Most things are best kept simple. Last week Warrior Writers kicked off a fall workshop series at Suffolk University with a discussion about manuscripts. But the most productive and uplifting part of the night was the opening writing prompt. So instead of talking about manuscripts, the rest of our workshops will be generative.
We're going back to the original workshop model. It's simple: we read some flash fiction or a poem, free write for 15 minutes, read aloud if we want, repeat. The point is not to polish turds, but to flush the floaters. We're not all writers, but those of us who enjoy writing improve by jettisoning a whole lot of shit. The moments of inspiration that emerge during these brief sessions of shit writing fertilize future focused efforts, broadsides and performances.
This site and associated social media handles offer a ballast against shit posters, a digital front for sensitive creations inspired by Warrior Writers. It is not a partisan space. It's not about being right or wrong. It's about expressing complexity with elegance.
While I like graffiti in some forms, the digital graffiti in my personal social media feed is clogging up my mind and wasting my time. So I'm stepping back, rethinking my efforts and focusing instead through this server, to publish promotions and creations for Warrior Writers.
Sure, I'll probably read Reddit, but I’m not ready to engage fully at the moment. We need editors to step up for the subreddit, mods to improve new posts up there and encourage those that step through that gauntlet (even through anonymity) to share their efforts.
This post here is either the beginning of something new, or a decent toward the delicate end of an otherwise lovely effort to connect through Warrior Writers in Boston.
Workshops will continue through the end of this year, and with cooperation from The Longfellow House, in the spring too. But we’re doing strictly generative workshops. The other steps can be done with professionals, through private editors and in MFA programs. The Warrior Writers workshops that I’ll continue organizing are purely for writing now.