A follower asked what did we do a Loyalist for five days – as if there so little to writing one only needed a day or less to get the fundamentals. The structure was the same each year – morning lecture about an aspect of plotting, world building – & discussion of those aspects. Newbies were most curious about getting published & how sell a million copies of their book.
The more experienced where most interested in polishing their writing & the workshop critiques in the afternoon were where the real learning happened. It was after the first session of this that if someone as going to drop out they would drop. Some signed without fully realizing the amount of time reading & commenting on one another’s work would take. I know the first year I expected to have time to write new chapters for my current project – ha! I barely had time to blog – lol.
I was one of the few in the class that actually stayed on campus – the others lived in the area, had friends who live din the area, or preferred the full comforts of a nearby motel. I roughed in one of residence units. I brought breakfasts, snacks, & suppers for the stay. Without a car eating off campus wasn’t going to happen & what fast food there was closed at 4. I wasn’t rushing to hit Tim’s before they closed just to get a bagel.
Over the years I attended I brought chapters from my various nanowrimo novels Lazarus Kiss, Coal Dusters & Picture Perfect. Feed back was productive & when I got to doing edits of those novels I incorporated many of the suggestions. Asking for feedback on sections that appeared at say, the 100 page mark, in a novel did present the challenge of context – some fellow work-shoppers realized what wasn’t explained was probably already explained – other floundered not being able to make that leap. I did include a very brief recap one year.
The biggest thing I learned was that, to me, the writing is more important that publishing – one attender was dismayed they had to sacrifice their dream project after good a start because they couldn’t find a market for it – clearly the dream was the market not the project. Others discovered that once published they spent so much time on promo that they had no time write anything new.
I hope the follower who asked what we did isn’t disappointed to find out there were no blood offerings to the moon.
The Reparation Room
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he acted as if I owed him something
for the way he was treated as a child
by someone I didn’t know
in a city I’ve never been in
because I was old white guy
I was the one to blame
I was the one who had to dig down
to make it up to him
money wasn’t going to cut it
he wanted to see me hurt
as much as he had been hurt
there was no way to defuse this anger
to step back from the situation
no way was I capable of making him feel whole
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was the trade off
the memory of his pain
in return for the memory
of the pain he might inflict upon me
how many times
would he have to seek this opportunity
how many times would he have to strike out
before he realized causing pain
never removes the pain one feels
making me hurt as much as he hurts
won’t change his hurt
might numb him to it for a moment
then he’ll have to live with what he’s done
what he feels compelled to keep on doing
making me hurt as much as he hurts
won’t change his hurt
might numb him to it for a moment
then he’ll have to live with what he’s done
what he feels compelled to keep on doing
hitting out spitting out taking it out
till it would finally consume him
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I don’t know how to lead him out of this cage
can’t tell him he’s a slave
to a problem I didn’t cause
I refuse to be held responsible for it
yet cannot deny his right
to seek some sort of reparation
for his past
I’m not the one to apologize
not the one to pull out my wallet to pay him off
I have to witness his struggle
acknowledge it
know that I can’t undo
what has been done
try not to add to it in any way
but it seems no matter what I do
I add to it
just being present brings it all back to him
not being present
seems to him like I’m hiding out of guilt
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neither of us can leave the room
sweet, eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
TOpoet 