For the next 10 days, I’m taking Kathy Fish’s famous ‘Fast Flash’ fiction writing workshop. Kathy is well known in the short fiction writing world and I’m ecstatic that I finally secured a spot.
Over the years I’ve taken a variety of writing classes and workshops but what drew me to this one is Kathy’s very positive, some might even say, ‘enlightened’ approach. Firstly, the workshop is generative in nature. You aren’t here to spend 10 days writing a single draft then pick it apart and revise it. Instead, she encourages attendees to write and submit assignments in a 24 hour turnaround. She also is well known for allowing only positive comments/feedback from other writers.
These two core ideas really create a positive, encouraging environment and in my case, are helping me revive some of the fun and joy of writing. I’m only two days – two flash fiction pieces – in so far but I’ve sat down and written each piece in less than an hour. Both were written with a smile. Definitely I will need to revise and redraft and nothing has been submitted or faced rejection yet (though doubtless that will come.)
The important part for me is the feeling of joy, of playfulness, of delight. The feeling – long forgotten – that I used to have frequently while writing. I started writing as a child and I have loved it my entire life. I love word play and poetry. I love the musicality of words. I love story.
But somewhere along the way, writing became serious, emotional, difficult. My writing started being judged, started being about more than the writing. Writing must be about more than the writing. The words, sentences, paragraphs, stories must add up to more than just words on a page, a nice event recorded.
It can and, in my opinion, should also be joyful, delightful, quirky and strange. It should be exploratory and meandering. It should shout and murmur, it should whisper and sing.
I’d forgotten that in the struggle to escape the slush. But now I’ve remembered and I’m ready to return to that kind of writing, the fun and whimsical, the fantastical and delightful, to let the story tell itself through me, to let the story carry me away.
Oh, I like the sound of that workshop and can’t wait to read your flash fiction!