Heidi Jon Schmidt, Listening for the Different Drumbeat
Listening for the Different Drumbeat: Writing From Your Original Point of View
Two-Day Writing Workshop: Sat., Oct 19, 10 am-3 pm; Sun., Oct 20, 9 am-2 pm
| “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly,” — Anne Rice. |
While Rice was writing about Franz Kafka, this quote also describes Thoreau’s path. He wasn’t an essayist, a memoirist, a scientist — he was Thoreau, delving into his own fascinations in his own absolutely idiosyncratic way. We’ll work to help each class member become more himself or herself as a writer. Please bring up to 10 pages of work that you feel strongly about. If you only have an idea, bring that. If you’re a thousand pages into a novel, bring the first 10. We will read, discuss, revise, and help each other go forward, each according to his or her most intense obsession.
Heidi Jon Schmidt is the author of The Harbor Master’s Daughter, The House on Oyster Creek, and The Rose Thieves. She teaches writing at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.