Workshop Tomorrow

I’m taking a huge step outside my comfort zone tomorrow. Bob Mayer is coming to town and giving two days of workshops: one focused on writing and the other focused on the writer. Originally the one today was supposed to be for non-fiction writers, so I wasn’t interested. Turns out it was changed to a fiction workshop after I’d signed up for Sunday’s author-centric one and didn’t feel I could afford to do both.

I think I made the right decision in any case. I need to focus on my habits and goals in order to produce the writing in the first place. The workshop is called Warrior Writer and is based on his experiences as a Green Beret and his book Who Dares Wins: The Green Beret Way to Conquer Fear and Succeed.

Yeah, that’s so not me, right? Disciplined, decisive, daring? Those are all areas I need to work on. Just going through the exercises for the workshop discussion have been interesting in which I’m willing to plop down answers for and which I’m still avoiding looking at. The other reason I think this is the right workshop lies in the whole conquering fear bit. I don’t like new situations or going places where I don’t know anyone. Yup. This definitely fits the bill as stepping out into my courage zone.

According to the Meyers-Briggs evaluations I fall right into the INTP classification. Bria’s gonna laugh, since she’s the one who dubbed me the highly theoretical diva once. The definition on the Myers-Briggs site for INTP is:

Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

Ayup. “Puzzle. Must. Solve. Puzzle.” Makes it clearer why I over think everything and analyze it to death, doesn’t it? Definitely explains the problems I’ve had with wrapping my head around plotting and the ones I had in graduate school going for my Master’s degree in Economics. They weren’t trying to teach “theoretical and abstract” which is what I was interested in learning. Definitely wasn’t interested in using higher mathematics that first required a degree in math to understand. The biggest block I think was when the History of Economic Thought professor said it was pointless to even discuss Karl Marx, because it was irrelevant. The Soviet Union fell, case closed. Gee, maybe we could have learned something from WHY it fell and where his theories were flawed or was it just the implementation? Pffft. Now you see why I didn’t finish.

Anyway… the workshop’s tomorrow and I had horrible stress dreams this morning. I got to the workshop, lost my laptop, and was totally unprepared and lost compared to everyone else who’d been there today and had become the best buddies. Bleah. I’ve been trying not to think about it. I’ll survive, have fun, and even learn some new things. I really am looking forward to it. I need pushed from my comfort zone, I’m just usually willing to do it myself.

Maybe after tomorrow, I’ll have to adopt a new image?