At Viable Paradise (and yes, I will talk about other things again, I promise, but this was a watershed event for me, so learn to cope), both the instructors and the staff kept telling us that there would be a delay of anywhere from one to six months before we could really put any of what they’d told us to good use, and some of it wouldn’t even make sense for a while. And I scoffed, just as I scoffed when VP alums talked about what a transformative and liminal experience it would be.
I know. For a smart guy who got a degree in Literature, teaches, and specializes in Romantic/Transcendentalist literature, I can be pretty dumb.
Just as it was every bit as transformative as the prior grads said, it has also been a trick trying to integrate the things I learned into my work. In working on my major WIP, I find myself occasionally paralyzed trying to figure out which of many approaches I should use.
Should I rewrite my space battles to be more Hard-SF, or keep them firmly in the Space Opera fighter-jock mode they’re in now? Should I mix the two? One author loved a bit that another author thought was questionable; which do I listen to (the easy answer is the one who agrees with me and how I want to tell my story, but then I wonder if maybe the other way will make it better… see what I mean)?
The goal is, of course, to write a publishable story. But sometimes it’s still hard to see what that is.
Anyway, I’ve got work to do. See y’all later.