River Brown

Sooooo, I just spent the last few hours trying to create a blurb that was exciting, funny, engaging and motivating enough to encourage colleagues to attend a 4pm to 7pm PD session on writing. And now I feel as if all my writing energy has been drained! Whew! Talk about process!

I started by looking for some funny quotes about writing – there are plenty and then I fiddled around with them, thinking of how inspiring they would be. I really wanted to use the one about writing being therapy and setting up my blurb as a therapy session (Laura and I already went that route for Asilomar) and then I tried the serious one about how writing is much more painful for the writer than for anyone else, but I knew that one set a depressing tone. I tried a few more, cutting and pasting and thinking of setting it up as a cutesy invitation to a tea party or a heart felt sentimental love letter. I would type a few words, then delete, type a bit more, delete, try a different choice, google synonyms, yank my hair, delete, chew my nails, delete, delete, delete. What would motivate my tired, make-it-to-the-end-of-the-year, frazzled colleagues to attend a PD in the evening and worse yet a PD on WRITING?

I wanted to announce a raffle, coffee and treats, lots of learning to ease the pain of teaching writing, fun environment, and a plane ticket to Paris… But I had to stop there as I don’t think my department could fund that one yet. I tried to envision what motivates me to attend PD and here is the short of it:
1.) food
2.) money
3.) awesome presenter
4.) food
5.) free stuff
6.) peer pressure
7.) food
8.) someone asks me to go as a “favor”

Yeah that is about all it takes. If I missed anything, let me know. But of course I go to learn, I go because there is always something to learn and in this business, there is no such thing as tapping out. And honestly there is something so incredibly delicious about just sitting and being a learner. I love to sit down and watch a presenter and see their craft and look for what they do well and where they could have given more time or done less talking. But just how in the darn world do I get colleagues to go? How do I convince them that it is worth it?