sometimes learn by watching

I went to UC Santa Cruz and did their creative writing program.  Three years of workshopping my own stuff taught me a lot, and I learned a lot by watching other people write-- succeeding and failing just as I did.

But it was an insular kind of learning.  About my own craft, my own style, and what subject matter I could handle and what subject matter I fumbled like fine china.  The end result was, a short time after graduation, I pretty much stopped writing.  I became too conscious of what I was doing, of what I was trying to say.  The filters became so fine and so tight that nothing got through anymore.

And actually, I was okay with that.  I still am.

Over the past year, I've had the amazing experience of watching karentraviss work.  The experience of watching another writer go about their craft, being able to see it from up-close (though I know that there's about 2000% more going on inside her head that I don't see) has been totally fascinating and illuminating.  What's made it so incredible is that it's not just watching her craft her own original fiction; I've been able to see her interpret and story-tell about Star Wars.

Why's that important?  Because I understand a whole lot about Star Wars.  (And because millions, maybe even billions of other people do too.)  There's a lot about it that I've internalized; ideas that have become a part of me. (Especially the mythic aspects.)  So when Karen goes to work on a certain  issue, like cloning or Jedi, it's like she's working on a part of ME.  And being a pretty self-centered human, I learn better from things that are within easy reach.

Karen's not the sort of person who's going to "teach" you about something, either.  In fact, I'm not even sure she knows how much she's taught me... merely by doing... and doing extremely well.  There's a rough parallel between my experience and the experience of reading, say, Hard Contact.   On the surface it's just a grand adventure, a gripping tale of stuff happening (a novel being written; a group of clones fighting a war), but when you emerge from the other side, you find certain fundamental ideals got changed in the process.  And you can't really put your finger on where exactly.

Suffice to say, the experience has been... priceless.  And I mean that in the most sincere sense, like... I can't put a value on it.  You couldn't buy this sort of thing with money.  No college education could equal it.

Anyway, thanks KT, sensei.  I remain your humble student.