Many Writerly Rivers to Cross

Today was sort of set aside as a catch-up-with-myself day, which the non-writing part of me has hitherto seized with both hands. I slept in even longer than I planned to after shushing the alarm clock this morning and turning over for another snooze. When I finally got up, I enjoyed a gigantic, no-rush wake-up pot of tea and a leisurely read of some lightweight froth that I can’t even remember now. Prolonged dawdling about in jammies trying to formulate a rudimentary plan for the rest of today then ensued, and this massive effort was followed by a long brekkie in the backyard and lots of staring at the garden and the sky. All of this was much needed after yesterday’s workshop. Not that the course was exhausting – it was the 6th day of commuting to Melbourne and back that kicked in, and a sense of displacement that needed to be banished with a good spend-time-at-home grounding.

Yesterday’s workshop was the usual first session, half-muddled experience of many strangers getting to know each other, people from all walks of life measuring their writing experience against each other and trying to figure out where they fitted in, and different dreamers at different stages of their career or hobby nutting out an agreement as to how we should proceed with the critiquing. It’s an incredibly varied group ranging from total beginners to writers with pro sales and many publications under their belts, so it’ll be interesting to see how we negotiate the needs of the many. I look forward to getting to know these people. As per usual, however, what happens at the workshop stays at the workshop.

The course provided me with a valuable yardstick for sussing out my own place in the minor scheme of things. I’m still reticent until I get to know people, but nothing like the shy and insecure mess I was a 4-5 years ago when I started out on these workshops with a 2-day Sean William's course. I used to hate public critiquing of my work – I took it WAY too personally, and foolishly believed that everyone else was a better judge of my work that I was - but I knew I had to make myself go to these workshops and toughen up or I’d never survive the business of writing. And it seems to have paid off. Compared with some of the very nervous newbies there yesterday, I felt like a veritable workshop war veteran. I know I won’t be at all bothered if some, or even all of them, shred my work, but most of of the newbies, I fear, have yet to live through the trials of not being hailed as a genius by every other person on the planet. It can be a tortuous experience.

This sense of being an old hand was reinforced by the fact that Steve Cameron is also doing the workshop, and that we could swap stories about our stories – how they were doing, who liked them and who didn’t, our hopes and plans for them – and catch up on industry news. These conversations made me realise just how far I’ve come in the past 4 years, and gave me hope that I might actually be chipping away a tiny niche for myself. They also vindicated precious time spent checking blogs and news sites to keep up with what’s going on in Aussie Spec Fic Land :)

Well. Now. It's time separate the wheat from the chaff. Sort the sheep from the goats.** Put my money where my mouth is. So. Yeah. Hmmm. Should I go take a nap on the backyard swing? Or write for a few hours?

Whoa - there, right on cue, I just got a rejection. The story was too much fantasy, not enough sf, which I suspected might be the case, but it was the only reasonably suitable story I had back in the stable in time for that mag's reading period, and I try not to second-guess editorial tastes these days.*** But. Get ready for another cliché. Water off a duck's back. See? Tough as!

**I chose to write. So does that make me wheat or chaff? A sheep or a goat?
*** It was a "good" rejection. They asked me to submit more work. As for the rejected story, I've already sent it off to another publication.