How Introverts Survive Writing Workshops - and Matthew Goodman

Last week, I was able to attend the Antioch Writer's Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. 

It lasted seven days, and most days ran from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. with only breaks for lunch and dinner. By Saturday night, I was used up. Introverts need down time - quiet to recharge. This workshop was not designed for introverts, although there were many of us there feeling the same way.

By the end of the week, I had bonded with the introverts (and the extroverts and a really interesting Benedictine Monk). Most of the introverts had come to the same conclusion I came to by day three - skip what can be skipped to provide a needed break from people and take refuge in a classroom during that time and hope that no one come in talking.

I skipped the morning poetry session because I'm not much of one anyway, and it was very interactive despite the fact there were close to 200 people in the auditorium.

What I didn't skip was an incredible series by Matthew Goodman, author of Eighty Days. He did a talk on creative non-fiction that has inspired me to write essays or a longer piece about my experience uncovering my family's past while doing the research for my novels.

Matthew was an incredible teacher and speaker - and didn't restrict his lectures to non-fiction.  Pretty much everything he had to say was relevant to fiction as well and was more helpful to me than the fiction classes. Of the whole workshop, his lectures are the ones that will stick with me. (Plus I got the opportunity to talk to him about the research I'm doing for my novel.)

He got a well-deserved standing ovation on the final day. Here's is his author page if you are interested. If you get a chance to hear him talk, do it.

At Antioch Writer's Workshop for the Week

I'm at my first writer's workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Before I tell you about it, let me preface it by saying I am an introvert. I make no apologies for it; there's nothing wrong with me. I get my energy from quiet. I literally require short spans of quiet to function normally. It keeps the skin on my neck from blotching out.

One problem with this workshop is there's no acknowledgment that some people (quite likely half, actually) need a few minutes of quiet here and there. I survived something like 12 hours of pretty much non-stop human interaction yesterday, but it wasn't easy, and I'm wiped out today because of it.

I'm not just an introvert - I'm also claustrophobic and so short that being in a room full of people makes me feel like I'm suffocating in their armpits.

So I'm hanging out in the lobby wishing the other people in the lobby would get the *$%k out. Can't they see I'm breathing here?

The great things about the workshop are:

1. I've already collected a new cast of characters for future stories.
2. The keynote speech by Andre Dubus III was very entertaining.
3. My hotel does not have bedbugs (that I know of).
4. I only got lost once but felt completely comfortable walking up to a man in his backyard who was hanging out with his chickens and his children - he got me back on my way. I seriously need GPS - not that it would have worked here. I am in farm country.

Next post: It's time to acknowledge there's more than one way to write a book. (Or whatever rant is on my mind at the moment I write it.)