Sunday 24 May 2015

Populating Fantasy Workshop

You know, I had all these visions of disaster about this coming workshop. It's my first workshop and while I have been to a few and so know the general structure of it, I was still a bit daunted. It all went really well, though. A great group of writers attended with a mix of skill levels from beginners to published authors. It was great to see the flow of ideas passing from person to person. People see writing as a solitary profession, but I think workshops and writing groups are the exception and while one author can create exceptional things, if you get a group of authors together the possibilities really are endless.

The workshop was a great success, but I don't think that was just down to me or my absolutely fantastic workshop planning. Don't tell anyone, but I actually bodged it together during my hour lunch break, two days before the workshop. Our little secret okay? I think, like most group activities, it succeeded because of the people who took part, so I really do thank those who attended for making it a great workshop.

I confess after I first offered to run a workshop, I did have thoughts of, 'am I really qualified to run a workshop?'  I mean I've had one novel published, yes, but I'm not Steven King or Terry Pratchett, who have bookshelves of novels to their name. What I took away from the workshop is that yes I am qualified to run a workshops. In fact, I think an author doesn't even need to be published to be qualified to run a workshop because all authors have different strengths and specialize in different areas. Even with a group of authors all on roughly the same level in their writing career, there is still a lot of variation; some may be great at editing, some at character development or world building. No two authors are the same and so there is always something to learn. If I took anything away from my first workshop it would be this.

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