Tomorrow we start our workshops. I'm in a group of eight, each of us with a chapter from a novel. These workshops are always interesting, sometimes emotional. Not that anyone freaks out right then and there (not that I've seen anyway) but it always takes writers a while to digest the emotions of having one's work chopped, diced and dissected--usually kindly but not always. Last time, I made the mistake of going into the workshop with a piece that I was pretty attached to--I had worked hard on it and had received several compliments from fellow students. The two faculty who led my workshop, however, were not so enamoured with my story. It took me a full 24 hours to get over it before I could see that they were...absolutely correct (darn them!).

I'm not up until the day after tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.