I’ve failed. I promised to try keeping my blog updated over the course of Odyssey, and that just didn’t happen. But, there’s good reason.
300,000 words – That’s how many words I read of other people’s writing. Twice. As in 600,000. And line edits for every single bit of it.
40,000 words – Written critiques of other people’s writing.
150 hours spent working on critiques.
30,000 words – written for my own stories, six of them. That’s just first draft. I don’t even want to think about the time spent here, subtract the critique time, 5 hours class time per weekday, and 4 hours sleep per night, and the rest was writing/revising.
20,000 words in revision of my stories.
10,000 words of deleted scenes and aborted stories.
Not to mention classwork, exercises, social get togethers, and finding time to eat (13 pounds lost) and sleep (will I ever not feel tired, or stop waking up at 5am?).
By the last two weeks, it was an effort to respond to text messages, let alone email, or to even think about blogging.
So. Sounds terrible, right?
I’d go again, right now, without a second thought. I’ve learned so much that I didn’t even know I didn’t know. I learned that I wrote on instinct before Odyssey. Oh sure, I knew some basic things, and my instincts (I think) were decent, but I had no idea how to tell if I was on the right path with a story, or wildly off kilter. And if I was off, I had no way of knowing how to understand where I went wrong or how to fix it.
I can look at writing in a completely different light now. I’ve kept my instinct (I hope) because it is a great tool, but now it’s tempered with knowledge. Once this MBA’s worth of learning completely sinks in and settles in my brain, I will be a writer and not just a guy who writes.
If you ever get a chance to go to Odyssey, you’ll be exposed to one of the smartest people I’ve ever met–Jeanne Cavelos. She won’t pull punches, but everything she’ll tell you will be delivered kindly, with your writing future in mind and everything she points out will be dead on. There’s no question about writing she can’t answer, and there’s very few of them where she’ll not only give you an answer but also one or two other things that you hadn’t even thought about.
And I haven’t mentioned the friendships. I’ve made friends that I’ll have for life. I’ve changed as a writer, (<– I would’ve missed that comma before Odyssey) and I’ve changed as a person. For the better in both aspects.
If you’ve ever thought about applying for Odyssey, do it. If you have questions, feel free to ask me and I’ll try to answer them.
Enough gushing. I’ll try and post more specifics in the next few days, but no promises this time!
Welcome back Brent! After reading this entry, I feel like a hobbit among a giant. I’m in awe of how much work you’ve done and how rewarding it’s been. Congratulations for sticking through it. I hope to follow in your footsteps someday.
And no worries about the specifics. All great athletes require rest after intense training.
Awesome, Fossilist. It sounds gloriously awesome! I’m jealous (in a good way; we don’t seem to have that word in English, do we?) of your experience, and am really looking forward to reading more about it! Welcome back.
Great post! I don’t know if I’d have the stamina needed for Odyssey. What did you learn about being on the right track with writing? That’s just one area where I’m perplexed and get bogged down.
Karson, what do you mean specifically about being on the right track?
First of all, I learned (well, I’m still in the process of learning) how to view my own writing with a critical eye.
I learned how to examine my plot in terms of structure (3 act, or something more exotic) and causal chain (do the events follow one another logically, or is the author simply ‘making things happen’?). I learned about endings, trying to make them surprising yet inevitable. I learned about style and and how it affects the story I’m telling. I learned about dilation, when to use it and when to summarize. About theme, how to recognize it and how to reinforce it.
Basically I learned that there’s hundreds of things that can go wrong, and hopefully I learned to be able to recognize them at least most of the time and how to go about fixing them.
>>I learned that I wrote on instinct before Odyssey. Oh sure, I knew some basic things, and my instincts (I think) were decent, but I had no idea how to tell if I was on the right path with a story, or wildly off kilter. And if I was off, I had no way of knowing how to understand where I went wrong or how to fix it.<<
I was wondering what you meant about being 'on the right path'. But you've now answered my question. Beginning writers, me included, often let the story go on and on, not having a clear idea why events are happening.