An Ideal Writing Workshop Member

All art is connected on some level. All humans, too, are connected in minute and major ways if only we pay attention to each other. My initial goal was to unite creative writers in my living room who'd form a loose literary chain gang, with the sole purpose of nurturing and uplifting the person sitting next to them.

I've written on this blog about how I formed Morningside Writers Group, so need to revisit it. This post is to lay bare the disappointment and in other instances, anger, I feel after a workshop participant bails on the group ceremoniously or whimpers out like a deflated balloon. Past members have had to choose between their spouses, family, or friends who didn't believe in and support their creative journey toward personal fulfillment, or prior to the ease and prevalence of POD publishers, navigating the traditional obstacle course of agents, editors, and mainstream book publishers that might result in publishing a short story collection or novel.

Writing workshops are for mature, responsible individuals who need a creative community to lean on, learn from, to co-teach, and be held accountable. Writing workshops aren't for clichéd people who believe they'll find publishing success, dead or alive, at the bottom of a shot glass or beer bottle. Drunken and drugged out artists and writers are wretched stereotypes.

Writing workshops aren't social or civic clubs. Writing is an individual pursuit, even when collaborating with others. In those instances, each team member has to know who they are, what they're writing, and most important - why they're writing. If it's for instant fame and celebrity, that fool will soon be disillusioned. Writing workshops aren't group therapy sessions or places to idle away free time after work or on the weekends. 

Before applying to a writing workshop, not a how-to writing class, a person should have a body of work as would a photographer, painter, or sculptor.

Writers create and recreate worlds on the page and screen, similar to a photographer closing a camera's shutter at the right moment to capture an image that existed then. Writing is a snapshot, a moment when an individual is open to the invisible and seemingly impossible.

An ideal writing workshop member is an avid reader across several genres who specializes in at least one. S/he is an expert or soon becomes on the inner workings and window dressings of literary or commercial fiction, screenwriting, or personal essays. My on-the-job training and process as founder and moderator, while not perfect, has worked for the last seven years. I strive weekly to improve and strengthen the mission statement so that Morningside Writers Group remains relevant for those seriously pursuing publication and production.

I'm hopeful each time I read a promising application, optimistic during the first few weeks of a new member's acceptance and joining, and temporarily saddened when a participant (a) flakes out (b) stops producing quality writing (c) habitually late submitting work for discussion (d) disrespect others in the group or (e) realizes s/he lacks the discipline and drive to publish.

It angers me when a participant in a cowardly move, sends an e-mail resignation rather than have the decency to (a) discuss concerns in person or on the phone or (b) try to negotiate realistic changes if need be. This strikes at my core and goes against the foundation of the workshop. Despite the mistaken notion that a departure isn't personal, it is. I wonder if the person's is telling the truth for their resignation, and if there was anything I could have done to salvage the membership. I know that everyone doesn't feel the same about the workshop as I do, but please have respect for fellow workshop members who've invested countless hours reading, marking-up, and preparing discussion notes for a submission. The defector is bailing on the entire workshop roster, not just me. I'm the glue that holds everything together. I've developed a thicker skin in latter years and am able to rebound faster than some others.

No self-respecting person wants to have coffee, send submissions for feedback, or hangout after such cowardice. Wasn't that the initial reason you applied for and later joined the writing workshop?

A workshop is in service of the majority, not one or two misguided snobs who want the majority to tailor to their whims. I've never done well with cliques, and abhor prejudice and discrimination. My creative DNA is comprised of inclusion, not exclusion based on different writing genres or creative outlets. Why then would I create an elitist workshop, application requirements notwithstanding?

I'm overdue to step off the merry-go-round and devote more time to writing and submitting, and less as a wet-nurse to those that are careless and insensitive. My biggest challenge is that I'm a mentor and rescuer, but I must modify my behavior to ensure I that I, too, achieve my multi-book publishing goals. Family and friends have warned me that I'm a glutton for punishment, taking in doe-eyed strays I'd be better off passing by. I've been told I need to become a bit selfish, and put my creative writing and directing pursuits first, and everyone would follow my lead. I'm not currently built that way. I must find a healthy compromise.

How do you deal with the crazymakers in your creative life? I'd love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Writing Workshop Interns

Morningside Writers Group seeks two P/T on-site intern for administrative, workshop, website tasks, and branding. We are seeking two interns for easy access to on-site administrative meetings and errands. An intern on the Upper West and an intern for the Midtown workshop space.

The ideal applicants have a minimum of 7 hours, maximum of 10, weekly to help the founder/moderator in person on the Upper West Side near home and in the Midtown workshop space, electronically, and over the phone. Tasks may include group scheduling, bookkeeping, Xeroxing, writing and responding to e-mail inquiries, soliciting/interacting with monthly columnists, and administrative needs as they arise.

We could offer writing mentoring or editing if the potential candidate is an aspiring writer (fiction, memoir, screenwriting, or spec fiction/sci-fi) but the administrative, marketing, and branding tasks are essential above all else.

Please send a brief cover letter, résumé, and why you'd be interested in working as an intern to MWG Assistant. There's an opportunity to earn a stipend for ad sales and placement.

Summer and Fall Writing Workshops

Morningside Writers Group offers flexible and affordable 12, 16, or 24 workshop sessions for writers of literary fiction, mass market fiction, speculative/horror/fantasy genre fiction, creative nonfiction/memoir, stage/screen/TV.

Writers interested in our fiction workshop, apply here.

Writers interested in our returning adult/stage II fiction workshop, apply here.

Writers interested in our creative nonfiction/memoir workshop, apply here.

Writers interested in our screenwriting/playwriting/TV pilot workshop, apply here.

The main purpose of the group is to provide necessary feedback to other writers prior to submitting to editors, agents, publishers, and contests. We are most interested in helping each other further writing careers.

Morningside Writers Group is listed among other regional writing groups, writing centers, and workshops that offers alternatives to a full time MFA degree program in the April 2009 Cover Story in the Writer Magazine, The L Magazine, and most recently in Time Out New York.



Read it! timeoutnewyork.com

Writing House Built on Solid Ground

Morningside Writers Group has changed over the years, and so have I as its founder and moderator. The idea was borne out of frustration because I didn't feel comfortable in what I call puppy mill writing classes and workshops. It's similar K-12 education of one teacher and [too] many students. Creative people, in order to be successful, need a smaller moderator to workshop participant ratio. 

Successful athletes and sports teams have specialized coaches for hitting, serving, and fitness. Why then shouldn't writers and other creative artists have an intimate setting to develop and hone their craft? 

That was and continues to be my motivation for Morningside. I complained years ago to my mother about not having a creative community to join, and in her own loving and direct way said, "Stop complaining, create your own." I did that after a few bumps and scrapes, temporary public embarrassments, and home-schooling myself on the better points of establishing mobile creative communities. 

Each year presents a new challenge, whether it's too many women in a particular workshop, or a writer violating the nondisclosure agreement and sharing a participant's work with a non-member. There are no how-to books for an urban workshop because it comes down to individual talent, focus, and goals. If a writer wants to get published, self-published or the traditional route, s/he will do so. 

My biggest complaint past and present is noncommittal writers who have the notion to write, but lack the determination to sit, stand, or lounge daily with their writing pad or laptop. Equally troubling is that some are talented writers, but are too easily distracted by the daily hiccups that happen in life. 

Is it too lofty a request that workshop participants carve out half the time I devote to keeping Morningside operating smoothly, sometimes to the detriment of my own writing? The cliché, "If you build it, they will come," is different for me. I have built a writing workshop on solid ground, but few have the self-discipline to sustain themselves and their writing for more than a few months.  I have built it, and the majority walk through the front door and out of the back door to parts unknown. Some have had undisclosed medical or mental challenges, were married and started a family, and in one bizarre instance a jealous spouse who gave her husband an ultimatum -- It's them or me. Imagine.

I've thought about hanging up my moderator's baseball cap and relocating to upstate New York or out of the country to Salamanca, Spain, bug-eyed, writing successive manuscripts and screenplays, but I can't isolate myself. I was meant to found Morningside Writers Group in New York City, and we've had decent success with a few writers going on to MFA programs, book deals, and publication.

What I now want from all current participants and potential applicants is for them to stand in their full length bathroom or hallway mirror and ask: "Do I have what it takes to participate in a writing workshop weekly, monthly, and yearly?" 

Or thinking back to an old interview with Glenn Ford on the Merv Griffin show when asked for advice for aspiring actors, he said, "Take a writing pad, pen, and a flashlight, lock yourself in a closet for two hours. On that pad write anything and everything you could be if you couldn't be an actor. If at the end of those two hours there's anything on your pad, go do it, because you don't have the dedication it takes to be an actor." 

I'd offer the same advice. What's on your writing pad after two hours locked in a closet? Do you have the discipline and dedication it takes to be a writer?

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Anatomy of a Successful Writing Workshop

When I first decided to organize a critique workshop, I didn't know heads or tails about forming a group in the publishing capital of the world. What did I know about interviewing and screening potential workshop members without insights into human nature, psychology, or human resources training?

I'd reached the point in my life when I had transitioned from auditioning, cattle calls, and acting to other. I'd been in collaborative creative environments as an actor, the school band, member of the glee club, and probably thought I'd always rely on others to initiate a project. 

My earliest writing was personal, not meant for public eyes and scrutiny. I read and wanted to work through the Artist's Way, but I was terrified to go to those spiritual and emotional places the author suggested for deeper writing that would unleash a waterfall of creativity and connection or reconnection to the universe and/or a higher power. My foundation was biblical, not touchy feely, writing letters to myself or to those who I felt wronged me and blocked my creative path. The book would require lowering and eventually removing my actor's masks.  

The original goal was to a create a collaborative writing workshop to improve my writing and eventually find an agent and get published. It was easiest to plan a screenwriting and playwriting group back then. Fiction was an unmanageable beast. Writing for the stage or screen was more direct and second nature for me. I thought it was similar to being a carpenter and stage manager.  

I can't recall now how I recruited the various would-be, never would-be, and promising writers. I remember my small living room filled with bodies in folding chairs, squeezed onto the loveseat, snacks on the coffee table, and the mess the participants left in their wake. On second thought, I most likely recruited people from the last few plays and independent films I appeared in or worked on. Most meetings were held in my apartment until folks began complaining about traveling to the Upper West Side. The fair thing to do was alternate among members' homes or office conference rooms, which later proved problematic not only because of the trek to the outer reaches of Brooklyn or Queens, plus all weren't committed and would show up. 

I felt something was missing. But what could it be? Was I getting in over my head? Should there be more structure? Should I separate the genres into different groups? Should there be safe words and boundaries as there are in therapy or in a dimly-lit room of pleasure and pain? I dismissed these questions as soon I registered them. I didn't want to tip the already shaky canoe.

I didn't know how I would proceed, but I did. I knew on some level that I should stick with it one day at a time. Morningside Writers Group felt right in my bones. I named the group because of my proximity to a once-derelict park that was being refurbished. What now seems symbolic didn't occur to me until years later. A novel or any other creative writing is a pile of leaves, branches, dried soil in need of watering, discarded syringes, and pill bottles. The city and park volunteers sorted and cleaned debris and restored Morningside Park. How many manuscripts begin the same way and are helped through a workshop process? 

The first year was bumpy and emotionally taxing, yet I pushed through the bad behavior, withdrawals, and need for organization and bylaws. Oftentimes I thought about walking away and strengthening my writing in solitude. Over successive months and years, I enrolled in several writing workshops, but none worked for me. I felt that I was on a factory conveyor belt. I kept coming back to my idea my idea of creating an intimate writing salon closer to my Southwestern sensibilities. 

To overcome the early false starts, I had to return to my stage acting core accustomed to research and script analysis. I looked for articles and books on critiquing, editing, copyediting, writing groups, and creative communities. The two books that stood out were Immediate Fiction and Writing Alone and With Others, and a series of technical, business, and creative PDFs.  

All research and theory don't make for an enduring and successful writing workshop. I'd have to put my findings into action with a new group of strangers who might not share my beliefs and publication goals. After I regrouped, the meetings were better because I knew things about myself, writing, and the applicants that I hadn't before. 

I set a bar of excellence that I'd have to achieve along with the others. I read everything I could get my hands on, subscribing to several mail-order bookclubs, literary, and writing magazines. I had to become a home-schooled literature professor in a matter of months, versed in popular and obscure fiction, scripts, and memoirs. I had to distinguish between mediocre, good, and excellent writing. I had to guide others toward more polished drafts. 
The writers would have to have a common set of protocol when evaluating manuscripts and offering constructive feedback. The writers would have to share a vocabulary and representation and publication goals.  

I had a huge learning curve because I took people and the application process too seriously. I had to become less of a father and scout leader, and more of a moderator and business owner. I had to overcome my fear of failure and plod through to the end of each new workshop until I found my footing. It was difficult to say no to unqualified candidates, and tougher still to read angry e-mails and forum postings afterward.

I'm a better moderator now because I developed a thick skin and focus on who and what matters, and ignore the petty stuff that only results in headaches and heartburn. If someone complains about not being accepted, I don't internalize and dwell on the attack. I've created multi-genre professional workshops and writing classes that have recurring yearly participants. Morningside isn't for everyone, and I've learned to live with that. It can't be all things to all people, and it shouldn't be.

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