My First Writing Workshop!

 

It's been a tough summer here in Idaho. Weeks of triple-digit temperatures, wildfire smoke from northern Idaho, Oregon and California, and resulting Air Quality readings of 120 - 170. We started getting up at 7am to walk the dog before breakfast. It was too unpleasant outside after 9am. In July and August all I could do in the garden was water, trying to keep the plants alive.

Most of the plants survived, but my tomatoes were a disaster. They looked like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Only 8 tomatoes from four plants. The fruits turned a weird yellow and stalled-out mid-ripening. Last week I finally gave up on them and picked the fruits, but they haven't got any redder sitting on the kitchen counter. Blech.

And now, finally, it's mid-September. Autumn isn't officially here, and the oak tree hasn't started dropping acorns yet, but it's soooo much cooler! We've even had rain. No more racing the heat to walk the dog, but we'll keep doing it until the days get a lot shorter. It's nice to have time to sit with our coffee after breakfast, instead of jumping up to walk right away.

Another thing about September is we get much busier. Last night our band, The Acrasians, played for the first Boise contradance of the season. September is also traditionally time for the Boise Highland Games - or Scottish Festival, as they're calling it this year. That's next weekend. The band will be playing, and our Scottish Dance class will have a tent and do demonstrations.  It's a loooong day, but usually fun.

But! For me, the most exciting thing in September is I'm going to my first in-person writing conference! Five days of classes, one-on-one consultations, and lots of writing in between. This particular conference also includes pre and post conference 'homework'. You're expected to work hard, and my impression is there will be a lot of individual attention. Hopefully I'll make progress, and my work will be better for it.

I fly out to Virginia on Sept 24, and the conference begins Sept 25. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to post during the event. But I plan to make notes and write a daily diary of what we did, and what it was like.

So far, the pre-conference work has consisted of assigned reading, and various writing tasks. We've done a character study of our antagonist, writing about the novel's conflicts, setting, plot structure, etc. The most recent homework, Assignment 3, is to submit 3-4 pages from our opening chapter to the conference forum, so conference staff can read it and assess our writing beforehand. 

My main task today is preparing those 3-4 pages. I'm trying to decide between the opening scene with my protagonist, or the first scene with the antagonist, a pivotal event in his early life that put him on the path to becoming the dark, evil leader who causes so much conflict in the story. I'd better get on with it.