Flying update

As this is a blog, I feel I ought to report what’s happening with me, at least once in a while. I’m trying to make progress with a novel I started on more than a year ago. As part of this, I’m taking another workshop course at City Lit. It’s the highlight of my week and I’m getting great feedback, encouragement, and discovering that there is so much more I need to do. I know it’s often said that you shouldn’t workshop something till the entire first draft is finished but I am worried about the foundations I’m laying with the first few chapters and I don’t want to “go off half-cocked.” A friend from my local informal workshop said about my work-in-progress, “I think this one has legs.” That’s why I chose to press ahead and try to complete it and why I’m doing all I can to do so. It’s fascinating to see how others are getting on with their writing and I learn something new every day, in the process of giving and receiving feedback. The course is called “Advanced fiction writing workshop” and our tutor this time is novelist Mary Flanagan, whose comments and notes are both charming and insightful.