Writers’ Workshop

So, at some expense I signed up to attend a five-day intensive writers’ workshop. I signed up in February and it starts this week (7/12/07). Has anyone attended Algonkian conferences? I didn’t come up with any negatives online so I’m giving it a shot. I’m a little apprehensive, not so much about the workshop but about how I’ll handle it. I think it will either make or break my writing from here. I know that’s a little black and white thinking, but I suspect there will be things writers are asked to do to their work that I will be unwilling to do. I’m not going to turn my story into someone else’s just to sell it. On the other hand, maybe they’ll teach me just what I need to know to take my work to a higher level. We’ll see. I don’t think I’ll have wireless access there so I may have to save my follow-up posts for post facto.

Branding

I’ve been thinking a lot about this these days. Seems almost every organization is trying to show the world it is “green,” and so much green branding is going on that now we have a “green wave.” And this week I heard the term “greenwashing” which I think is what a lot of companies are really doing. My organization is planning a rebrand. It is fun to do but a  LOT of work and time and money. I started thinking – drawing on my interest in history – about one of the greatest branding jobs of all time: The Sun King. I wondered if anyone had ever written a book about how they did it, and sure enough I found Peter Burke’s “The Fabrication of Louis XIV.” It’s kind of a dense academic book but nonetheless fascinating. They used to create a Disney World type line where people would queue up for hours just to get a glimpse of him through a crack in the door, and it was all completely staged.

Welcome!

Welcome to Eternal Whisperings. The name comes from one of my favorite poems by Keats, and from the time period I’m most interested in studying. To me it suggests the way ideas often come, like a whisper from the past. In this space I intend to focus on things I learn as I research and write about the 17th century.