Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
Writing in the Woods
"Stephen's writing is pure wisdom. Listen to him closely," Charles Irving Beale, Film Maker
"I had the honor of taking a writing workshop with the talented novelist and screenplay writer, Stephen H. Foreman, two years ago in the lovely Catskills. Stephen offered a perfect balance of writing instruction, shared work in a positive and encouraging environment, personalized attention, and time for writing and reflection. The participants had the opportunity to learn from the instructor and from each other in a relaxed, beautiful setting. An invigorating blend conducive to inspiration!" Carol Allen, Poet
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God", Gospel of Saint John
Welcome to the Third Annual Spruceton Inn’s Writers Workshop, nestled into the Spruceton Valley, hidden within the Catskill Mountains.
What do I want from you? To write fiercely and honestly. To love words as the tools that tell your tale. To dig so deeply you are stunned at what you find, yet that is the only way you and you alone can tell that tale because it is a tale like no one else’s. Because It Is Yours.
What will you get from me? I bring you the lifetime of a free-lance writer and adventurer brimming with experience in the world writ large. I bring you the eyes of a creator, a scholar, and a critic, reader of some zillion or so books, decades of teaching experience – this country and others, college grads and undergrads, street people, high school kids, at-risk kids and prison inmates, ex-cons in halfway houses, hungry screenwriters, poetry in elementary schools, elderly memoirists, snazzy writers’ conferences…And now you.
Trust me on this one: Wherever you are in your writing life, I have been there.
I’ve hugged Jane Fonda and shaken hands with Muhammad Ali. I survived the wilds of Alaska, the back-country desert of the Superstition Wilderness, and the mountain rainforests of Dominica, and and and…I’ve been a social worker. I’ve been a United States Marine. I’ve worked in the White House. I am at your disposal. Pick my brain. See what’s in there. Maybe something you can use. Sometimes even I’m surprised.
THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL: NEVER give anyone an excuse to stop reading.
METHOD AND PHILOSOPHY
Your work is your work. It’s not my work. This is not Hollywood. Nobody’s gonna force an opinion down your throat or fire you or pay you lots of money so doing what you don’t want to do doesn’t hurt as much. I attempt to see what the writer means to do, and then I try to help that writer do it. I offer incisive, thorough, yet gentle reasoning. We disagree? OK. You’re the boss. We’ll put our heads together to get the words where you want them.
Experience has shown me that dogmatism starts wars and breeds mediocrity. Yes, of course, there are creative ways to make a tone-deaf line sing. Good technique alerts you to these things. Better technique alerts you to more. You test them out, and, if they don’t work, you go beyond them. So, how do you learn technique? I got it by osmosis, by reading.
ONE MORE RULE: Read. A lot. Read more. Read what you want to write and then read everything else. Fiction, non-fiction, plays, poetry, newspapers, billboards, labels, stop signs, parking tickets, graffiti, faces. Go large. Range wide. Cross reference. Peer under rocks. Let all this seep into your bloodstream until it becomes a permanent part of the flow. Nothing is unimportant.
There are “How To” books at Barnes & Noble, and you’re welcome to them. You’re bound to pick up something useful. All I’m saying is, I didn’t.
BEFORE YOU GET HERE
Write a brief essay, 400 - 500 words, on a single theme, for example, a near death experience; what it feels like to be in debt; what made you want to write; when did you become a writer. Do you deserve to be a writer? Why are you a writer, anyway? And, while we’re at it, who are you, and why are you here? Take that metaphysically if that’s your bent. How about a great joy, a first kiss? What intrigues you, entrances you, haunts you, frightens you, ignites the fire? A book or books that have been with you all your life, and what about them? Mine? Bambi by Felix Salton, A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean, Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo.
Now, e-mail a copy to me and to everyone else on the list a few days before you arrive. Give us all time to read it. Everybody reads everybody else. Everybody critiques everybody else. You probably have a program that enables you to type critiques and comments on the manuscript in another color. Print them out. First thing bring them to the table and let’s see what each of you did. Each participant gets to keep all the critiques of their work. Burn them. Save them. Print on the other side. Tuck them away. Yours forever.
info@sprucetoninncom
September 22-24
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