Writing Workshops are way fun
Hit the writing workshop with Kwame Dawes this morning at the National Library and Archives. Workshops are usually pretty entertaining; they throw you out of your comfort zone, and I usually find that there's always one exercise I just can't do, but I do enjoy being stretched.
This workshop was particularly interesting because I think most of the participants were there because of a connection with Kwame, maybe more so than because they were writers. It was a very homey sort of affair, including the fruit, Carribbean food, and coffee brought in by the organizers, and there was a large sense of a shared cultural connection: almost everyone there was in some way connected with the Carribbean. It's certainly the first workshop I've been to where any of the particpants wrote in Jamaican patois.
Like a lot of workshops I've attended, there were a lot of people who said things like, "I've never really written creatively before, but I like to read and I want to try writing." And there were a couple of people who described themselves as writers, and a couple of people who had been writers long ago and for whatever reason had stopped. As a workshop leader, I don't know if I'd know exactly how to tackle a disparate group like that, but Kwame seemed to do a really good job of explaining things so that someone who'd never thought about narrative would understand, and those who were already fiction writers didn't get bored. I think
Stuart Ross, who occasionally comes through town with his Poetry Boot Camps, gets a very similar demographic, or at least he did at the Boot Camp I attended a year or so ago.
I think the poetry exercise daunted a few of the non-poets in the room, but some of their work was very powerful, and Kwame made the point that what you write in an exercise like that tells you a lot about what you think a poem is, and that there is no correct answer to the question of what makes a poem. Which is probably the biggest stumbling block people have about poetry; they think they can't write it because it takes knowledge they don't have, while in fact poetry is so varied that you could justify almost anything as a poem if you thought enough about it.
And the first lesson for a workshop newbie? Get rid of the conception that everything a writer writes is something she's going to go anywhere with. I know far too many writers who say things like "I never edit anything," and "I only write when I'm inspired." The greatest lesson a workshop teaches you is that sometimes you have to play scales. Or do drills, or doodle. It's like a boxer skipping rope - he's not doing it so he can go on to become a champion skipper. He's doing it to build up his strength and his stamina. I think Kwame did a good job of making that point. He seems to compulsively speak in metaphors, which works really well with a group of beginning writers.
I wish there had been more time for the exercises, but given the time we had, there was a lot of writing and a lot of conversation; good questions from the participants, good conversations springing up between people at various stages of development as writers, and a lot of interesting cross-fertilization. In particular, I was happy to get some contacts made with Three Dreads and a Bald Head. Here's hoping we can work together.
And I'm wishing safe travel to Kwame as he heads back to South Carolina - I hear there are some massive storms on the East Coast U.S. Fingers crossed that he doesn't have to spend the night in D.C.
Posted by Kathryn Hunt
at 9:21 PM EST