I have always imagined the classes of writing workshops. A group of thinkers, whose opinions of life are formed into creative words, gathered in a room over coffee or bottles of water, poring over books with experienced facilitators presiding over the debates and discussions that drive the workshop. I often imagine the facilitators. Self-assured writers extolling their accomplished works, maybe opinionated or cynics, who are graceful of several prizes, grateful for the fact that a collection of beginning writers trusted them so much to take time out of bill-paying schedules just to learn ways of improving their crafts from the facilitators' "wealth of experience".
My imagination was often inspired by stories from people who had attended past workshops or writings on how workshops were organized in anthologies. Getting into workshops, I was almost made to believe, was like getting into Harvard. Highly selective, rigorous work loads and competitive class styles. So, you might want to wait to have your works published in Granta or The New Yorker before sending-in a sampled work to any workshop that steals your fancy.
I applied to Chimamanda's Farafina workshop once and was not accepted. It was two years ago. I paced the lenght of my room, worried about the fact that I had specifically written the story that I sent for consideration, sinking thoughts and ideas just so it is fresh and poignant, yet did not make it. I gave up applying in subsequent years, partly because I felt betrayed and partly because I stopped thinking of my works as good enough. Instead, I sank more time into reading great books- from fiction to non-fiction, short stories to articles- and carved the ideas that flowed out of excessive readings into writings that spoke what I wanted to speak, and how I wanted it spoken.
I stayed with my works and breathe life into them, believing they would someday be good enough to have them get me into workshops. I desperately wanted to be a workshop participant because I thought of it as a measuring tool that would assert how ready I was to create a world with words, to see if my ideas were ready to grip millions of imaginations across the world. I was right. Your fellow participants are critiques who try to make their words ring true of your work, trusting you would do same to theirs.
The Abuja writing workshop facilitated by Elnathan John opened the first door to this world that would end delirious and disturbing thinkings of workshops. A one-day workshop that sparked interesting debates among promising writers. Set in a cozy environment with a seminar-style sitting arrangement, I had an experience that revealed to me that getting into workshop is like getting published.
Imagine the workshop facilitator as your publishing agent. She has several works published (couple of non-fiction inclusive); you are still scribbling down ideas to sharpen your craft. The facilitator, like the publisher, doesn't discuss her published works in the workshop. She hates to do that. She discusses yours, like an agent who has seen your work as promising, but is beggging that you re-work it so that it is better improved. It is the dream of every agent to have a work published that would sweep the world off its feet. So does the facilitator, whether said or unsaid, wishes that her students go out to be an excellent ambassadors of her programme.
Therefore, an ideal workshop facilitator won't define grammar or teach you how to use tenses and punctuations. If your primary school english teacher deprived you that, and this inner voice calls you to be a writer, better hit the bookshop and grab a brighter grammer. Workshops start with basic attributes of writing that helps improve your styles, choice of words, brevity, and skills that help strenghten your use of sensory languages. Like Toni Morrison once said, that she can't teach writing, but she can help with the comfort. Writing workshop is not for non-writers. Your writing sample would even say it, if you're being honest. They are experienced people whose familiarity with words over the years can easily reveal who is gifted and who isn't.
Upon my return from the workshop, however, some friends who also write, wanted to know how it went. If we were given per diems. Did we have fat meals? What was Elnathan really like? And from my past experience of how I had heard and read misleading stories about workshops, I decided to pass on a belief that I have always had, which the workshop helped strengthen, to others: write for the love of it, write for your inner voice. Once you do this, and learn to do it well, you would possess the skeleton key that would unlock doors to workshops and, maybe, publishing houses.
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