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Phyllis and KDW permitted for me to post this here:
>WRITING WORKSHOP >with >PHYLLIS BARBER >Six Thursday Nights from 6:30 to 9:00* >September 8 - October 13, 2005 >2071 East Ashton Circle (2305 South) >Salt Lake City 84109 >$150 >The class will critique excerpts (of no more than twenty pages which will be handed to class members a week prior to discussion) for two participants each week in the first hour and a half of class (45 minute discussion on each manuscript), then will con- centrate on craft techniques and writing skills for the last hour. >The first class will focus on creative approaches to one?s writing, >some in-class writing exercises and assignments will be made for critique sessions. >Class is limited to twelve participants. Please make your reservation for the class by September 3 by calling 801-467- 4100 or by e-mail to GREENBOUGH7@aol.com >(Vita available upon request) >* (Except for one class which will meet on Wednesday, September 14)
I'm looking forward to it, I've been a bit stymied on my WIP.
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Just thought I'd give this thread a kick. The class has 4 people in it at this time. I've got to pick 20 pages from my WIP to pass out tomorrow.
Posts: 366 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Well, so far I've rewritten the first 7 pages of my WIP, and I'll have to just pick another 13 pages from later in the story, I think since the next 13 pages in the current format don't make any sense with the new opening. And I'm rather nervous, finding it hard to work. This will be the first time this work is read by someone who doesn't know me, and won't be spending half their time trying to match pseudonyms with real people.
Posts: 366 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Our first meeting was on writing creatively: To see what others do not see, and to think what others do not think. [my response on this is] When we strive for novelty, we sometimes think we must have all new material. So many writers never get started. But if we can bring our own individual view to something even if it is very mundane, we can write creatively. We don't have to try to be different, we just have to push ourselves past those initial, most common impressions.
Some of the most successful writing exercises I've had asked me to write and then write a little more.
In a recent appearance OSC said he doesn't do exercises, but I think that if we aren't where we want to be (and I think he is) we could benefit from exercises. If we look at writing exercises not as "writing" exercises, but as stretches and interval training and so forth. We don't want to be like the people who exercise so that they can exercise more- we don't want to be body builders who emphasize form over function. But being able to run or lift stuff if you have the opportunity to is good.
There was good synergy in the class. First a guy gave this hindu proverb about how everyone should do 3 things in life: plant a tree, have a child, and write a book. As we ruminated on this we got talking about how writing is like a fingerprint of the mind, and how if a person goes out of the world never having written (or only writing for a market) we lose that person's intellectual capital.
This is a powerful idea to me because I have a cultural "father" who had no children of his own, and I feel a desire to write to pass on his confidence in me. He was the first one to tell me I was a good writer, which is funny because he died briefly after grading an essay of mine. That is to say, he was revived, but the essay had apparently contributed to him rupturing a bleeding ulcer.
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