Workshop eat and play

The usefulness of writer workshops at this stage of my career is severely limited. I can use all the ancillary lessons you can give about procuring an agent, getting published, being booked for festival appearances, making a living at doing what I love and do best. But the writing part I've got down pat.

If I ever get the idea to write that novella about a copper technician I'll give you a call. Until then, I have enough to be going on with.

For the poet starting out, workshops are a different proposition. Even then, I think there's a difference between those fellow versifiers scrawling their first couplets and folk who have a sufficiently romantic notion of poetry as to want to 'learn how to do it'

To side with the muse I think you require an elitist attitude because you don't believe the source of your inspiration is in tips from established writers. Experiences may, and probably do, vary. I just know that working through all those stages of growth as a writer, to realise that you've found the magic formula or hit the key register or however else one explains that ability to keep pumping it out, means you really don't need writer prompts.

In this environ, for another writer to give value, they must needs show how what they learned  and where they succeeded can be applied to your situation. Otherwise it's better to stay out of each other's way. They'll have plenty of neophytes to keep them busy.

II

As with panels, attendance at workshops by literary agents, editors and publishers can be helpful.

We can't get Mickey Spillane to host a panel but perhaps there are workshops on writing in the hard boiled Mike Hammer style. What is the ongoing utility of this though? Black Beauty is a classic but are we wise to emulate the style and characteristics of a book written in 1877?