This year, I attended two SFFH writing workshops, simultaneously: Mary Robinette Kowal’s Short Story Cohort, and Taos Toolbox 2024. 

One was remote, twelve weeks long, and one was in-person and two weeks long. 

Both aimed to turn me and a handful of other folks into better, more professional writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

Here are some thoughts on the experience

The obvious

You learn a bunch.

You learn stuff! About plotting, structure, description, characterization. You’ll learn where to put the important description (at the end) and where to hide your mystery clues (in the middle). You’ll learn how to balance infodumps and worldbuilding. You’ll realize you’ve been redecorating a moldy old house and despair.

You learn so much that you’ll forget more than half of it no matter how many notes you take. So take notes and plan to revisit them. 

You make friends.

Both workshops were great places to find people who take your story about cosmic horrors at a music festival as seriously as you do. No literary sneering here Yes, you finally found people who want to talk about Ursula LeGuin as much as you do.

The less obvious

You get perspective.

You develop a much better sense of what work looks like when it’s Very Good Yet Not Published.

Yes, you do need to get good enough to publish. Your early stories very likely do need to be good enough to go as-is. But seeing a story at 80% opened my eyes to what I’d been missing in my own work in a way that reading polished, published work did not.

You read differently.

Doing that much critique in a short time reforms your brain into a crit hammer. You will no longer glide past minor plot holes or missing character description. You’ll be like “WTF WHY IS THIS PERSON NOT DESCRIBED!!!!!!”

Even professionally edited work. It’s taken some time to get my brain back into reading-for-fun mode.

You’re still you. 

I had a weirdly totemic relationship with workshops. Like, if I could just GET IN, then everything else would work out. I would be somehow among the chosen.  I knew this was not correct, but here we are.

And then you go to the workshop and voila. You are just a person who paid a lot of money and put a lot of time into this. Which is cool! But you’re still not a super successful writer.

You’re still you.

The really not obvious

You have a tiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit of credibility. 

So I mentioned that you don’t get published or acclaimed because of the workshop.

But a liiiiiiittle bit of the credibility of those running the workshop rubs off on you. And if they allow it, you can say “I workshopped this story with so-and-so” or at least “I went to ____ workshop”. 

It will not get your story accepted. But it might nudge it out of slush. It might make the editor less grumpy when they read it. It shows a seriousness and commitment to the craft. 

And you can get into a space like Codex. You’re just that much closer to being on the inside.

Writing is HARDER after the workshop. Not easier. 

Taos Toolbox and the Short Story Cohort were both wrapping up and I kept thinking to myself, “Fuck this. I’m never going to get it right. This is impossible.” 

Thankfully, I mentioned this to Mary Robinette. She said often people leave a workshop and stop writing. For good. You go, thinking you’ll learn tools that will carry you effortlessly forward. 

But the problem with having a new tool is now you have to practice how to use it. You go to a workshop to become a different writer. Don’t be disappointed when a different writer walks out of the workshop. 

Day one of the workshop you learn a bunch and wow all this stuff that was opaque and impossible now seems imminently do-able. Congrats!  You leveled up! FEELS GOOD.

That means the next bosses are going to be harder. It takes longer to kill them. You’re going to be killing them on your own time. And it’s gonna feel bad.

I’ve ripped apart my process. I hate all my old stories. They seem to be endless messes and the new ones feel precious and hard to repeat. I took the toybox and shook it up. But I’m not quitting. I’m putting one foot in front of the other, editing one story at a time, and taking a deep breath when I get demoralized.

Advice

1. Apply before you are ready. Being perfectly ready isn’t what you want. If you’re truly not at the right level, they won’t let you in.

2. When you sign up for a workshop, sign up for the post-workshop letdown, too.

3. Don’t do two workshops. I wish I could have separated these workshops by at least six months.

4. No one knows the right answer for your next move. There is much brush and danger ahead. Bring your machete. Bring a water bottle. Bring your comfort blankie. You’re gonna need all three.