makyo

Welcome to the Oxfurred Comma Writing Workshop! This is a place to learn from each other and writers around the world. In this course, 2—3 people will take part in three critique sessions and one writing assignment to learn more about the process of writing and critical reading. Pending FWG and applicants' responses, the Saturday and Sunday sessions will be presented as panels during Oxfurred Comma so that other attendees may view (though not participate in) the process of critiquing.

Note: This workshop is being held as partial fulfillment of my Master's of Fine Arts in creative writing program. The sessions will be recorded, though those recordings will be kept between myself and my advisor and mentor. However, should this prove successful, I would love to hold it at future conventions!

Application process

To apply to this workshop, please provide a writing sample —– either a short story or logically complete segment of a larger work with a short paragraph describing its context —– of 2000 words or less. This writing sample may be the same one used for the critique assignment described below, but doesn't need to be. To apply, email your writing sample in MS Word .docx, LibreOffice .odt, or Google Docs link (we'll be using the comment feature, and those are the best options) to ocww@makyo.io along with a short, one paragraph bio for yourself.

Decisions will be made within a few days (pending the number of applications) and selected participants will be notified by email.

Priority will be given to those who have never attended a writing workshop before. If you have, don't let that stop you, just be sure to mention so in your bio.

Course outline

During this course, you will be reading one story provided by the instructor, plus one story from each participant prior to beginning the workshop. The workshop will last for three one-hour sessions, beginning Friday night before the start of Oxfurred Comma itself.

Friday —– Evening Pacific time : This will be the time to do some introductions and learn a bit about the process of critiquing in the context of a workshop. After that, we will run through a critique of ((Story TBD)), followed by an open discussion. At the end, you will receive your assignment, due Saturday night at 5PM Pacific.

Saturday —– TBD : On Saturday, we will spend some time per author critiquing each other's stories, provided prior to the workshop. Pending remaining time, we will discuss what we liked and didn't like about the process of critique so that we bring that to the table on Sunday.

Sunday —– TBD : The final day will be spent critiquing each other's assignments turned in on Saturday with an eye towards where to go with editing. At the end, we will discuss what we can take away from the process of critique to apply to our own writing, as well as to critical reading in the future. Participants will be provided a certificate upon completion.

Assignments

One week before the workshop begins, students will be provided with reading materials that will be heavily discussed in the workshop.

• Participants will be provided with a short critical reading assignment that they will have read with the goal of participating in a discussion about the mechanics and experience.
• Participants will provide a short story (or logically complete story segment with a paragraph of context) of 1000—2000 words. Each participant will read the other participants' stories with the same goal of providing feedback and learning for their own craft. This story should not be one that has been published before and, ideally, not one read by the other participants.

During the workshop session on Friday, students will be provided with a writing assignment that will be due 24 hours later on the evening of Saturday. These assignments will be forwarded to the other participants to read that night/Sunday morning in order to be able to hold a second critique session during the final session.

I fully acknowledge that this is a short period of time, especially during a convention where you might want to attend other panels. However, I encourage participants to use this as a motivating factor for their own writing, and remember that the only two ways to 'fail' the workshop are to not participate or not learn anything. Still, take this into consideration when considering whether to sign up for this workshop.

Note: all writing (the critical reading assignment, the pre-workshop writing submission, and the in-workshop writing assignment) must be 'SFW' as the workshop will be publicly visible to other attendees who may not be 18+. Erotica holds an important place within the fandom and is due all the respect in the world, but the platform must be considered.

Expectations

During the process of the workshop, there will be both reading and writing assignments, and it's expected that these will be approached seriously with the attention that they deserve. They will take time, so be sure to budget accordingly.

All participants (and myself!) are expected to treat each other with respect. This means:

• When critiquing, respond to the writing, not the author
• Respect each other when interacting via the voice chat and any communications outside the class
• Respect each other with one's own writing; writing is a form of communication, and writing that demeans or degrades outside elements of the plot is unacceptable

This is doubly important given the nature of the workshop during a convention. We will be discussion the work of real people, and those discussions will be visible to spectators who also wish to learn but are not participating in the workshop itself, though the chat will be heavily moderated to ensure that the discussion taking place between participants remains the focus.

If there are any issues regarding respect, message me or a Guild moderator and they will be addressed immediately. Please be sure to provide Telegram or Discord contact information so that, should we need, we can message directly.

About me

I'm Madison Scott-Clary (she/her), and I've been chilling in the furry writing community for a decade or so now. I was editor-in-chief of [adjective][species], an online magazine exploring the social and demographic aspects of the furry subculture, and editor-in-chief of Hybrid Ink, a small publishing house focused on thoughtful LGBTQ+ writing. I am the author of the Post-Self cycle, the Sawtooth anthologies, and three other books, and have edited or helped edit the short story anthologies Arcana —– A Tarot Anthology, When the World Was Young: a Prehistoric Anthology, and Clade, an anthology of stories set in the Post-Self universe. I am currently studying for my MFA in creative writing at Cornell College, and this workshop is being held as part of that degree program.

Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta. Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning The Market, whatever that may be. At some point, who cares how long ago, death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again. Who knows how well they knew him, their backs turned, studiously deciding that he is no longer of them? one could never guess. We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps, that the room is tastefully furnished, the coffin silver, the bar, open, quite good, and none of them are drunk yet, or at least none look it. “Good man, good man,” they mutter, doing all they can to convince each other through well-rehearsed performances, that this must be the case. The silently bereaved already sit graveside.

I wish I could see your triumph.

I really do. That’s the thing about enemies, you see. There is a certain amount of love that has to go into that struggle. There is a certain amount of need and desire, because if there is no one there to vanquish, then what are we who strive even to do?

I wish I could see your triumph. I wish I could look up at you, broken and shattered, bleeding in the dust of unknown plains, and know — truly, utterly know — that I have been defeated, that I have been crushed and destroyed.

I wish I could see your triumph. Is that self-sacrificing of me? I really don’t know. It’s not my place to know these things.

I wish I could see your triumph. It’s my goal to succeed, to prevail, to come out the other side, to make it through, to win. It’s my goal to come away with my own triumph, but always, always there is that niggling little doubt, that secret desire to lose, to be beaten in a fair fight and have it proven to my face that at least someone could bring me low and understand that hey, at least she tried, right?

I wish I could see your triumph. I wish I could see elation in your eyes. I wish I could see you laugh. I wish I could see just how it looks for you to set aside that way you devote every erg of energy to struggle and give me one of those full on, deep-throated belly laughs that I know we all hide somewhere in our bodies.

I wish I could see your triumph, and I wish that, should you see mine, you understand just how much love goes into our struggle, just how much need and desire I hold for you.

Do you laugh, sea foam? Do you smile, ice, and observe your triumph with an angel’s remove?

Every now and then I catch a taste of Rilke, hidden around some corner of my mouth. Every now and then, I think, every angel is terrifying, and then I’ll go about my day, repeating that like a mantra: every angel is terrifying every angel is terrifying every angel is terrifying every angel…

He saw someone do that, I think I remember the story went. He was walking and saw someone face the sea, throw their arms wide, cry out to sea foam or ice or some unseen rank of angels, and…well, I don’t remember if he heard them, necessarily, but that’s how it went, right? Who, though I cry, would hear me among the ranks of angels, and then hundreds of lines later, ten elegies.

So whenever I get that awkward-shaped piece of grit between my mouth — every angel is terrifying — I think of that scene. I think of the way we elevate the unknown to some higher place that ourselves. I think of the patterns we hunt for in the sea foam, in the waves that can take us under or bash us senseless against some barnacled rock. I think about the crush of worlds implied in the calving of an iceberg and how easily that could destroy. I think about that rank of angels who, holding me to their breast, could so easily annihilate?

Do they laugh, the sea foam, the ice, the angels?

I write in fire across the sky, a plummet to match your rise.

So then, my angel, I wish I could see your triumph.

I dream of it, that moment. I dream of falling to my knees, or being so badly broken that all I can do is lay there, unmoored, and look up to the way you rise above me.

I strive against angels as I strove against men, against the world, against the cruel vagaries of my former self and all his countless failings. Some have left me reeling, some have left me on my knees, head bowed until it almost — almost! — touches the ground, and I’ve had to spend a day, a week, a year catching my breath.

But never have I striven against angels. Never have I striven against you, my angel, and there is sweetness in defeat.

There is sweetness in defeat.

I wish I could see your triumph.

I've been having some pretty strong feelings for a few people in my life, and it's kinda making me realize that a lot of how I approach such things maybe isn't the greatest.

I talk pretty often about how I tend to form romantic feelings concurrent to or before I form simple friendships. I'm more likely to wind up forming a crush on someone and then have it later turn into friendship than the other way around. There are lots of reasons for this, but I think right now, I need to consider some of the more immediate effects.

In the past, I've wound up in some relationships that were pretty unhealthy because I've pursued those feelings immediately rather than considering them more carefully first. This usually plays out poorly, because holy crap we just met.

My general solution has been to train myself to just enjoy the feeling of having a crush and see if it simply calms down into friendship later or not. If it does, bonus. If it doesn't, maybe it's worth following up on. However, with my already complicated romantic situation, I've all but stopped pursuing relationships, even if it does linger.

Still, there have been a few that have just kinda dogged at my heels for months (or longer) now. In all cases, I've basically settled on the tactic of show-don't-tell. That is, rather than gush at a person, about how much I like them, risking pressuring them into more of a relationship than either of us want, I simply show them that I care for them. Dumb stuff, like talking with them every day, showinh interest in their lives... Basically just try to be the best friend I can be for them.

I feel the need for this to be a conscious effort because I'm so terrified of pushing someone for something they don't want that anything with even a risk of doing this is to be avoided at all costs.

Thing is, I think I've gone too far with this. Show-don't-tell turned into pathologically-be-nice-to-while-avoiding-meta-relationship-conversations. Suddenly, I find myself in a variety of situations where I'm struggling, and also risking hurting folks I care about along the way, all because I don't want to... struggle, and also risk hurting them.

Weirdly, for someone who prides herself on being open and communicative, I set myself up as the opposite in some weird attempt to protect grown-ass adults from me.

Needless to say, I think it's probably time to have some conversations with folks. There are three in particular that I'm thinking of, and each case is very different, so I imagine the conversations will all go in wildly different directions, but they should all probably start in a similar fashion: “hey, I want to tell you that I really like you, but I also want to do right by you.”

Edit To be clear, I'm not looking for these to turn into more of relationships than they already are. I guess I'm just looking to be honest with my friends.

Kinda wish I was in that niche, tho. I'm halfway upset about my looks, and halfway upset about the social aspects of having had surgery, and the go together in the strangest ways. I'm struggling to put it into words that aren't either gross or bitter.

I'm gonna try, but lead with a disclaimer that my brief experience with sex work is the source of many of these feelings.

It feels like there's this socially acceptable level of trans, and I didn't realize it until it happened, but you can fall out of the other side of it, too. All the romance and transgression that went with ✨girldick✨ went away with that bit of anatomy, and now I'm just the fat chick with the complicated pussy.

I guess I feel like I'm expected to go stealth now, and I feel unwelcome in trans spaces as a result, even though honestly, anyone who's heard me talk or stood next to me knows going stealth is out of the picture.

I don't want to go stealth, though. I want to be a trans girl. Just now I'm left feeling like I'm appropriating that.

Anyway. I love all y'all's bodies, and I sometimes even love mine, but boy it leaves me feeling weird and lonely sometimes.

I spent much of the weekend interacting on Taps as Makyo (an explicit post-op trans Arctic vixen) rather than Maddy (cis-female snep), and it was actually a ton of fun. It was super interesting to see the different ways that everyone, myself included, acted as compared to with Maddy.

I got a lot of random support on the trans front, including one person who paged me out of the blue to tell me I was awesome and they were so happy to see me out, and another who started a ridiculously cute clean scene because trans folks are just more interesting.

I also wound up having some more emotional conversations with some friends/crushes/squishes that led to us getting closer, I think just because the change in context got us thinking about what we mean to each other.*

It was also interesting to see the ways in which I change. Makyo is way less outwardly subby than Maddy, though certainly still into many of the same things. She comes off as a sub with switch energy, I suppose. My typing also changes. It's less cute and full of idiosyncratic mannerisms, though still fun in a lot of ways.

Maddy's not going anywhere, natch. She's still me in just about every way.

Just, Makyo is too.

• As mentioned previously, these aren't really going anywhere. I'm enjoying the keenness of emotions associated with crushes more than I think I'd enjoy any sort of relationship, and I get the impression that the folks I talked with were basically on the same page, in a “let's just enjoy liking each other, no need for anything else” sort of way.

CW: Mention of self-harm

So, I have a real problem with self-harm. It's gone on for decades, now, since I was about four, and although I'm getting better at managing it, it's still something I really struggle against. Although I'm still working on it, I've gotten used to it.

Anyway, the result of all of that is that I have some very visible scarring, most apparent on my forearms. Sometimes, I wear arm warmers, but I've gotten to the point where I feel okay not in some situations.

Comfortable though I am about them being seen, I'm not too terribly comfortable talking about it. It's one thing to acknowledge, in a very abstract way, that this is something about me that I have to deal with, but another thing entirely to have a conversation about this particular way in which I've failed to cope time and time again. A lot of people, I suspect, don't want to hear that. I've been told by one person that I should just lie and say I defeated a bear in single combat, and while I appreciate a good lie, I'm never sure when it's appropriate.

Anyway, the upside to having to wear braces now is that I suddenly have a reason to beg off from talking about this, as I can talk about how bad my typing posture was and, for once, be an example for something other than see-a-damn-psych.

Neither Heff nor I have been sleeping well of late, but while I've been exhausted and mostly useless (thanks, sciatica), she's been cleaning for the last 36 of 48 hours. Cleaning and doing projects. She's rehung most of the pictures, organized our trash cans, dismantled and polished the screen door, moved most of the light fixtures, fixed the rug to the floor, redone a portion of the bedroom...

She's so good for JD, but I feel like she's being eaten alive, and we're just left to watch and suffer the consequences, since she doesn't really have time to. I desperately want her to see someone about this, but don't know how to ask.

In better news, JD has been feeling really good, like Lamictal has been able to help give him room to sort things out.

Me, I'm really doubting the Abilify for myself: I have to take it at 5-7 because it leaves me foggy but jittery, so that I can't sleep, but also can't work; and it's made the intrusive thoughts really spike. As I tic with each intrusive thought, I've been using that as a guage, and it's getting worse and worse. I wish I'd gotten a break between meds to see how I do without.

Much better day today all around. Called Lexy, did a thing with cat, spent time with Eirik, read and wrote, did some python on Hybrid Tracker. This felt good and necessary. JD heads out tomorrow, and I think the time apart will do us good.

Today was kind of a stressful, useless day. I did very little, and a lot of what I did feels useless. I got my TSA pre-check stuff in, which I guess is fine, but learned that I probably should've gotten Global Entry. I got some scaffolding done on my #fifjam/#strawberryjam2 project done, but then got hung up on details. I spent a good bit of time with mistress, but we both got sidetracked and then grumpy at each other later on.

Mostly, though, I hid from JD and Vicky. JD got super angry at Vicky trying to hang some shelving, so he flipped out, sulked, and decided to cancel his trip, while Vicky locked herself in the room and hung the shelves anyway. She's a bit of a noise elemental, so I've just been sitting in bed with headphones on.

This is really painful, because JD mentioned that he's not feeling good about us as a couple, and I'm a) inclined to agree, b) terrified of what that means, and c) angry at him for this being the outcome when the reason “we never do anything together anymore” is because I'm supporting all of us. Which is unfair, but still.

I dunno, I'm worried that I'm crashing.