Friday, August 8, 2014

Learning my craft and being kicked in the gut...


Last week I mentioned a certain workshop I attended at my conference. One that hit home.

The title was G-M-C and Y-O-U. I struggle with my characters' GMC, or in layman's terms, their goals, motivations, and conflicts. Knowing and conveying those things to the reader are part of the craft of writing. A part I'm not so good at. So I was delighted to see it listed in the conference program.

However, when I settled in and Maggie Montgomery started talking, I realized quickly that it was more writer's life than craft, but she was charming and funny and what she said was still helpful information. Also, there were no other workshops going on at that same time that interested me and I'm just not that rude to get up and walk out.

The two most powerful concepts I took away from what Maggie had to say were these:

A) You have to face your fears and deal with emotions you might rather not in order to tell the most compelling story you can.

B)  You have to trust that there's someone out there who needs to hear your story. That you were given the story for a specific purpose.

It's A that really resonated with me. It's not something I didn't already know. I have known it. I know I have to dig deeper, tap my emotions, face some demons. But it's hard. And scary. And sometimes life is just not conducive to that kind of an emotional dissection.

Her saying it was a reminder that you, I mean *I*, can't avoid it forever.

So I write on, honing my other skills, learning to tap my emotions bit by bit, hoping that each successive story is a little more powerful, a little more true.

1 comment:

Regina Richards said...

Thanks for sharing that, Jen.