Just Clap

[theladywolf]

I went to an Open Mic night in Westport this Thursday. The Creel Restaurant on the Quays were good enough to provide the venue, and I can wholeheartedly recommend the place if you ever find yourself in town. The setting was fabulous, the restaurant looked out onto the quay itself and, the surrounding hills had sheep that insisted on parading up and

Comments

[ideealisme]

I take your point, though I believe the work should also be powerful enough to induce the suspension of the listener's desire to criticise.

Glad you had fun at the reading and enjoyed yourself!

[theladywolf]

I guess I'm revving up for a run at a completed first draft. I want all editors, internal and external, to shut the f**k up. :) That must be it. :)

[theladywolf]

But I know what you mean about the work being powerful enough to induce the suspension of the listener's desire to criticise. I guess what annoyed me about the criticisms about that story is that I had felt the story powerful enough. And the criticisms were still there. I guess that's always the way with something as subjective as writing though.

[namelessarchon]

Sounds like a great time, thanks for the write up. I almost felt I was there.

[theladywolf]

We're having one in Achill at the end of June. Surely that will coincide with your trip to these fair isles. :)

[gabriel_writes]

Archon is going to Ireland? How did I miss this?

[theladywolf]

When I told him I was planning to lock myself in the house for the entire summer and just write and have no visitors and be a mighty recluse, he joked that it was an awful pity we couldn't meet up as he had planned to visit Ireland this summer. At least I think he was joking. :)

I think I'm getting addicted to that jewel game. I'm very envious of your score.

[firstact]

Sounds like fun. I totally agree that sometimes it's just better to clap.

[theladywolf]

I intend to just clap all the way through my first draft. ;)

[kara_gnome]

I could not agree more. Cameron talks about this in her second book, in a way, and plus, what I've been thinking about, but it's a way to honor/feed/feel/be with/applaud creativity, just plain creativity.

She discusses groups who do this, meet for creative, not critique, purposes, though I think they would evolve or warp as people got to know each other, human nature being what it is. This is exactly right.

Plus, it sounds like you had so much fun, and you can't beat that :)

[theladywolf]

Yes, the dynamics might change if we were to keep doing it. I can see how it might grow stale and frustrating, but I totally agree we need sometimes to just show up and be happy for each other. I think we have to find the balance. Too much critiquing makes Jill an unhappy writer. (mangled from some colloquialism) :)