Mahabharata: The Year of Exile

(Today was a serious work day. I'm almost caught up from being gone.)

When we last left our Pandavas, they had finished their 12 years in the forest, and they were going to spend a 13th year in disguise in the court of Virata. The Pandavas chose some interesting disguises. He-man Arjuna dressed as a eunuch. Yudhisthira, who finally learned the secret of dice, dressed as a gambler. Bhima was a cook. Draupadi was the equivalent of a hair dresser.

This section of the Mahabharata echoes the war that is to come in many ways. Bhima kills a man that makes advances toward Draupadi. Arjuna acts against his nature. Yudhisthira stops gambling and starts playing with certainty.

At the end of the 13th year of exile, the Pandavas return home. They try to negotiate a return and once again their kingdom, but Duryodhana and his brothers aren't having any, so there is a giant epic war at Kurukshetra, where much of the foreshadowing from the dice game is fulfilled.

At the beginning of the battle, Arjuna is filled with doubt about his role, particularly when the god Krsna calls on him to shoot Bhisma, the Pandavas' uncle and the mighty hero who has guided Arjuna. Krna counters with his recitation of the Bhagavadghita, which is where we'll begin next time.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Viable Paradise: Reflections

Viable Paradise was an intense week of seminars, critiques, one-on-one sessions, and colloquium discussions, with a fair amount of socializing thrown in. Again, I can not encourage writers enough to apply. The worst that could happen is that you are rejected, and if you are a good writer, your chances of being accepted are fairly good. You can also apply multiple times.

For me, Viable Paradise was my only real workshop option. The kind of job I have would never allow me to be gone for the six weeks workshops like Clarion and Odyssey require. It's a great venue for those of us who work. Tuition is reasonable, and by the time you add in airfare and lodging, it is substantially less than the six week experiences as well. Of course, you can visit the VP page for all the specifics on cost.

Is it a good investment in your writer education? Yes. It's a transformational experience, a paradigm shift, and a networking experience that I don't think you can recreate on your own. You may have noticed already my transformational gushing.

I'll be honest. In spite of my cool outer shell, I am like many beginning writers. I am shy and uncertain when it comes to talking to people in the field I admire. After the workshop, I understood that I was in the club. That we were expected to introduce ourselves to other writers, and be, you know, writers.

It's like my Carolyn Stevermer entries, only magnified. *gulp* But it's really cool at the same time. It seems impersonal for me to think of this only as networking, but that aspect of it is undeniable.

I expected many things from VP, but I didn't expect paradigm shifts. The first thing we were told was that we would be the top 2-3 percent of a given slush pile. We were told repeatedly that even though our work would undergo intense scrutiny, that we are good writers. The critiques we were given and gave each other were the kind that other writers would give, tough, but underlying the critiques was the strong belief on the part of the instructors that we are good writers.

And (here's the shift) we were considered writers by the instructors from the moment we arrived. We weren't considered, as I think many of us saw ourselves, as people who wanted to be writers. We were considered the next generation of fantasy and science fiction writers. For me, that didn't sink in until the end of the workshop, after I'd received both good and bad feedback on my piece. These instructors took us and our stories seriously. We were considered people who are building writing careers.

There are some other writing paradigms that have shifted for me. I'll hide them under here in case you've reached the point of blah, blah, blah. Remember your opinions and mileage may vary. These are things I've come to think after the workshop.

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Mirrored from Writer Tamago.