As the Workshop Turns
Our first installment in As the Workshop Turns is filled with excitement, waiting and mystery. Watch as our heroine discovers a hidden opportunity but has to agonize in wait wondering if October will forever change her life 1.
Sitting quietly in front of her laptop, Annie decided to close some of the tabs in her browser and find some interesting things in her RSS reader to blog about. She had been busy for the last few days with family illness and major life decisions regarding her home and life in the immediate future so she had fallen behind in blogging. As she worked her way down the row of tabs, she came across the blog, Hey Girl, Nice Shot. When she first found the blog it piqued her interest and she wanted to blog about it but as it often happens, she got busy.
Since Hey Girl, Nice Shot had been opened in a tab in her browser for quite awhile now, Annie decided to finally subscribe to the feed and be done with it. Clicking the subscribe button, it took her into Google Reader where it brought up the blog’s newest entry. Her eyes, artfully trained to scan, immediately locked on to the name staring back at her — Audrey Woulard.
The blog’s author’s savvy use of bold text drew her eye in.
“An online friend has a spot for the October 15th-October 16th Audrey Woulard Workshop at her studio in Chicago that she very sadly cannot make. And, sadly, it is not in cards for me either. But our loss is your gain. Audrey is not planning on offering any workshops in 2008 so this could be your last chance to work by her side and learn from her.”
What is this? A spot for a workshop for sale? How can this be? She read further.
“If you are interested in buying this spot in the workshop, you can contact . . . “2
As if driven by forces outside her, she clicked on the email link to let the woman know she was interested. Interested? How could she be interested? Where was she going to get the money? Where would she stay? What would she do with the children? How dare she pretend she belongs there in the first place!
But how could she be not interested? Now that she’d be taking over her mother’s home she’d have more room for equipment, framing, an office and more. She finished her Special Kids Photography workshop and passed all testing with flying colors. Her mother offered to help where she could and said that she could watch the children when Annie needed to sneak away for appointments.
Learning from someone like Audrey would be the boost she needed to get back in the game which, at this point, was sorely lacking in her opinion. Film had been her forte and her heyday and while she had a pro-sumer digital camera and several other modern accouterments, she still secretly felt as if she just wasn’t where she was when she was surrounded by emulsion-topped celluloid and crop cards. But that was her own issue to deal with and was neither here nor there when it came down to going forward. This was no time to be uncharacteristically lacking in confidence or the ability to fake it if need be. Heh.
As she waited impatiently for a reply, she tried to distract herself from thinking about it. Being that she didn’t notice the announcement until four hours after it was posted, she was expecting it to be snatched up by now. Either way, thinking about the opportunity made her anxious and at least a confirmation that it was taken would be appreciated. The person on the other end was not being purposefully tardy at returning emails; she realized that people had lives and responsibilities and it was her lack of patience that was the problem.
1Stunts performed by trained actors. Do not try this at home!
2Name withheld to protect the innocent and because I have a mean competitive streak.
