From the Desk of a Rebellious Workshop Leader
The hard part, and the daily challenge, is in coaxing our stories out.
As a writer, I get my inspiration for stories from making curious prompts (like the prompts here in Pokrass Prompts) and I READ A LOT OF FLASH FICTION AND POETRY. I strongly feel (from my own personal experience) that by reading excellent stories and poetry one can learn everything they need to know about writing.
Over the last 14 years of writing flash fiction, I have learned a lot about the ‘how-to’s- of craft through osmosis, and yet I find that what matters the most when sitting down to write a story is forgetting everything I’ve learned 'intellectually' and plopping my sorry ass down, writing from the heart, and learning how, each and every time, to tell it my own way.
Collecting craft-of-writing books, which are EVERYWHERE these days, is great, and can be useful (please read them, they’re great, great tools) but it’s good to give yourself breaks from the active ‘learning mode’. The ‘how to’ stuff is great for a while, but not when it begins to fuel self-consciousness or a sense of saturation.
Then, I think, we need to step back, and remember why we wanted to be writers in the first place.. At which point, I think we need to plop our tired and overly stimulated selves down and simply…. write!
And truly: before I knew anything about 'craft' in flash, I was writing at top form because I was so passionate and excited about learning to trust my own voice.
And this is how I know that it is about learning to communicate who we are when we tell a story. It is not about learning writing techniques. I think this important to say right now, as everyone and their pet parakeet appears to be an expert in how to do it right now!
They live inside our dreams, loves, worries, and in each and every one of our childhoods.. If we figure out how to 'free' our voice, we've won the game. This is not easy, because creativity is a shy and easily discouraged creature. Coaxing our own voices (and our own way of telling a story) out is everything.
My quirky workshops (I teach a few every month) are places where writers can take risks and teach themselves how to do it again each and every time through assigned story models and word-prompts, and where they will always receive supportive instructor and peer feedback. I feed writers what they need to conquer the blank page each day and this, for many writers over the years, has proven successful. It is important to remember that EVERY FIRST DRAFT IS PERFECT, and that all it needs to do is exist! We need to stop being so hard on ourselves. My next workshop is in Surrealist Microfiction. Additionally, there are affordable 4-hour “Writeathons” coming up as well, co-led with the wonderful Lorette C. Luzajic, Founding Editor of the Ekphrastic Review!