So, one of the nice things my school system does is to offer various workshops and seminars through a lovely Professional Day program. We sign up, get chosen to go by lottery, and then choose from a menu of wonderful offerings. If we are fortunate enough, we get what we want from that menu, and even if we don’t get our first choice, we still get to go for excellent seminars. I’ve gone for several workshops and seminars (many of them which offered me my first choice) over the past ten or more years, and every single one was satisfying to me as a teacher and as a student, because I always brought back ideas, both into my own personal practice of writing, and also into my professional practices as an English teacher.
I was fortunate this year, because I signed up for, and got to go to, a creative writing seminar with Michael Downing, author and Creative Writing Professor at Tufts University.
I missed the first Friday, because we had parent-teacher conferences. I went for the next two Fridays, and both were excellent. The focus was on Flash Fiction and Micro-Fiction. Mr. Downing gave excellent prompts, as well as deeply satisfying talks and feedback on the process of creative writing. I came away, feeling both inspired and somewhat overawed by the uphill slope I have to tackle as a writer.
I won’t go into all that here, however. I just wanted to say that I had such a good time, I wondered why I was not doing more writing. Yes, yes, I’ve written on my blog almost every day, except, oddly, for the past three weeks. However, I do need to get out there, and attend more workshops, create or join a Writing Group, meet with said group, give feedback, receive feedback, and read more.
I want to do all of this, as well as teach 8th Grade English, grade hundreds of papers, practice guitar, go on walks in the woods with family, cook, clean and be a good, home-schooling mom to my wonderful little nine-year old daughter, take her to swimming and dance class on the weekends, because my husband takes her everywhere else during the weekdays, while I’m teaching, and generally be upbeat and organized. Now, we’ll soon be adding a Standard Poodle pup to the mix, and I think I know I shall officially be the most distracted person on the planet, at least for a few weeks.
I’m upbeat, however. My problem is that I love doing all of those things. I love writing, I love teaching, I love being a mother, a musician, a housewife. (I could do without grading and other administrative tasks attendant upon that).
Choose! I can hear a disembodied voice saying to me.
But I don’t want to choose! I want to push the edges of the day in either direction, maybe add about four more hours to it, and have those hours book-end my writing.
Mmmm … that would be most satisfying.
(Shakes herself out of dream-state, and looks briskly around).
Right. Where were we?
Ah yes, the workshop. My next three posts will be the prompts that Michael Downing gave, and my two drafts of each of the three stories I wrote. Hope you enjoy them.
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