so, Viable Paradise 15.
Oct. 20th, 2011 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishOne of the only pieces of pre-workshop advice I can remember was "don't go into VP with a sleep debt." I ignored this, as one does with advice, and booked a red-eye flight Satyrday night. Got myself kicked over into Eastern time quickly, but I spent most of the workshop in a sleep-deprived self-recriminatory fog. It doesn't seem to have hurt much.
VP, like Gaul, is split up into three parts. There's the critiques, where a group of students and two instructors read and comment on two of the stories submitted as application pieces, and the target takes notes like mad and tries to figure out how to make the story / first few novel chapters + synopsis work better. There's the lectures and colloquia, where one or more instructors get up and talk about some aspect of writing: structure, characters, research, voice, what have you. Then there's the one-on-one sessions when it's just you and an instructor discussing your submission and whatever else you feel like talking about. All this adds up to a metric ton of fantastic advice and instruction on how to write and tell stories more effectively. I'll be processing that for awhile. I could report on my notes from the lectures and the critiques but the info hasn't even begun to sink in enough for me to use it effectively. (This, I am told, is not unexpected.)
All of that goes on while hanging out with a bunch of brilliant people: 28 students, eight and a half instructors, and somewhere between five and ten staff, all of whom are happy to spend hours talking about writing and books and music and writing and people and jokes (bad and otherwise) and did I mention writing? And late-nite jam sessions and early morning walks and a group reading of Midsummer Night's Dream that made me actually like that play again. Plus any extra one-on-one sessions you might want to schedule with the instructors.
AND somewhere in all this we all found or made time to write a new story, from a crazy prompt handed out on Monday evening and due back Thursday afternoon, and ideally applying some of what we've been absorbing.
From which, to paraphrase TNH re F/SF, we may conclude that Viable Paradise is impossible.
Fragments and images. Playing poker with Steve Brust and TNH and a handful of other rotating people, and slightly regretting it because there were other equally awesome people I could have been hanging out with.
My rendition of Hermia as Scarlett O'Hara, entirely overshadowed by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scott_lynch's Oberon as Gollum.
Watching the tiny phosphorescent jellyfish zipping around in an inlet like shooting stars, and looking up occasionally to catch a real shooting star.
Coming to the end of the seawall without realising the ground had been dropping away as I walked, thinking "well crap," and then just jumping.
Reading everyone's stories on Thursday. Realising that these twenty-eight stories, cranked out in three days for totally wacky prompts, are better-written and better-constructed that some of the pieces I've critiqued for writing groups.
George R.R. Martin's technique for slimming down your writing, and Steve Brust's rule for putting your stupid political opinion into a story, and Maggie Ronald on returning from VPVIII: "...and instead of picking up these new writing tools and using them in my craft, I was stabbing myself in the face. Do not stab yourself in the face. This is important."
And sometimes sitting quietly in excellent company and just writing.
This is Viable Paradise: One minute you're munching on a veggie burger cooked for you by a well-known author, and the next you're sitting in a circle, trying to convince everyone you're not an alien. (I am not the Thing, no matter what Bear says, and testing me will just be a waste of our limited time.)
(I totally was the Thing, all three times I played. Not that I ever survived.)
Or this: I have a black eye, and that's probably the least interesting thing I got out of the experience. Or there’s no room in my head. THERE’S NO FUCKING ROOM.
It's all about the people, really. I was a little nervous going into it, since by nature I'm most comfortable on the edge of groups... but I got accosted in the airport by Fran, and was almost immediately comfortable. With a few sleep-dep-inspired exceptions that sense of comfort stayed with me the entire week. I roomed with Chris Modzelewski, and we geeked out about books and stuff late into the night, in a way that didn't send me into introvert-overload. (Well, not much.)
It did help a little that I already knewthanate in person, and a handful of people [such as the aforementioned Fran, and Steph, and KLAGOR] from Twitter, and had someone to gravitate towards for the first day or so. But honestly? By Tuesday that mattered a lot less.
It took me about two days after I said my last goodbye to stop seeing VPXVers in every passing half-familiar face and hairstyle.
I was leaving a quick comment elsewhere yesterday morning talking about how I'd just been to VP and not only got a lot of good writer-type advice, I got to hang out with a bunch of cool people too. About halfway through phrasing that comment it occurred to me that this is what people mean when they talk about "finding their tribe." That sense that these are not just good people, but the right people. That's... not something I ever in my life expected to feel.
I miss you.
And I've somehow written nearly a thousand words without talking about writing stuff at all. Another post later, I guess.
VP, like Gaul, is split up into three parts. There's the critiques, where a group of students and two instructors read and comment on two of the stories submitted as application pieces, and the target takes notes like mad and tries to figure out how to make the story / first few novel chapters + synopsis work better. There's the lectures and colloquia, where one or more instructors get up and talk about some aspect of writing: structure, characters, research, voice, what have you. Then there's the one-on-one sessions when it's just you and an instructor discussing your submission and whatever else you feel like talking about. All this adds up to a metric ton of fantastic advice and instruction on how to write and tell stories more effectively. I'll be processing that for awhile. I could report on my notes from the lectures and the critiques but the info hasn't even begun to sink in enough for me to use it effectively. (This, I am told, is not unexpected.)
All of that goes on while hanging out with a bunch of brilliant people: 28 students, eight and a half instructors, and somewhere between five and ten staff, all of whom are happy to spend hours talking about writing and books and music and writing and people and jokes (bad and otherwise) and did I mention writing? And late-nite jam sessions and early morning walks and a group reading of Midsummer Night's Dream that made me actually like that play again. Plus any extra one-on-one sessions you might want to schedule with the instructors.
AND somewhere in all this we all found or made time to write a new story, from a crazy prompt handed out on Monday evening and due back Thursday afternoon, and ideally applying some of what we've been absorbing.
From which, to paraphrase TNH re F/SF, we may conclude that Viable Paradise is impossible.
Fragments and images. Playing poker with Steve Brust and TNH and a handful of other rotating people, and slightly regretting it because there were other equally awesome people I could have been hanging out with.
My rendition of Hermia as Scarlett O'Hara, entirely overshadowed by
scott_lynch's Oberon as Gollum.Watching the tiny phosphorescent jellyfish zipping around in an inlet like shooting stars, and looking up occasionally to catch a real shooting star.
Coming to the end of the seawall without realising the ground had been dropping away as I walked, thinking "well crap," and then just jumping.
Reading everyone's stories on Thursday. Realising that these twenty-eight stories, cranked out in three days for totally wacky prompts, are better-written and better-constructed that some of the pieces I've critiqued for writing groups.
George R.R. Martin's technique for slimming down your writing, and Steve Brust's rule for putting your stupid political opinion into a story, and Maggie Ronald on returning from VPVIII: "...and instead of picking up these new writing tools and using them in my craft, I was stabbing myself in the face. Do not stab yourself in the face. This is important."
And sometimes sitting quietly in excellent company and just writing.
This is Viable Paradise: One minute you're munching on a veggie burger cooked for you by a well-known author, and the next you're sitting in a circle, trying to convince everyone you're not an alien. (I am not the Thing, no matter what Bear says, and testing me will just be a waste of our limited time.)
(I totally was the Thing, all three times I played. Not that I ever survived.)
Or this: I have a black eye, and that's probably the least interesting thing I got out of the experience. Or there’s no room in my head. THERE’S NO FUCKING ROOM.
It's all about the people, really. I was a little nervous going into it, since by nature I'm most comfortable on the edge of groups... but I got accosted in the airport by Fran, and was almost immediately comfortable. With a few sleep-dep-inspired exceptions that sense of comfort stayed with me the entire week. I roomed with Chris Modzelewski, and we geeked out about books and stuff late into the night, in a way that didn't send me into introvert-overload. (Well, not much.)
It did help a little that I already knew
thanate in person, and a handful of people [such as the aforementioned Fran, and Steph, and KLAGOR] from Twitter, and had someone to gravitate towards for the first day or so. But honestly? By Tuesday that mattered a lot less.It took me about two days after I said my last goodbye to stop seeing VPXVers in every passing half-familiar face and hairstyle.
I was leaving a quick comment elsewhere yesterday morning talking about how I'd just been to VP and not only got a lot of good writer-type advice, I got to hang out with a bunch of cool people too. About halfway through phrasing that comment it occurred to me that this is what people mean when they talk about "finding their tribe." That sense that these are not just good people, but the right people. That's... not something I ever in my life expected to feel.
I miss you.
And I've somehow written nearly a thousand words without talking about writing stuff at all. Another post later, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 11:12 pm (UTC)Isn't that like... a T.rex's technique for how to go vegetarian?
no subject
Date: 2011-10-21 12:27 am (UTC)(You keep settin'em up and I'll keep knockin'em down.)
The technique: if you have dialogue bits along the lines of:
"Blah," said Chris.
Chris walked across the room.
"Blah blah," said Chris.
you can shorten it to:
"Blah." Chris walked across the room. "Blah blah."
This is not always ideal, or even required, but if you've been told "we can fit this in if you chop 500 words" it's really handy.