How forgetful of me

When I posted "Cradle" (Story 7) a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to find that I'd revised it--in fact, that I'd combined it with "Talks with Janie," the story that used to precede it. I had completely forgotten.

The genesis for the revision was a workshop I took with Viet Dinh at Lighthouse Writers in Denver. It was supposed to be an intermediate-level workshop and was, unlike most I've taken, almost all men. It was also one of the worst I've ever had, partly because of the instructor and partly because some of the people in it had no writing experience to speak of.

I'd wanted to workshop two stories together (Cradle and One Summer in Missouri) to see if they should be combined. But Viet didn't want to do that; he wanted to make sure each story "stood alone." Of course, that was the reason I wanted to workshop them at once, because I thought the first might just be background for the second and I wanted other writers to tell me if they agreed. So I was already pissed about that ...

Warning: Rant coming!

while I was sitting in my workshop listening to my characters getting called a "tramp" and a "cad." I don't believe I've ever heard anyone do that before, to me or anyone else. Viet then gives me his opinion of the story, which was helpful, and then runs to the bathroom to pee, so I didn't get a chance to ask questions. In the workshop for the next victim, Viet did something so weird I hardly know how to describe it. He said to the guy, "Angry face on," and then proceeded to critique his story. Then he said "Angry face off," and I truly believe he thought he had done something clever. It's a good thing he didn't do that to me; I would've gone ballistic. WTF!

But that wasn't even...

Warning: Rant keeps going!

the worst of it.

The next week, we workshopped a piece about a bunch of Vietnam vets going to prostitutes in Thailand, I think it was, and nobody called them tramps. I was too much of a wimp to do so, and none of the men in attendance commented about guys fucking women they'd just hired, even though one of the guys in the class thought there was something wrong with my female character sleeping with a new boyfriend after three weeks.

Whatever.

OK. The rant is over. I stayed in that workshop for 3 weeks, I think, and then gave up on feeling comfortable in it. Viet no longer teaches for Lighthouse, which I think is a good thing, because he obviously didn't read the memo on being positive (which has its own drawbacks, of course).

But I realized after reading the comments from that workshop that I had two stories in a row doing essentially the same thing, and they weren't the two stories I thought they were. Both "Talks with Janie" and "Cradle" had to do with Natalie letting go of the past and moving on, but they also had to do with her breaking silence in various ways. (So the title of the book's not subtle; what can I say?) I added Janie as a frame to "Cradle" and took out the long scene in an older version of "Cradle" in which Natalie and Chris meet. So now that meeting is only referenced in a later story; it never takes place on camera.

I like "Cradle" better now that it's been revised. I got to write about a real person in my life (a woman I met at Lake Tapawingo, which is a real place outside Kansas City). But she didn't really need her own story. She's more a kind of local color than even a minor character in her own right.