When I got to the Fishtrap lodge, I had two options for the morning. I could go for a hike in the forest, which is what many of the week-long participants did, or I could attend the morning workshop with Don Snow, whom I'd met at dinner the previous evening.
I'd done plenty of hiking lately, and since this was a writer's conference, I didn't think twice about my choice. I went inside the lodge for the workshop and took a set at the table in the corner, under the towering clear windows of the A-frame outlined in wooden beams partially in the shape of a crucifix.
In this case, despite ample attendance that nearly filled all the chairs, no one else joined me at my remote table.
Don started us off with a writing exercise. This is how nearly all writing workshop sessions start, I've learned. Then he spoke briefly about the meaning of the theme of this year's conference: "Breaking Trail."
He asked the class to brainstorm variations on the word "breaking." He compiled a list of phrases as people called them out from the room: breaking up, breaking out, breaking down, breaking apart, breaking bad...
For the next exercise, which was to be longer, he asked us to come up with our own bit of writing on some variation of the theme "breaking." It could be prose, poetry, or even a short play. He told us that if we didn't like that idea, we were of course free to do something completely of our choosing, or to continue working on some project we had already started (I've learned this is the standard disclaimer that one receives).
For the next forty-five minutes, we went off to write in separate parts of the lodge and outside on the patio. I took my backpack outside and found a picnic table behind the lodge by the rivulet stream that ran through the conference grounds.
I figured the best thing for me to do was just to write a blog post about what I'd done that morning so far, including stopping in Joseph and trying eating a giant mound of hash browns. I was planning on writing that up anyway.
Unlike most of my blog posts, I wrote this one out long hand first, in my hasty impatient handwriting, then revised it. Since there was still time, I went back into the lodge to my corner table and typed the entire revised draft into my laptop.
When the time for exercise had elapsed, Don called the rest of us back into the lodge and asked for volunteers to share. I wanted to read my own work---something I hadn't done in a very long time---but I wanted to let a bunch of other people go first. Most of the people who read had written moving and interesting pieces. I felt like I had my work cut out for me, to live up to the standard that had been set. Finally during a pause in the string of volunteers, and when Don was looking my way, I raised my hand.
It was quite fun, and a little nerve-wracking, to read what I'd written. I wasn't used to live audiences and instantaneous feedback. A couple paragraphs into it, I wasn't sure if anyone was still following me, when I got to the line about how "I'd long since gotten over that kind of petty guilt over my personal consumption," half the room burst out in laughter.
They laughed again at a couple more lines, but interestingly not where I would have thought people would laugh, if you'd asked me. It was quite enlightening to find out what people actually responded to.
After I finished, Don called it "well composed."
After a moment's reflection, he added, "I never thought of onions as roadkill before."
I had resisted the fleeting temptation to append a denouement to the onion story in the surrealist style of Borges, one in which I would bring the narrator right into the conference lodge. Then he would write an essay about his morning as part of a writing workshop, and finally he would read it aloud to the class. It was unnecessary elaboration, I realized. I'd gotten enough laughs to validate the effect of humor I was going for.
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