canon.
Each scene can have its own first draft. Quantity (nano) is not quality. Write your way into and around a scene. Write it four times in various styles (à la Queneau) and by your fifth time, you might have something usable.
Overall on Arvon: I was in a place where writing was the priority. This is very unusual and precious.