Viable Paradise Retrospective

Like today's Mood Kyrie, I feel like I've been twisting every which way trying to catch up and get ahead with life after I came back from Viable Paradise 2010--was it only three weeks ago? Wow. It seems like months! Anyhow, I figure I should get my memories down before they get pushed out by worries, puppies, and to-do lists.

First off, I can't possibly recommend this workshop enough to any aspiring fantasy or science fiction writer. Heck, you could probably write chick lit or horror or mysteries and you would STILL get a ton of useful information out of a week with these brilliant people. I'm one of those writers with a large library of writing resource books, and some of the topics I was familiar with from those, or blogs, or forums. But in all cases, having an interactive discussion with a published author about them jogged my memory and caused me to internalize the techniques and subjects faster than I would have otherwise. I came out of this a lot more solid on my basics and with a greater overall conceptualization of how fiction hangs together and what being a writer means in today's world.

For me probably the most useful event was the one-on-one sessions, where pro authors and editors go over your work and point out the stupid stuff you somehow put in there and the things that didn't quite suck so much. You're assigned two instructors and can make appointments with as many others as you would like during the course of the workshop. You also get critiqued by five of your fellow students (and of course you're free to nab a bunch of the rest of them to get more if you would like!).

One of my instructor critiques was with goddess-editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden (click here for the lovely blog she and her husband Patrick write). I would honestly probably have paid an additional $500 just to have a couple more hours with Teresa one-on-one. In our hour-long session she took up her editorial pen and went over my manuscript line by line, explaining what she was doing as she went.

I swear, it was like someone just handed me the Holy Grail. All the little weaknesses in my writing sat up waving little neon signs saying "fix this here!" After that session, everyone else in the workshop could have hated my story, but it wouldn't have mattered one bit to me. It wasn't that Teresa said she loved my story. I didn't go in there looking for affirmation; this isn't a workshop you would ever take if that's what you wanted. She did say it was a weird little thing and that if I was going to write like this, she was at least going to show me how to do it right! But the real point is that the lightbulb went on in my head. She showed me exactly where my writing was, and the potential it had for improvement, in a clear, concise way that really hit me.

Of course, to other people, it probably just looks like scribbles on a page of type. But honestly, trust me here. It was abso-frikkin-amazing. I'm going to frame this thing.

So that was my favorite part of the workshop. Other highlights included John Scalzi's talk on managing money as a writer (don't quit your day job, folks), Laura Mixon's lecture on how to keep inspiration coming, and the three days of lovely warm rain we started off with, which made it so much easier to kick back with a hot espresso indoors and work on writing assignments.

I'd like to thank all the VP instructors and staff, and my classmates, for such a wonderful experience. I hope that I'll get an opportunity to run into many of you in the future. Though hopefully not in jail. Or in a cage on an alien ship. Or in a post-WWIII concentration camp for writers. Let's think positively: I'd much, much rather run into you at the World Fantasy Awards, when some of us are on the ballot. ;)

Good luck...and now it's time to crash back into the 2010 NaNoWriMo novel effort! Ciao!