As to employment, well, I feel like it largely interferes with the things I really want to do. Unfortunately, the things I really want to do don’t pay so well. Why couldn’t I have a wild, uncontrollable need for database management? So much more practical.

Beth

Yeah, I guess if being unemployed didn’t come without a paycheck, there’d be a lot more people enjoying it!

As far as the Workshops:

The Dialog Workshop is a weekly workshop. You bring up to 250 words of your own dialog. So yes, you can bring anything, new or previously-written.

The month-long Workshops have bi-weekly assignments, which are intended to be written that week as practice in learning how to write those particular aspects of fiction.

The Grim Reaper Workshop is the exception—in that one you work on previously-written material, practicing identifying and cutting different aspects of your own work.

Only the Critical Life Workshop Laboratory requires no writing at all. I’m setting that one up to be practice critiquing on provided pieces—a real lab. That way you just learn to critique, and no feelings get hurt if you don’t get it right the first time, which keeps the pressure off. I will teach the Golden Rules of accepting critiques and model the correct way to accept them, so you’ll know how it’s done. But that’s something you can practice anywhere with anybody.

Victoria

I read on the dialogue link that we will be assigned writing projects? Is it also possible to use material already written?

I’m glad there are helpful people like you who are willing to assist clueless people like me figure out how all this works.

Beth

I’m planning the Workshops one month at a time, right now. I will know better by September what the demand is for specific Workshops and will update the Workshops page with October Workshops then.

Hi Beth,

You can sign up for all Workshops the same way: through the sign up link and link to PayPal at the bottom of the Workshops page. The red hyperlinks just lead to the blog posts in which those Workshops were originally proposed.

The $10 Workshops run every week, not just August 31st through September 25th. Those dates refer to the $80 month-long Workshops. At this point, none of the month-long September Workshops are full. If you let me know which of the weekly Workshops you’re interested in and what weeks you’d like to take them, I can let you know about availability.

I would recommend you sign up for email rather than IM for the first weekly Workshop, if those are the ones you’re interested in, because of your schedule situation right now. Although of course it’s up to you.

The full month-long Workshops all operate over email because they take me longer than an hour a week.

Good luck with the job interview!

best,
Victoria

Additionally, my availability is rather uncertain. I am currently unemployed, but I have a job interview tomorrow, and I could have other interviews in the near future. That could come to nothing, or it could mean that my daytime availability will be suddenly eliminated at some date I can’t know. If I sign up for the email workshop, that means that commentary will be disbursed on all sides at various times throughout the period of one week? I would prefer to participate in the hour-long IM workshops, but if I were to start a new job, I wouldn’t be able to do that. If I initially sign up for the IM workshop and then I am unable to attend, can I change to the email workshop later?

Thanks!

Thanks, BTW, for getting back to me so fast.

Sharon

We do the workshops over email. I send out a Welcome the first day with an assignment and then return assignments and send new assignments every Monday and Thursday. You’re welcome to discuss assignments with other participants through reply-all as you work on them.

The Critical Life Workshop Laboratory runs August 31 through September 25.

We’ve had fun with the August Workshops!

Victoria

Sharon