A Time to Write, Part 2

In retrospect, I had a valuable time at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival this last weekend. I say retrospect because while I was there, I wondered if I truly was benefiting from my time at the festival. It was so different from last year. Six sessions of workshop spread over six days compared to four sessions of workshop crammed into two. A very general brainstorming workshop versus a more specific genre workshop. Entire mornings and evenings to work on assignments compared to one evening and barely part of a morning. No expectations verses expectations.

And yet, as I continued to talk with my mom yesterday about my workshop, I realized that I did glean small nuggets from my workshop that should prove quite useful as I continue to grow as a writer. In fact, it is okay that I didn’t have monumental breakthroughs or learn all sorts of new things about writing anecdotes. So, here briefly, are some of those nuggets:

1. Anecdote is a slippery word to define. According to The American Heritage Dictionary, anecdote means “a short account of an interesting or humorous incident.” And yet, it can be hard to pin that word on a piece that you are reading or writing. Some anecdotes we read were one paragraph in length, others were three pages or so. Overall, I think an anecdote can best be summed up as a story you would tell a friend over the phone: “You’ll never believe what happened to me today!” Or a story you would share during family gatherings: “Do you remember the time when?” with perhaps a little or a lot more detail thrown in!

2. The spaghetti must be in the back of the boat, meaning, one must give enough clues in the first few paragraphs, so that the last paragraph or two are as powerful as can be. Set-up, set-up, set-up! The piece should be structured like an arch with secure beginning and ending points.

3. Sometimes one must write 30 words and then eliminate all or almost all of them in order to find the precise phrase to capture between the lines the word or description that is precisely right.

Attending the festival always reminds me of how much I love language. Here are a few of the phrases spoken/written by my fellow writers that stood out to me:

“beef fed Iowa boys”
“attitude short of beautiful”
“ghostly traces of my wisdom from yesterday”
“talking way too loudly about way too little”
“my kids may be sick, or my husband may be sick of my kids”

So, all in all, the weekend was different than I expected, but valuable and fun nonetheless. I had a great time with my mom. There were several instances when we just about died laughing recounting stories both from our growing up years and from the weekend itself. Mom loved her workshop, “The Art of the Interview,” and passed along all she was learning to me. She took me out for my birthday Saturday night to a wonderful Indian restaurant in Iowa City. And by wonderful, I mean that their naan was just a half point shy of being as good as the naan at India Star, which serves the best naan of any of the eight Indian restaurant I’ve been to!

Now that I am home again, the real work of the workshop begins. I began several pieces in my workshop that must now be developed and revised as I move them toward publication – even if it just means posting them here!