“So … what’s your story?” The question Jim MacDonald posed to a great many of the students was exactly how my Viable Paradise experience began. And the double-entendre pretty much summed up my time at the exclusive week-long Science Fiction writers workshop – nothing is ever perfectly clear. Yet there were a few things that rang consistently true:
What’s Viable? We are … me … and my classmates …. And just to be clear, being viable and being validated are two totally different things. Being viable is counting yourself among the top to 2 to 3% of the slush. Being validated? It won’t happen. I’ll explain more as we go on.
Something else that was clear. In a week where there were so many lessons, so many moments, want to hear the greatest one of them all: Submit your work, dummy!
I’ve had several days to reflect on the experience that was Viable Paradise. I told several instructors as I left the Island (thanking every one of them for the lessons they imbued) that Viable Paradise is an educational, entertaining, and liberating experience.
I was clothed the entire time, but with manuscripts flying from one person to another and our work littering tables and posted to walls, each of us felt a bit naked. In fact, the night before I arrived, I couldn’t sleep, asking a lot of the same questions of myself that other classmates had. I was so nervous that I can count several occasions where I nearly threw up Sunday morning.
But by the end, we didn’t care about this nakedness. I didn’t care. We were relatively comfortable. We all just wanted to write, and we enjoyed the company of our fellow writers. At the end, it was time to go, but it was difficult to leave.
But we did leave, and I’m going to share a few highlights and then move on a bit because I need to get on to real writing:
My Livescribe
With over 18 hours of audio, what became affectionately known as the “spy pen” was the only way I could have survived the workshop and retained some of the necessary specifics about my stories and the lessons shared in lectures to make me a better writer.
For the last week and a half, I’ve been clutching to my Livescribe journal like it’s Tom Riddle’s diary. I can’t adequately tell you how much I love my Livescribe (though there were 15 minutes where I panicked and thought I’d lost everything).
No. I’m not sharing the audio with the public (specifics shared on the island, stay on the island), but if you’re a classmate and missed something, definitely drop me a note.
The Group Critiques (it’s you with five other writers and two professional instructors)
If you think you’re coming to get validated, turn around and go home. You’re just not going to get it here. All of the critiques serve as a lesson in subjectivity and how the reader’s life experience threads along or clashes with your story. Sure, there’s technical stuff, too, but the real difference between love and like was finding someone who identifies with your story (submit your work – and to several markets — dummy!).
Having said that, I felt like the feedback I received was pretty well-balanced. Though, to be honest, I haven’t gone back to the recordings yet.
Regardless, I submitted two stories to the workshop. If you go that route, know that you won’t get any more group critique time as a result. And anyone that was in my critique group may have felt I got short shrift. But I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as a blessing. Sending two stories helped me identify or confirm the most pressing patterns, themes and issues in my writing in general, not the specific story.
Lectures
The meat of the workshop. The instructors each have his or her own presentation style. And I felt all were effective in his or her own way.
Oh, who am I kidding? I ate it all up. Whether it was Jim MacDonald and Elizabeth Bear’s metaphors (I’ll never think about a train set or the idea of herding sheep the same way again), John Scalzi’s showmanship, Steven Gould’s conversational approach, Laura J. Mixon‘s professorial support with facts, or the anecdotal styles of Teresa, Patrick and Debra Doyle, it was all damned good stuff.
We discussed everything from narrative structures to personal finance for writers. And the sessions included some advice one might find a bit surprising. Some of the beauty of our time together was professional discord — not everyone has the fool-proof plan. As an example, John Scalzi doesn’t approach reviews of contemporaries the same way Elizabeth Bear does. In fact, discord was a recurring theme because a great many discoveries and stories can be found there.
Okay. I’m not saying anymore. Apply and you’ll get the good juice. Or, speaking of juice, buy me a drink and maybe I’ll share more.
One-on-ones
If you EXPECT the instructors are going to say, “Hey, I love this. Let me write you a check.”
Ummm. No. Go home.
Having said that, this was some of the most valuable time I spent at the workshop. How often does one get the opportunity to meet with editors Patrick Nielsen Hayden (PNH) and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (TNH), who work for one of the biggest and best scifi/fantasy publishing houses, and have them tell you what they enjoyed — and didn’t – with your stories. Not often.
At one point in commenting about my story Sacharrin’s Hypocrisy, Teresa mentioned all the positing I did of faith, God’s judgment and how I decided it should be doled out. I had to ask her whether she found it (or me for that matter) morally reprehensible or was complimenting the work. “No,” she said. “You ask questions of the reader. I think it has possibilities.”
Case in point on validation, Patrick had a different take on my work than Teresa. He favored my story Uncloaked Prophet, where Teresa didn’t particularly care for it as much. We spent about 30 minutes discussing how I could better my stories. After that, Patrick and I spent the remainder discussing the publishing industry, including such things as submitting to agents vs. publishers, the effects of electronic publishing and the inclusiveness of Tor.com. I could have picked his brain for days.
In all, even with as valuable as I thought the sessions were, I arranged only one more additional one-on-one. My final meeting was with Laura J. Mixon and was as equally meaningful as the discussions with Patrick and Teresa, but in some measure for different reasons. She and I discussed not only my writing, but also how I might be able to manage writing as the family breadwinner and father of two young children. Her sharing of her personal experiences in juggling family, career, and writing meant a great deal to me. I owe Laura a bottle of red.
The Staff
Three former VP graduates reliving the glory days? No. Try this. Three former VP graduates achieving sainthood by bending over backwards to make sure twenty-four students have a damned good time (as well as keeping them from committing a cardinal sin by drinking all their bourbon). Thanks Bart, Kate and Mac! If you ever make it into the workshop, give respect folks.
My classmates
Ahhh … the fighting XIII. How I miss them already.
People will surprise you, and sometimes in the most pleasant ways.
Whether they’re bringing you a glass of warm Irish whiskey to break the tension of an assignment, inviting you to breakfast on the last day so you can share in the last tidbits of wisdom and community shared in a discussion you missed the night before, or talking markets and battle scars, this was one of the most giving groups I’ve been around.
What’s infinitely human about my classmates was that, almost to a person, you could feel the empathy when someone’s face shed a tear, stretched into a smile, hung long with blank expression or scrunched in frustration because each of us had been there at one point during the week.
I made new friends sure, but I really cherished every discussion that included the varied life experiences of my classmates, regardless of whether I found myself fortunate or envious when drawing upon my own life. It was a joy to experience in everyone’s failures and successes. I hope the group has more continued successes than failures, but we know that won’t be the case because … submit your work – and to several markets — dummy!
If you want to follow some moments of Viable Paradise XIII, jump on twitter and search #vpxiii. You’ll get a sense of some of the feeling of the moment. But also, in the next several weeks, I’ll also highlight some of my classmates blogs because it’s been amazing to read their sometimes similar but often varied accounts of the workshop.
Happy writing, everyone!
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Well said, sir. I have to say, the sense of longing that I felt when VPXIII ended has been assuaged greatly by the continued online presence we seem to have established.
Remember when they told us that we were gonna be seeing each other over and over for the rest of our careers? I hope that’s true.
And I think it is true.
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Nice summary, dude.
The funniest thing about being identified by story title was when Mac was telling Jim McD. that George had arrived. His response: “George? Oh, right. Middle Aged Weirdo.” Which was the name of one of his stories, and not a value judgment. But pretty funny out of context. Or even in!