Day 3: Sprinting

lizshine74by lizshine74

In On writing.

Okay, this is the pattern that has emerged, so I’m going with it. Though it’s now Tuesday, I’ll talk about Monday. And, so on. ☺
Day 3 (Monday):
I woke up early so that I’d have time to practice yoga and write some. I was glad I did this, because the day sprinted away from me from there and I didn’t catch up ‘til 11 PM, when I was wonderfully relaxed (okay, so this may have had something to do with the two Mac ‘n Jacks) and hopeful that I might finally get a good night’s sleep despite the not-so-comfy (understatement) dorm beds.
What did I do all day?

Kent Meyers spoke at a morning meeting on critique. He said many things that resonated with me. I found myself jotting down direct quotations as he spoke, but I think the line that captures the heart of his talk is this advice on critique: “You take it as a kind of creative pressure.”

After the morning meeting, I had just enough time to grab a double tall soy latte before the first of the week’s workshops. These are the sessions in which my peers critique each other’s work with the guidance of two faculty members. I was happy with how this went. My work was not up for critique, so that certainly helped my comfort level, but the group was refreshingly gentle and constructive. I think plain-spoken criticism is usually less successful in groups than it is one-on-one.
All right…it’s almost breakfast, so I’m going to pick this up a bit, though I have a feeling the next entry is going to be a long one…
I attended two classes. The first was a dialogue class with Ann Pancake, from which I took away some nuggets of good advice, the kind you need to keep hearing and hearing and hearing and a few exercises that I will probably adapt and use in my creative writing class this coming school year. (Yes, I’m pilfering lesson plans…) She strongly praised the book Making Shapely Fiction, which I plan to check out.
The second class was a short-short story class with Jess Walter. Walter is funny and unpretentious, which made this class engaging and relaxed. He challenged us to write the “best” short-short and email it to him by Friday for a chance to win–$10 in dining money here at the campus cafeteria.

From there I went to a graduate presentation of a critical paper, dinner, then another great reading by Lia Purpura, Gary Ferguson, and Brent Spencer, then to a bar/coffee shop where the student were gathering for snacks and drinks.

I promise the next entry will have more-more-more and a taste of the results of my attempt at the shor-short challenge.

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.