Learning the craft: short story workshop

I had a fabulous couple of hours out of the house sans children yesterday, attending my first writing workshop. Hosted by the ACT Writers Centre, the short story workshop was run by Australian author Craig Cormick, who took us through what elements constitute great short stories. He also talked about the difference between stories that win competitions and those that are published by literary magazines and journals. He had some great writing exercises for us to do, as well as some excellent examples of short stories that exemplified the points he was making. I think all participants got something out of the workshop - I certainly did. I look forward to putting some of what I learned into practice. I have no doubt it will make my writing stronger and more real.
Something else that will help me learn the craft is the Sleepers Almanac. Or almanacs, as I ordered not only the current edition from Sleepers Publishing, but also the previous three editions. The almanac is an anthology of emerging Australian writing talent. I know what I'll be reading for the foreseeable future! I just have to remember to read as a writer as well as a reader :)

Learning about poetry

It's amazing what you can find on the web. In my last post I liked to AllPoetry.com, as I'd found a great piece explaining poetic metre. A bit more poking about the site revealed several online courses in poetry that appealed. As I only have limited time each day to spend creatively, I'm keeping my enrollments to a minimum! I've enrolled in Beginners Haiku and Gentle Introduction to Metre.

While I've been writing heaps of 'Twaiku' 5-7-5 syllable poems on Twitter, they're not really Haiku in the traditional sense. In my bid to become a better writer, I thought I should learn how to write real Haiku. This one was composed for my first assignment.

Bird's head
Hidden under wing -
Dusk falls

This Haiku is truer to the traditional structure even though it doesn't conform to the syllabic 'rules'. This is because the Japanese language is not structured around syllables, rather it is structured around 'on'. I don't understand the linguistic details, but I do know that it is better to follow the intent of Haiku than the literal translation of the Japanese rules.

The above Haiku is an attempt to juxtapose two images from nature, revealing something about the environment that surrounds me.