Four Noble Truths for Write Now Workshops

Here is a short statement of the principles that guide the workshops I conduct. Please read this over carefully before you decide whether this is the kind of workshop that will work best for you. I always discuss these principles one-on-one with anyone seeking entrance into one of my groups, because I have made a commitment to the group to provide what I've said I will be providing--which is, essentially, a safe and creative environment in which to develop writing skills. The other posts on this blog address related issues, but this one provides the core of my method.

1. No You Turns

A. We don't give advice, make suggestions, to try to clarify first-draft work: we never say, "what you need to do here is . . ."

B. We focus on the writing, not the personal life of the author. We don't respond to a reading by offering personal remarks such as "I'm sorry your dog died," or "How did you feel when he said that?" Or imagine, for instance, that I were to write a comic piece on how much trouble I can have making coffee in the morning before I'm fully awake and capable of counting to five accurately or remembering details like adding water to the tank. Please don't suggest that I should buy a coffeepot I can set up the night before. The coffeepot is not the issue. The writing is the issue.

C. Even when an author writes in the first person, we refer to the speaking voice of the piece as the narrator not as you. As authors, we must create speaking voices for anything we write, even straight non-fiction work. In the vocabulary of literary criticism, this created voice is called the narrator or the speaker. Similarly, if a first-person narrator speaks about "my mother," we refer to the mother character not your mother. These conventions of literary criticism do more than protect our privacy. They also draw everyone's attention to the fine points of craft whereby a speaking voice or a character comes to life on the page.

2. Writing Stays on the Page

A. Honor confidentiality. Do not discuss either the form or the content of anyone's writing with anyone--with anyone--outside the group. Even if you do so without naming the author, information can combine with other information and then leap to unexpected places. It's a small world out there, and the internet makes it smaller yet. Violations of confidentiality can set off the equivalent of nuclear weapons in people's lives.

B. We assume that everything anyone writes is fictional. It's made up. It's entirely made up. It's not true of the author personally, nor are the characters real people in the author's life. Assuming that an author's work is biographically factual is fabulously naive--but remarkably commonplace. Novelists complain about this all the time. Assuming that work is personally "true" violates the author's privacy and her personal boundaries. Unless we are maintain the presumption of fictionalty, we are apt to damage the delicate, circuitous path whereby we find our way into the imaginative territory of our own most powerful writing. Literary forms serve (among other things) to contain or set healthy limits to extraordinarily deep feelings. Assuming that everything is fiction will help all of us to write "down to the bones" without feeling that we are getting drawn into complicated, messy, dishonest, or distorted revelations of what somebody may think is our personal life.

This is a writing workshop. We are not a therapy group, although writing can be healing. We are not a support group, although we do support one another. This is not like conversation among friends over lunch, although we do become friends. We are here together as writers--as poietes, which in Greek means "one who makes things up." All of us have friends with whom we can talk freely about our personal lives. We are here together to do something far more rare and difficult to find: to be present to one another as writers. We do that best when the writing stays on the page.

3. Hear What Works

A. In this workshop we learn from our successes, not our failures, from our inspired moments, not our fumbling ones. "Learning from mistakes" can be very efficient if you are memorizing the multiplication tables or irregular verbs in French. But it's not how writers develop craft. Writers know--or soon discover--that it's easier to go from second-rate work to first-rate work than it is to go from a blank page to anything. Our first task, then, is to get something down on the page--and to get there however we can.

First drafts are like seedlings: they are fragile; and who knows what they will grow into given enough time and care. There is a midrash that says every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, urging, "grow! grow!" We come together as writers to be that sort of angel for one another--to bless the thin green blades of new work. We identify what is strong or good or memorable about a piece of writing. That's all. It's a powerful way to learn craft and to develop voice.

This also means that you will asked to learn how to offer praise and how to accept praise. This may be disconcerting for some people. It can also be remarkably healing, especially if you have ghosts of abusive teachers hovering over your keyboard from time to time.

B. You will also be asked to do something far more difficult than finding fault or giving critical, opinionated advice. You will be asked to learn how to recognize what works. What works--what works really well--tends to be invisible, to hide behind the fact that its looks effortless or natural or inevitable. Success is none of those things. Recognizing success teaches craftsmanship in a remarkably direct and energizing way. I've taught writing in a variety of situations since 19973, and nothing that I have ever tried has evoked such rapid development in straight out-and-out craftsmanship.

4. Conserve Energy

A. The point of these in-class writing exercises is to stretch and flex the creative process and to get some supportive feedback so quickly that the voices of inner doubt and editorial damnation can't get a work in edgewise. We are here to play with words, to discover and to rediscover that writing is great fun. If we discuss our writing exercises with one another during the break, we dissipate into social exchange the energy we need to be directing toward the page. Discussing writing exercises during the break may also tempt everyone into violations of privacy and personal boundaries. The value of this requirement may only be apparent after a few weeks have gone by.

B. In parallel fashion, please listen silently when your writing is discussed by the group. Remaining silent helps attention stay on the page, away from you personally, so please do not try to explain what you were getting at. Do not feel you have to thank each person for the praise they offer. Just listen. Save your energy for continuing your work on this piece later on. We can get off-track quite a ways when people start trying to explain what they meant rather than letting the rest of struggle with our richly different perceptions of what we heard. Writers in touch with their own deepest creativity can say something quite a bit richer than they "intended" to say. And listening to others try to figure out what you meant can provide remarkable insight--insight you would never attain if you jumped in to explain yourself. It's a fascinating process.

C. Please don't respond to a story someone tells by telling an anecdote of your own. Please don't explain your response to what someone reads by launching into some explanation of your own prior experience or personal history. If we were discussing a Shakespeare sonnet in an English class, no one would say, "I like the images of aging in this piece because it reminds me of my grandfather, who . . ." and then launch into some account of the grandfather. In a college literature class, everyone's attention stays on the text. So also with us. In community-based memoir-writing groups, it's very common for people to use the writing as a foundation for interpersonal relationship-building and self-disclosure. There's a place for such groups. But that's not what we are about. We are here for the writing and for one another as writers.

On the other hand, please do note the urge to tell your own anecdotes or to reflect aloud on your own prior experience. Take a note to yourself: "I need to write about the time when . . ." Stories in any form naturally elicit story-ideas in others: take this gift and conserve it for your writing. Being aware of the full range of your responses to a piece can make the workshop a richer experience for you. That's not at odds with being appropriate in your comments in class.

D. Please arrive on time: it's distracting when someone walks in amidst our centering exercise or amidst the writing time that follows. Please don't miss class casually: it really does matter to everyone when you are not here. We are an intentional community, and that demands a certain level of commitment from everyone. The ordinary chaos of our other responsibilities already introduces a certain level of instability: let's not add to that! If something has come up and you can't come, I always appreciate a phone call or, if it's after 9 pm, an email. You will get my land line and my cell phone with the class list.

I look forward to discussing these principles with you and to hearing about what kind of writing you are doing or hope to do.