Workshopping, finally

I haven't workshopped my writing since 2001. That was the year I did two classes at the Gotham Writers Workshop in New York. (In fact, while killing a few minutes before one such workshop, I ran into an old music biz/college friend, and yadda yadda yadda, within a month I was working at S&S Children's; thanks, Detroit*.) I found that experience to be at times horrible and useless, but very often invaluable. In fact, it's safe to say that my first instructor at GWW, one Alex Steele, was one of the three most important--how shall I put this?--cattle prods in my writing career. He was a big fan of some of the earliest scenes in |-1|, and without his confidence in the piece, I don't know I ever would have written even the novella it was this time last year.

I digress. The point is, been a long time since I was active in a workshop, but now it's on: I've just begun the Advanced Fiction Workshop at the Loft, and, no offense to Brian Farrey, I'm glad I ended up "stuck" in this class, rather than BF's "Better Writing through Buffy." That class sounded hell of fun, but probably would not have been quite the swift kick YA MS the Third really needs.

Already the workshop has been helpful. In selecting the 6500-word section I want to submit (I volunteered to submit next week, essentially right away), I determined that the wrong 25 pages are right now the first 25 pages, and the 25 pages I chose for the workshop should be the first 25 pages. Already a win. Oh, plus the first story we read was Kelly Link's "Stone Animals," which, swoon.

*My old friend's name is not actually Detroit. Detroit is simply what a particular mispronunciation of her name sort of sounds like, but not really.

New favorite show

A rare Saturday update! All right, a rare update in general.

Just got done with lunch at Good Earth. Yes, a late lunch. Anyway, our waiter was Chad* again, if you can believe that, and he convinced me easily enough to get the turkey sandwich special, which was on oat cranberry bread, with provolone cheese and granny smith apple slices. I recommend it. Not sure it was quite as good as the similar sandwich once served at St. Helen Cafe in Williamsburg, but hey, at least Good Earth is still in business.

The main reason for my post is a new obsession: The Guild! It's one of these Internet-only sitcoms, with episodes 3 to 6 minutes long; Beth sent me the link for it earlier today and I watched every episode available, which is exactly 14, I believe. The awesomeness, besides being usually genuinely hilarious, is made up of two things, as far as I'm concerned:

1. It was written by and stars one of the Potentials. 50 points.
2. It is about the members of a guild in an MMO. 50 points.

For extra credit, one of the guild members is beginning to think, Hey, I should probably quit--or anyway cut down. 10 points.

That is a total of 110 points, which is an A+ on any scale.

Sure, you will need to "get" MMOs to "get" many of the jokes, but most of the humor is pretty clear, even if you're not a recovering druid.

*Chad was our waiter during our first and only previous visit to Good Earth, well over a year ago. He is noteworthy for his muscles, tattoos, loquaciousness, and shorts, which he wears all winter.