TECH: what's a workshop for?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 23 September 2008

Kind of interesting. Over on Baen's Bar there's been some discussion about the right purpose for a writer's workshop. Apparently there are some bloggers who are arguing that you should never use a writer's workshop to fix your current work. They base this in part on  Heinlein's old advice:

1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.

As I understand it, the suggestion is that you should always be working on new pieces. Keep crunching them out and send them. Part of the reason for this is to avoid losing your voice.

Somewhere in the fray, I suggested, "If you're using the workshop to avoid completing the cycle -- write, finish, submit, and keep submitting -- then the workshop is probably a bad idea. If you're using the workshop as a step in finishing -- it's a lot easier to see what's wrong when other people point it out."

BTW: Here's the link to Robert Sawyer commenting on this
http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm
and Dean Wesley Smith commentary:
http://deanwesleysmith.com/index.php/2008/09/06/heinleins-rules-revisted/

What do you think? Do you use workshops and critiques? What for? What do you get out of the responses, and what do you do with them?