Workshop Anyone?

September. The month the children go back to school, the month flowers seem as if they can’t go one day more smiling and blooming, and the month I thought I’d participate in a workshop. I’m usually the type that likes to saunter into a strange environment, find the seat at the front, and sharpen my pencil for some really good, mind-blowing note taking. Not this time. This time it was online. Online? How would I get anything out of it, I asked no one not listening. Still I signed up and introduced myself, as best I could, on the internet…wearing my pajamas! No one knew…right?

What can I say? It’s absolutely wonderful. I’m all about learning. You can think you know all there is to know about…say, bird watching. Then sign up for a class on it and learn at least ten new nuggets. Not that I, in any way, know all there is to writing. But for my one particular book I thought I had it figured out. Turns out it’s all wrong. Well maybe not every page, but the beginning sure enough is. This story stays stuck on the forefront of my brain. I loved writing it. It found me one day. Actually one night. I dreamed about the plot and then sat down at my computer for the next three months and bled away. But something is wrong with it. It staggers along, not getting enough oxygen, blabbering in my thoughts, reaching out for help. Lucky for me I believe my workshop is revealing the hiccups. Thank goodness:)

I had my best friend read the first two chapters, as always. She rarely finishes any of my books because I don’t send her more, but she never could get trapped in the pages of this one. Said my writing was different…aloof. Hmm…but it seemed right when I wrote it. So I stepped back for nine months, let it breathe, and am now taking a class for its malady, and I think I’ll have it licked!!! Happy dance for me. I’m so excited to be pushed and to be challenged with the way I thought it was right. Here’s a quick snapshot of my characters:

Meet Claire. She’s from Queens, New York. Raised by a loving mother (her only relative in the world), but never had more than hand-me-downs to wear and a lanky body that grew before she did. She’s just graduated from college, having lost her mother to multiple sclerosis in her last semester, and is now visiting (for the last time) the summer cottage of a family she spent time with growing up.

Now meet Colin. He’s the son of a wealthy entrepreneur. He attended college in London and hasn’t been back to the beach house for five years. Hasn’t seen Claire or the beautiful woman she’s become. This is the last summer before his father burdens him with the responsibility of taking over the family business. It’s also the summer he falls for Claire, the wrong girl for him by all of his father’s accounts. The girl who will challenge his thinking about what he really wants to do with his life.