Tomorrow Tammy Ryan and I have the first session of the 6-month Roland Tec Online Writing Workshop. Although I've been offering some form of this online workshop for scriptwriters all across the country for years, each time I find I need to slightly revise the rules of the road.
And because experience has taught me that workshop participants need clear rules of engagement for the simple logistics I create documents with answers to questions like:
How many pages can I have read each time?
How do I offer feedback on other people's work?
When will my work get read?
etc. etc. etc.
And as I've been revising this year's documents to adjust for this new format -- this is the first time I've invited another writer to co-lead the workshop with me -- I've noticed something interesting.
I sound like a bit of a prig in my Rules Memos. And I've been told my in-person persona is pretty welcoming and upbeat.
Why is this?
I think it's cause my number one concern when running one of these workshops is:
Fairness
And I've had too much experience in the world watching pushy people elbow time and attention away from the shy among us and it really pisses me off.
So I've made a bunch of rules intended to protect the mild-mannered among us from bullying -- overt or inadvertent.
And probably my tone in these memos reflects my fear of letting any one of the shy or less confident among us get railroaded.
So to all you who may be reading one of these memos tonight and wondering: What have I gotten myself into with this guy?
Please know this: I've got your back.