Welcome To 2009
Last night our writers group met at Suzy’s house, and we took turns announcing what we’d accomplish with our writing in the coming year. After a decade of this ritual it’s too easy to simply resolve to complete a current project, then begin and complete another. Something feels a bit automatic, and that robs the process of any value.
Instead, consider that a suitable goal should make you feel a little – or a lot – embarrassed with its aspirations. Maybe only the goals that seem “impossible” really inspire or excite us to take action. In my experience, I’m never excited to answer mail unless I can do that task in an outrageous, over-done manner. It always feels like more work to send a simple letter than an elaborate package. With that in mind, please consider that these resolutions are a first step toward doing something which seems completely beyond your abilities at the present time. None of us want to waste our lives. We all want to surprise ourselves as we discover our abilities, and we want to meet other people and accept their help in completing our plans. In turn, we want to help others reach goals which seem beyond their current abilities.
In workshop, Suzy wrote down each writer’s committed goals, and we each took a moment to examine our writing lives. What we didn’t like, we determined to change. What sounded exciting and motivating, we stated we would accomplish. Please take a moment to examine your own writing life.
It’s my top priority to not waste your time. So in the coming year I’ll be introducing fewer techniques or distinctions around writing; instead, I’ll be reviewing your work and using it as an opportunity to apply what I’ve already introduced: Submerging the I… Horses… Avoiding abstracts… Symmetry… all of it. I’ll look for the best aspects of your writing samples, praise those, then discuss how to make other aspects work more effectively. Each month, the Cult workshop will send me a selection of your work, ideally chapters or scenes or short stories – parts that stand alone to some degree – and I’ll respond with my comments.
By the end of 2009, I’ll have chosen enough of your work to publish an anthology wherein each piece of fiction presents a perfect illustration of a writing technique we’ve discussed. I’ll write an introduction to the anthology and publish it in the spring of 2010. Beyond that, how we’ll distribute the book… I’m not sure, but that’s all part of the “impossible.” For now I’ll be looking for your best, wildest, most-exciting work. If we take good care of that task – all the other details will resolve themselves. If we do this first part right, we’ll have publishers bidding against each other for the finished work.
Maybe we’ll donate the royalties to a charity, or split them among the contributors. We’ll decide that after we’ve done our job. Yes, publishing seems to be as depressed as the rest of the economy, but great work will always sell. For now, your job is to present your best work – hell, write better than your “best.” Commit to surprising yourself. Despite how circumstances around you change, you’re still the talented, dedicated, creative person you’ve always been. Let’s show readers, teachers, booksellers and publishers how amazing a book can be.
Consider this New Year as an invitation, and a challenge.
I’ll Shut Up Now,
Chuck Palahniuk
Comments
Cant wait to get more details! I just know I'm going to win!
this isnt a contest. this is open for all premium members who constructively engage in the workshop, starting when the new workshop opens sometime in february.
There is also more than one slot available as-well as "By the end of 2009, I’ll have chosen enough of your work to publish an anthology wherein each piece of fiction presents a perfect illustration of a writing technique we’ve discussed."
I resent the fact that you have to pay to A) even read the essays and
have to join the writers workshop to write something to even be considered being part of the essay.
also Chuck was yapping on about this anthology shit when I first joined so the likelihood of any of this actually happening any time soon (or when he says its going to happen) is slim. so none of you get too excited.
all the old essays are free, numbnuts.
Yeah, what a shill game. Knocking forty bucks a year out of your wallet if you want to participate in a first-class writing community that includes direct instruction from a bestselling author. What a scam. The admins who work sometimes around the clock to maintain and recreate this Web site are all sure living the high life on those membership fees. Man oh man.
really? so you admit it?
ok, now I am pissed off too!!
haha =D
This is a first-class writing community, and forty bucks is really peanuts...
But man do I love it when someone takes on the role of the devils advocate...
everybody keeps saying that yet when I go to read them Im denied access and told I have to join the workshops to view them.
The old essays are not free. What we did in 2008 was, make the previous month's essay free... month after month. Now in 2009, getting the membership will get you three year's worth of essays. 36 essays.
there has been some q-and-a lately about whether the workshop is worth the whole $40 a year amount. that amount is not astronomical by any means. the intensives ran approx. four hundred dollars for four to six weeks. and this year-long comprehensive requires forty dollars. that's a huge difference.
the workshop experience holds a rather minuscule pricetag. what you get is all of the tools of tens of thousands of dollars students pay for an mfa program. granted, garnering everything you can from a workshop is not going to get you a job teaching at whichever school you may whimsically choose. you can, however obtain much from this workshop. you'll have to write a lot and dissect many stories and read your ass off. you do those things and your writing will improve, period. plus, there is the offer of thirty-six tools you can use right away in your writing. i mean, tools you can use tonight.
the first year of essays were the top of the line for utter badassness. they WERE. as in, they were until the last three of this past year became live. those last three, chuck writes a story in front of us--part one in october, two in november, and part three in december. it's a rough first draft and it sucks the way all first drafts suck, but you get to see him shit out a lump of coal (as chuck calls it--i.e. plowing through a first draft in order to start the rewriting process). anyway, that story is being published in march. so we’re not only watching and reading the developmental stage of the short story, but more so we get to read it first and follow his choice-dissection commentary from the story’s very incarnation, and THEN we get to see it actually published. and he does it all in front of us.
the last essay is available for free right now to all members. it wont make a whole lot of sense to you without the october and november essays, but it gives you an idea. this is the link to that free one, and it's only free this month (in feb, it's gone):
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/workshop/chucks-essays-2008-36
there are other essays around here that are available to all members at all times, free of charge. they have been gifted to the cult community by the authors. here are those few more writing essays by chuck and other cult friends:
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/essays
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the premium membership is for the workshop. the essays are one of the tools available to writers here. there's also the resource page, and, this year, there's also chuck's personal feedback. how can that NOT be worth the $40 ?
(and more than likely, you can tax deduct the amount as vocation learning, or a schooling cost.)
see yaw in the workshop
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ps. it looks fantastic, btw. the revamp, coming in february. doing the basic tests and exploration. kirk and clayton are fucking geniuses. functions that were only dreams in the old shop have materialized. i had high hopes for the workshop, especially since the workshop this past year has been hobbling along, coughing. my hopes were along the lines of the workshop becoming something like it was prior to the drupal change of two thousand and eight. i had no idea it would by far exceed the old workshop format, that only through drupal were some of these functions made available. that i would grow to love this opensource software. this year is gonna be amazing, yaw. looking forward to seeing all of the members there.
-kabol
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