Glen: Day 2: If I had a hammer

I find that I take fewer notes each year that I'm here. The first year, I had notebook out transcribing whole speeches and scribbling remarks from everyone. Last year, I took fewer notes during the sessions but still wrote copiously during the workshop since there was a new instructor. This year, I'm barely writing anything down at all.

I suppose some of this is because there's a certain amount of re-iteration, but I think mostly it's because I'm coming here more for support and energizing than learning. This is not to say that there isn't much to learn; the notes I'm taking now are less about defending the work than they are about doing the work.

One of the few notes I made today was a comment made by Erin McGraw, fiction instructor, who observed that "Fiction is not a subtle instrument." Sure, lit professors like to show the subtle development of a shoe on page 4 to a life-changing symbol on page 478 by incremental degrees--and there's a place for that--but for the writer, it's nothing like that subtle. There must be conflict, and it must be bloody obvious, or you'll lose the reader in 20 seconds flat.

She also said that "said" is your friend 98% of the time when writing dialog.

Tonight at the worship service, Over the Rhine opened with "Born" which centers on the line "I was born to laugh." I've been pondering that song ever since it was released, and focused more on it tonight. "I have learned to laugh through the tears." I'm not sure I have, but I need to.

We closed with a black-gospel version of "Be still my soul."

Be still my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.