If they're working in a workshop somewhere, where there is, let's say, uh... only twenty people, or something like that, that's still, when they work and do a scene, that's still working in front of somebody.
I went straight from the Marine Corps to the MFA. The way that you would express things among Marines is somewhat different than the way you're supposed to express things in a creative-writing workshop.
Third, for people who aren't doing it already, take classes - they're worthwhile. Workshops or classes - a workshop is where you do actually get feedback on your work, not just something where you go and sit for a day.
I started off doing fiction in 1993. It didn't occur to me to do nonfiction because it wasn't a thing yet. So I was bumbling around, writing short stories, and then I took a nonfiction workshop, and I realized that this was what I was supposed to do.
There would be no idling in a co-operative workshop. Each workman, being an employer, has a spur to his own industry, and has a pecuniary reason for being watchful of the industry of his fellow workmen.
We've had to set a workshop up; we've had to equip the workshop and everything else. But all that equipment is there now and whatever projects they want to use it for in the future.
