The Strangely Competitive World of Sci-Fi Writing Workshops
wired.com
wired.com
;) I wouldn't usually point it out, but since we're discussing writing workshops...
Clarion always sounded fantastic. I wonder how much of it is simply that it gives you the opportunity to live-and-breathe something, day-in, day-out, for six weeks. Regardless of what you're trying to do, if you manage to do it solidly for six weeks, you'll become good (or at least markedly better) at it. For most of us, even if we had that time, I imagine the biggest hurdle would be motivation and becoming discouraged if we tried it on our own. So I wonder how much of the success of these programmes is perhaps not the expert advice per se but more the creation of a healthy space where people are able to throw themselves into their work like that. (Is this not fairly similar to Y Combinator's model?)
You're half right -- the immersion is important, and it's critical to have other people on the same quest. Many of us go from being okay to hyper-productive in that environment. The hard thing is translating that to the real world. It's like having scurvy, then getting enough vitamin C for a while, then going back to having scurvy. You realize what a huge, huge thing it is to have all the infrastructure in place. Through skill or accident, some people are better at putting themselves in the right circumstances to thrive.
It shouldn't be underestimated, though, how important the instructors are. It felt like I imagine an old-timey apprenticeship might have felt, where a respected craftsman of watches shows you things about watchmaking that it would take decades to learn on your own.