Hold Yourself Accountable: In Praise of the Accountability Workshop
by Kimberley Allen McNamara
January is the time for revamping, out with the old and in with the new. We hit the gym; we attempt to embrace our clean eating and dry or damp January commitments. We might take a class to jump-start our new choices. We state intentions to our friends and family or write them down. We try to hold ourselves accountable (the trainer, the gym membership, the 10-week class).
For writers, there is a new option in town: the Accountability Workshop. Born from an idea floated by Aimee Bender's essay about showing up for the writing the way we all know to show up for work: the employee code of conduct and expectation, if you are hired to be a barista you show up for an expected shift and you are a barista. The same thing must be done for writing, according to Bender as she wrote in an essay for O magazine.
Inspired by this essay, Annie Hartnett broached the possibility of being contract partners with her fellow author, Tessa Fontaine; both struggled to write their second books. As the website for the Accountability Workshop states:
"It was 2018[…]We each drafted a contract, committing to word counts and daily email check-ins, and became accountability partners. We both had MFAs, and we both had published books -- but this contract thing was different. The work got done. The agony ended. Writing was simplified: just show up per the rules of your contract, do the work, report progress to your supervisor."
Full disclosure: I joined the Accountability Workshop in October 2022; this is not a paid endorsement. This is from the heart.
Admittedly, I was skeptical. I had tried an accountability contract in a writing class once, and my partner was not into it, so I found the experience lackluster. However, on the recommendation of AOR's writing group member, Lee Hoffman, I joined an Accountability Workshop cohort in October 2022.
One underlying tenet of the Accountability Workshop is that it is an anti-workshop. If you've ever taken a writing class, you know the drill. The first class is a get-to-know-you, with some excerpts from short stories or novels underscoring an aspect of craft, and then there is the sign-up for workshop dates. Workshop dates are when you will bring 5-10 pages of your work-in-progress (WIP). You will read the pages out loud, after which the other class members, with the instructor acting as a monitor, will volley around things they liked about the pages, things they wondered about, what they were confused about, what was lacking… Sometimes, they will go off on tangents, and the whole time you remain silent. The instructor generally reigns them back on to constructive topics and then tries to provide a summation of what more could be done with the pages and compliments you on the fact that there was so much discussion because clearly, the readers are interested (they are, they all nod their heads). Then, it is time for you to ask any questions about what was said. Usually, the writer is like a deer caught in headlights. The writer may be overwhelmed or defensive/sensitive, especially about the one aspect that caused everyone to spiral off critique. There will be a bit more discussion for clarification, and then the group will move on to the next workshop person.**
The Accountability Workshop ignores the expected criteria of the 'workshop.'
In the Accountability Workshop, there is no reading aloud of pages and no critique. It is an anti-workshop.
Every other week, you log on to Zoom through the website member portal and talk with your writing peers about how your writing is going.
Twice weekly the Coaches host Zoom meetings (known as Caves) where you show up state your intention and write for an 1 hour. Parallel play for writers.
There is a Slack channel where members post concerns and contests and post inspirational quotes/stories by published, successful authors who were in these very same trenches, who also were caught between the throes of angst and passion for the art of writing.
Sometimes, members exchange numbers and text for a pep talk (when a rejection has been received when the words aren't coming), and sometimes, members meet one another at book signing events or because they are in the same locale.
There isn't the standard workshop pressure; the pressure is being accountable to yourself and the goals that you set with a contract between you and the Coaches, Annie Hartnett and Tessa Fontaine.
When you join an Accountability Cohort, you fill out a contract of how many words you expect to write, how many hours you can commit, etc. You set up the contract according to what you think you can and should achieve and what is reasonable. The contract is submitted and accepted. You reserve the right to alter the contract by filling out another one. As you complete your contract writing expectations, you email your completions to the Coaches, and you receive a simple email with the word "Check." Sounds so amazingly simple, and it is. As the website says, you do the work and submit the report. And it is excellent to receive that check back!
Only some people follow a daily report or tally of progress. Some members only email once a week and then set up another contract for the next week. This is the writer stating their intentions for writing over the week.
And then, every other week, there is a Zoom check-in with Coaches Hartnett and Fontaine and the other members of your cohort. Throughout the 1.5-hour Zoom, we hear about struggles and successes, and we give and receive advice. We cheer each other on, offer solutions for roadblocks, and learn from each other under Hartnett and Fontaine's gentle and pragmatic guidance.
The Accountability Workshop is more than a group; it’s a community and lifestyle.
In addition, the Accountability Workshop offers members the opportunity to connect beyond the bimonthly check-in. There are group activities where the members of all cohorts can join: book group (we read a book together and then discuss), author talks (published authors speak to us about their process, their struggles, their writing), and side groups where we participate in NaNoWriMo together, or as we are doing currently, a malleable practice inspired by Cameron's the Artist's Way of Morning Pages and ‘then some.’
There are also one-on-one phone calls with a coach when you've hit a writing wall, struggled with a craft point, or had a concern about querying or agent boundaries or about what comes next now that the draft and revisions are done.
You are a writer. You need to hold yourself accountable to your craft, your passion, your joi ede vivre.
The Accountability Workshop is what your writing needs. You know you need 30 minutes of exercise and to eat more vegetables, drink more water, and have more fiber. Doesn't your writing deserve the same amount of concern, expectation, attention? Don’t you need to be accountable to your writing? Check out the Accountability Workshop.
**Sidebar:
Author Matthew Salesses, in his book Craft in the Real World, questions this workshop setup and the fact the writer is placed in a 'cone of silence' while others talk about their work, unable to defend their work or question the critics until the end. Salesses' book is both a great listen and a great read. He offers paths to revamp the workshopping process and embrace ways of writing fiction other than the Western white male way. "Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. After all, as he reminds us, "When we write fiction, we write the world." (matthewsalesses.com)
The Accountability Workability Workshop may be one way of undoing the way writing is workshopped and accounted. Workshopping for the Real World.
