beautiful monsters

workshop junkie

I only applied for three writing workshops because I didn’t think I’d get into them all. I wanted to do at least one, maybe two, so I figured I’d apply for three and then do whichever ones I got into. I got accepted for them all. For a couple of days I agonised, because I couldn’t decided which one to drop. I had ideas I wanted to work on in all of them, all the tutors (Dinah Hawken, Harry Ricketts, Kate de Goldi) are fantastic… I just couldn’t bear to drop out of any of them.

I felt a twinge (or rather a great big wallop) of guilt, because I know people who didn’t get accepted to these courses (and they’re damn good writers too). It seemed selfish, wanting to do all three, when other people were missing out… But then my friends started saying “you have been given an opportunity, what’s selfish about that?” Or, as Kate put it, “Get that puritan dog off your back!!”

Suddenly I thought, yeah, this is what I really want to do. And hell, I’ve been through enough shit the past few years, for once it would be nice to do what I want to do, not what I feel like I should do.

So yesterday I went up to the institute and talked to Fiona. “Spoiled for choice, huh?” she said, smiling at me. “I really want to do all of them,” I said. “Can I?” She thought about it for a minute, then she said “No one has ever done three before, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t. I’ll go check with Bill.” She seemed to take ages. I sat there twiddling my thumbs and counting my nervous breaths, in one, out one, in two, out two… Finally I heard her bounding back up the stairs. “Go and have a talk to him,” she said. “He can probably help you work it out.”

In my year of hanging around the institute, I’ve never actually been inside Bill’s office. I was nervous. Not because I was in awe of Bill (who seems to have been crowned the director, not just of the institute, but of literature in NZ), but because I’m pretty sure he’s convinced that I’m completely mad. I was scared he might say something like “I don’t think you’re really up to this” or “you’ve been disturbing the other workshop participants” or something.

“Come in, take a seat,” he said. I was calmed a little by his soft voice and his smile. “I feel I must point out a few things. First, there’s the fact that these papers won’t count towards a major…” and he went on to recite all of the arguments I’d been through a dozen times in my head – except he left out the selfish on.

Then suddenly, he smiled. “Right, taking off my wise academic hat… I think it sounds great! What are you going to write?”

I grinned. A whole term writing. Three workshops. I skipped all the way down the hill, and I didn’t care who stared.

I’m going to write. Lots. Watch this space.

(In celebration of my position as official workshop junkie, I'm going to post a poem that features a number of characters from the institute (last year at least). Disclaimer thingie; only one of them ever said or did any of this... the rest is (mostly) fiction.

A Bad Dream

Chris eats a banana in the bath, waves
a soggy wad of pages with one hand
It’s Political, It’s Too Bloody Political
words drip into the bath

Everything is political I say. Even eating
bananas is political - think of the poor
workers choking on chemicals...

Chris holds a banana like a gun and
aims at a word –
                                Pow! Pow! Pow!

Bill is hovering in the shower cubical.
He is wearing a nightgown and white
lace scrapes his shins. I realise I have
never before seen his bare feet.

Is there a poet here? Yes, yes, I cry –
that   is   ,   I   am     I   .     .       .

Bill peers disdainfully at the trail of words.
He   steps   carefully   around   them
You’re     Bleeding     Everywhere

[         ] is hopping around in his underwear
You’re Deliberately Trying To Attack Me
his voices rises like a kettle on the stove
a trickle of red smoke leaks from his ear

Chris rips off a chunk of wet paper and
stuffs it into his mouth.

It’s Personal, It’s Too Bloody Personal
I can hear him mumbling as he sinks
under the water. I peer over the edge
of the bath, but all I can see is a trail of
bubbles   leading   to   the   plug   hole

Now Look What You’ve Done

                               [         ] glares.

Posted by Fionnaigh at June 20, 2003 09:48 AM