Larry M. Coleman

I stop. “Wait, did that say Yale?”

I scroll back up. “Wow. Okay. Finally an ad that makes sense.”

I click on it. I’ve never done a workshop before, so making my very first one be one hosted by an Ivy League school makes perfect sense. Of course, so did that one girl I dated years ago, the Pac Man fuzzy dice for my old Eagle Talon, and getting a tortoiseshell cat, and you can imagine how those turned out. Especially the Talon.

(At least I’ve still got the fuzzy dice. And a second tortie now. Why?)

I read it a bit, then go back to scrolling. It shows up again a few days later. And a few days later. And finally the day comes when I sit down and read all of it. I see that this isn’t one of those just “take my money and let me in” things. You actually have to submit a 1000-word writing sample before they’ll let you give them your money.

So before I can talk myself out of it, I condense a chapter of the novel I’m working on from 3300 words to exactly 1000. (The instructions said 1000, so that’s what they’re getting. After I got to the place where I submit it, those instructions say “about 1000.” And after all that time I spent getting rid of all those “reallys”.)

I finish it in time for a meeting of my monthly local writers’ group so I can read it aloud. It’s almost there, but there’s something about it that still doesn’t ring true. One of the people there pegged the problem. I still had some material from the original chapter that was crowding out the part that really lets it fall into “beginning, middle, and end” form. Once I see that, it’s five times better and ready to not get me into YWW. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world considering the four-figure price tag.

Application fee paid, writing sample submitted before, once again, I can talk myself out of it. I figure if I’m going to get rejected, get rejected by a supermodel.

But nine days later, I don’t. I get the good email. I’m in. And now all I have to do is figure out what I’m going to throw to the workshop wolves to tear apart. I decide to take a chapter of the same book because it zooms in the most on the main character, a ballerina who lost her foot serving her country.

(Hence the picture I use at the top, which didn’t quite come out how I wanted until I changed the AI prompt from “ballerina on a campus like Yale” to “ballerina on a campus like Vassar.” But, hey, Vassar has a gorgeous campus.)

Next step is to do the excruciating work of taking a 6500-word chapter and condensing it into a 3500-word piece that will be critiqued at the workshop. That work wasn’t any easier than the first time was, and once I was actually in the workshop, I found that that probably wasn’t a good chapter to pick. (More about that in another part.)

And now I have to figure out which of the four groups I want to be in, because all of the instructors teach different things, and we actually get to pick which one suits us best. I look at all of the instructors, their writing, what and where they teach, and so on. I finally decide on Ethan Rutherford because the books he’s written sound similar to what I enjoy and have a smidge of in my own writing.

And then I wait four months for June. I buy a copy of Ethan’s first two books to give me something to do, and because I want to come in absolutely prepared.

At least, I thought I was. See you in the next part or you can catch up on the others here.