Hey there, Known Workshop ladies!
It’s the final week of our workshop, and dare I say… my favorite week. Look, drafting and dreaming and pouring words out onto the page is fun, but the real writing happens in revision. I know some people loathe this work, but my hope is that if you are one of the revision aversion people that you will come to love it and value it after this week.
Sonya has put together an excellent lesson for us, and you can find that HERE. As I’ve mentioned before, there are a lots of fabulous resources in this lesson (and I believe Sonya even has a few more resource gems that she’ll sprinkle throughout our Slack convo in the coming days), but please remember that these are for you. We want you to dig into revision, so please don’t feel stressed and like you need to fully read Elements of Style by Friday (although if you don’t own it already, I cannot recommend that book enough. It’s one to own for sure).
A word about revision submissions:
This week you’ll revise a piece you started in this workshop. So far the writing assignments have been fairly open ended. We wanted to push you into discovery and creativity, and you have done just that. Reading your work has been such a joy. That said, there are a few more parameters on your submissions this week.
First, please revise. Don’t draft something totally new. Really revise. Push yourself. Dig deeper. Kill some darlings. Tighten things up. Rearrange paragraphs. Re-read the feedback you’ve received. You’ve got this.
Second, please don’t submit anything longer than 2,000 words. Does this mean the best essays are always under 2,000 words? Nope. But the reason we put a cap on the word count is two-fold. Primarily, editors care about word counts. Knowing how to adhere to a word count and edit your work accordingly is an important skill, and we want to help you cultivate that skill. If you are hoping to submit work to a literary magazine or online platform, you’ll need to carefully adhere to word count guidelines. This is your practice field.
Also, in my experience, people tend to poop out on the feedback if the essay feels too long. Remember that your group members are reading three or four essays and providing feedback on them. We want you to be able to receive the best possible feedback, so keeping the essays to a reasonable length makes getting through the reading and responding much more manageable, and you’re likely to get richer, deeper feedback as a result.
Working with you this month has been such a delight! We can’t wait to see the final drafts this week. Your group leader will communicate about deadlines and feedback, etc., but if you have questions, comments, or concerns, please send them our way!
All the best,
Anna (and the C+C Team)