victoria redel workshop

"There isn't anything that we all haven't lived that couldn't be made into a poem." --Victoria Redel

I loved this workshop! I wish I could have gone to her reading. She had so many gems of advice. For a fiction writer/poet, she sure knew a lot about what drives creative nonfiction. I guess it's because it's all related really, finding the "art" in life. Her talk really fired me up for writing once again. I take for granted that I want to be a writer sometimes; I'm so busy with everything else that I usually don't write as much as I should. Victoria Redel said: "If you don't use it, you'll lose it." And that really struck a chord with me. Hearing an experienced, successful writer talk about the possibility of actually losing "it," that little light inside my head that turns on when I write, really made me wise up. I'm going to make more time for writing in my life from now on. And I'm going to take some of her other advice, which is to pay attention to the tiny, seemingly insignificant details and use them in writing to elevate situations to a new level, to art. I've been taught that before, but the way that she explained it, with the "pass the salt" story, it just made more sense. I'm so glad I went to that workshop, and I'm not just kissing ass. Victoria Redel is an author that makes sense to me, both in process and outlook. Now I just need to read some of her work...