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20 Reconsidering the Workshopbefore when it was not consciously known, only vaguely in the way ofunquestioned myth and so not accessible to transformation.And this to me is what is most valuable about the writing workshop:in reading and discussing contemporary work, the boundaries of whatis and is not "doable" now according to different writers and readersis sketched out as a map of narrative possibilities. We could neverdefine and name them as generic categories, so mutable are theboundaries that apply it seems here to one reader, one writer, and thepaths we make within these boundaries, across boundaries is what hasin their difference created for me an opening, a breech in what I hadthought was a firmly structured concrete thing, a master narrativesomebody else owned and I was to learn how to tell it right, and whatI learned instead was that there were only conventional ways in whichlanguage is worked to be a narrative and so readers read them inconventional ways and you can use them any way you want and somepeople will listen, some will object, many will say you can't do that.Over the course of this correspondence (I've just reread what we'vewritten so far), I see two threads we are weaving, or trying, to weave.Maybe they are opposing points of view or maybe they can worktogether. What do you think?I . You want textual boundary definitions (the desire for firm ground):a vocabulary, a set of defined concepts we can use as a basis forthe discussion in workshops, e.g. generic definitions, the masternarrative.). I resist the above for an equally limiting point of view, call itfluid, multiple, it is not definable, it gels in conflict sometimes,but generally it is content to be rigorously amorphous, resistantto rigid structuration, structure imposing itself, nonetheless, itcan exist outside form because form structures it outside itself.Looking forward to hearing from you.Sincerely,JanAugust I, 1991Dear Jan,Here is my last shot. I was really interested in the things you saidabout master narratives in your last letter and for a while I thought Iwould write again about that, e.g., do writers really have the power to4 4