Workshop

Ahh, I had a really good workshop tonight! We work-shopped my story and one other guy's-we were the first people to do be WSed, so we kind of got to set the tone for the class, which was exciting. I was surprised at how easy it was to sit silently while people talked about my shit. It was actually kind of more comfortable not saying anything, not having any say in the direction of the conversation. It's all about them, the class, figuring out what you said, and guess what you were trying to do.
The tone of the class was really productive. People were very constructive, very focused on what worked, what gets in the way, and what's the best way to say that, to improve it. There was only one person who gave the useless workshop comment: "I don't know. Maybe I can't express it. Maybe it was over my head or I just didn't get it. But I just didn't relate to the characters. I didn't like them. I didn't get what was going on, I didn't care about them." Well, hey, that was helpful! I'll just go back and edit it to make it more awesome. Why didn't I think of that?
Honestly, I wished that they would workshop me for a longer period of time, because they didn't really get around to going into the metaphors, and why I chose certain images to be central. They liked the things that I thought were working, and they had problems with the things I knew were problematic. My teacher got them, at least somewhat. Beanz really gave me the most incisive criticism; she got what I was trying to do and what I needed to change to make what worked work better.
I'm looking forward to doing two other people's shits next week!