My family has decided it’s time for me to get a life. I’m a loner if ever there was one, and getting worse by the year. Which is sad in a way, because I like people. Especially I like people who will visit me. I’m one of those mama types who wants to feed everybody, and nothing makes me happier than a roomful of people clamoring for dinner.
Over the years, though, my circle of friends has fallen away. I spent years in Vegas without a friend who wasn’t family, and to be honest I never regretted it. But living in Portland, with Drew on the road and only a game-addicted ten-year-old boy for company, I find myself in danger of being cut off from adult companionship altogether. Social atrophy is setting in. So as a palliative measure I’m doing something I never thought I’d find the courage to do. I’m joining a writers group. The group is a brand new one so I’m not sure exactly how this will go, but I’m going to try. We’ll be meeting once a month in a sculptor’s studio that belongs to one of the writers. A cool place to gather, right? Surely there will be a creative vibe. And there will be other bashful writer-types, clutching their sweaty pages, passing them around and hoping for the best. Surely I’ll be able to remember my name and think of something not-awful to say about myself and keep my voice steady and my face from turning pink, and sit in a room full of people and be helpful and a fucking person and not an unbearable ass.
If everyone else appears confident and self-possessed, I’m out of there.
What are you still working on, after all these years?
Photograph by Ellen Von Unwerth
“What are you still working on, after all these years?”
Getting an actual, physical, hold-it-in-your-hands-and-turn-its-pages-book-that’s-published-by-a-publisher-and-has-an-ISBN-number published.
Have you tried writing about vampires, and/or giggly S&M?
i wrote about lawyers and figured that covered all those bases.
Me to me to me to, not the lawyer thing or vampire wizard thing but the book thing
I see I am missing some o’s. At least i spelled bok write..hahahaha
Uh, what are we, virtual chopped liver? Though if your group is anything like that photo, Skype me in.
I’m still working on contentment and patience, both of which had better show up soon, because I’ve just about had it.
You are NOT chopped liver, but are too virtual for me to sit you down at a table and shove a bowl of chicken and dumplings under your nose.
It’s the thought that counts—and I did have chicken and dumplings for lunch, thought it came from a can and therefore wasn’t the same at all . . . sniff . . .
I made gnocchi with pesto yesterday, which counts as dumplings, hold the chicken. You have perfectly expressed my sentiments, Averil: a friend is someone you share a meal with. I hope someday to consummate our relationship over a plate of vegan something-or-other.
Please shove a bowl of chicken and dumplings under my nose.
The kitchen is open. Come on down!
Like Tetman, I’m still working on that published book (or should be). But I’m having fun with these short stories that have gripped me too.
Good luck with the writers group. I’ve been in one or two and found them not so helpful.The ones I knew were dominated by certain personalities and a lot of conventional wisdom.
Still, I was looking around for a running group to join for much the same reasons you listed: Too much aloneness ain’t good for the boy. I’ve given that up though. I like the aloneness.
But when I come to Portland to visit my son, I’ll be looking for chicken and dumplings. And a good place to run.
Come see me, Paul. I will fatten you up, or you can run laps around Izzy and me at the park across the street.
(I saw a huge tree today shedding pink leaves. Pink! Crazy-beautiful, like a giant pinata had exploded in my neighbor’s front yard.)
I love that photo! I’m that girl too, the one grasping at straws with the crazed expression. I’m still a work-in-process. Nothing is finished over here. I don’t know if I’d recognize “done” if it slapped me across the face. (Yay for you with the group! My group fell apart and I’m still at lose ends over here.)
What happened with your group, Anna?
Oh– one moved to Israel, another had a baby, and poof. I’ve been searching Craigslist but nothing. It is so, so hard to get a good group. And I’m with you in needing the face-to-face interaction. This computer just isn’t satisfying for that stuff. I hope your group is good– the artist studio sounds promising.
It’s the studio that sucked me in. I’m fascinated by artists’ spaces.
Start your own Anna.
Even if you have to put up a scary notice in local shop windows, advertising for odd people to join an underground writing group, and explaining that they will be kicked out the second week unless they make everyone’s hearts tremble with fear because they keep being honest with you…
Start your own group, and move the venue every time you kick out an undesirable. Works for me…
What Tetman said…
Interesting that you’re just starting to attend a writers group. I just left one. But it was only to attend one in which I feel so much more connected to the members. For the first time in the 6 years I’ve been doing groups, I’m around people who seem to really understand my writing. As I put it to a friend a couple of weeks ago, “So this is what a writers group is supposed to be like.”
If the group is a good fit, you’ll know it right away. Best of luck.
You guys are making me nervous about the writers group. I wasn’t thinking anyone would be out for blood, I thought it was meant to be helpful and supportive. This may have been a naive assumption on my part.
Maybe I should take up bingo instead.
So, (and please don’t laugh when I tell you this) I have a bit of an obsession with Beauty and the Beast. I started a novel over a year ago focused on Gaston. The fairytale doesn’t have Gaston in it so I wanted to write something with saving him (instead of the Beast) as the ultimate aim. I still haven’t gotten far on that. Laziness, A.D.D., getting distracted. I don’t know, but something is stopping me from finishing it.
I’m not laughing. Fairy tales are sexy, just ask Anne Rice.
or Angela Carter.
I wish you much luck with the writing group, in both aspects.
I’ve thought of trying that sort of thing myself, but Chicago is geographically tall and skinny, and every group like that (that would touch what it is I want us to share there) would be up in the nothern half somewhere. I’m stuck in the southern half, where the other ‘cool’ people are way over east (as hard to travel to as the top half.) I have a lot of trouble with not feeling discouraged when people find me strange and then turn away.
I hear what you mean about this virtual friendliness not quite translating. I wish it could somehow.
Maybe you could start a group of your own. Surely there’s a cool kid or two in your neck of the woods?
I tried to find them. The sheer difficulty of it gave me a headache.
What am I still working on? Well, there’s this BOOK, but in this crowd that goes without saying. And with an even greater degree of difficulty, I am working on getting anxiety under control. It’s been nasty of late and it’s starting to interfere with everything, not the least of which is breathing. And I don’t know why it’s come roaring back so fiercely. It’s work, man is it work.
Weird the way that works. You think you’re doing fine, and then bam! Back you go to square one.
Breathe, Mary Lynne.
XO
averil, for what it’s worth–and seeing’s how it’s free, well…–my intuition klaxon sounded when you said you were joining a writers’ group. it’s a necessary good for a writer to get out, but is that the out you should get into?
Well, honestly I don’t know. I have no idea what a writers group is like, but I have some fuzzy notion of trying to create a 3-D version of us, the blog circle. (You could all save me the trouble by moving to Portland, or at least keeping up a steady stream of visits.)
Bad idea?
jesus. the writing group. heebies my jeebies just to think of it. don’t let a bunch of amateurs fuck with your work. when you need help, call in the professionals.
for real-time in-the-flesh social interaction, do something more interesting. no, not that. you’re married. but something that will feed your writing without being so tightly connected to writing and writers. drop in on the courts sometime, go to a few trials. shoot some pool of an afternoon, maybe every thursday. go to a strip joint and talk with the girls. find out if the local police have a ride-along program or something like that. work in a soup kitchen, volunteer at a rescue mission–anything but more hanging out with writers.
you know cormac mccarthy? well, not personally, i mean, but you know of him and his work? blood meridian? all the pretty horses? no country for old men? he says he can’t hardly stand to be around other writers. used to hang out with lawyers, nowadays he hangs out with scientists. he says they’re a hell of a lot more interesting.
But Tetman, am I really going to make a friend at the strip joint, or the pool hall, or a rescue mission? I agree it would be interesting for research purposes, but to build a social life?
you might be surprised
I have a friend who retired and found a whole new group of women friends in her volunteer life. Her stories about the people who shop in the thrift shop she volunteers at forthe hospital are the stuff novels are made of!
It’s not that I don’t understand. I do. But you sound so much like me. You are who you are. And it’s GORGEOUS, honey.
Keep us posted about the writers’ group. I hope for the best, but, well, …. ’nuff said.
(P.S. Who said we all have to be socialized anyway?)
Shit. This seemed like a good idea last week. . . .
It’s all about the people. I’ve had writing groups that have near saved my life. They were the right people.
I’ve been along to several writers groups, found them unsuitable, yet found good things at each one – a great book idea from the first, an interesting character from the second, and met some really good, smart writers at the third. None of the groups were right for me, so I left them and took with me what I’d found.
Those good writers from that third group, I invited some of them to come over and play every Wednesday night. A new group. After the first couple of Wednesdays, they all became confident and self-assured, because they are smart and funny people with each other’s interests at heart, and every week we see each other’s stories getting better because of each other’s help, and we get loud and raucous, and if anyone mentions dogs or yoghurt the neighbours have to turn up their televisions to drown out the sound of our pleasure.
You will be confident and self-assured too, because you are smart and funny and what is better, you are YOU, which nobody else in the world can be, and is of immense value.
And if it’s the right group you’ll stay, and if it’s the wrong group you’ll take from it such treasures as you find, just as you’ve done in the rest of your life, which is what helped you travel to… here.
I’m dying to ask what’s so great about yoghurt. Please tell me it’s a secret Aussie sexual aide.
XO
Yoghurt a secret Aussie sexual aide? Couldn’t be more wrong. British!
averil! you don’t know what’s so great about yoghurt? say it ain’t so. it’s a food of life. georgia o’keefe was asked once to what she attributed her longevity (she lived to be 99) and she said, “i eat yoghurt every day.”
Meh. I wouldn’t scrape it out of a nice bowl of strawberries, but I find yogurt on its own to be chalky, or something. It’s too thick. I don’t like the way it feels in my mouth.
But if the boys all agree it’s a sex aide, British or otherwise, bring it. God knows it’s not the first too-thick thing I’ve had in my mouth.
You need to make your own, which is as easy as anything (instructions provided on request). You’re in Birkenstock/granola/anarchist country now, so it should be a simple matter for you to find a good purveyor of raw milk from politically correct cows.
No names no pack drill… Walter? Don’t worry, what happens in Freaque Critique stays in Freak Critique…
“confident and self-possessed” writer? i think there’s only one of those and i doubt jon krakauer does the writing group thing.
good for you; if it works fantastic, if it doesn’t, you may still at least snab someone to grab coffee with every now and again.
after all the years, i decided it was time to go back and start digging in that closet where i’ve been avoiding shit for years. of course, it’s coming out via my writing as most of my cleansing does.
I think I’ll go to the first meeting and see how it goes. I’ll bring back the details and we can chat about it over dinner. (Face to face! I can’t wait!)
Is it okay if I join vicariously through you?
Is it okay if I join vicariously through someone else? Tetman has just about talked me out of it.
I’m more worried about the rest of the group. You’re likely to intimidate them without even trying. I mean, sheesh, who gets a response from an agent within ten hours of querying? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Fortunately, you are capable of charming the pants off of anyone. (Hmm . . . maybe that’s not the right expression.)
Good luck with the writing group. I’ve never joined one and if I did here, it would have to be in Italian. And here I think people take way too long to explain things and I think I would be quickly exasperated. Also the jokes are different. But yes a book-thinking group might be useful for the isolation, though would it become another time-suck because I don’t have any to waste?
I am working on the next book coming out in 2013, but still stuck on story order.riving thrilling, but driving me crazy.
I’ve done online writing workshops. I found in each group there was one shit who ripped everyone to shreds and whose work was really substandard even if they didn’t know it, some people who weren’t naughty or nice, just not too helpful because they were probably afraid of hurting feelings, and a few gems that gave great, thoughtful feedback. They made it well worth the effort. Here’s to finding gems. A sculpture’s studio sounds like a wonderful, artful place to meet. Definitely worth a try!
I hope it’s a wonderful experience, Averil. You are already such an inspiration. I imagine you’ll be that to this group, as well. And you? You will write, regardless. The space and the people are simply fodder.
I need to slow down. It’s always been a challenge and I’m not very good at it. Stop and breathe. I should tattoo that on both palms.
Everyone most certainly won’t be self-possessed and confident, that I can guarantee. No matter how they look.
I keep trying to type out what I’m working on, but it depresses me and I stop. Maybe I need to work on communicating my flaws/blind spots? Blah. How about I just say I am working to be a more spectacular human being and leave it at that?
I’m coming out of my writing cave for you, my dear. This is important. Good for you for finding a group! You are looking for your people, and this may be a good way to find them. That said, you never know what you’ll find. There could be generosity and respect, or there could be pettiness and bile. You just don’t know until you give it a shot.
Here’s my 10 cents. (1) Continue with the group only if you’re feeling it’s feeding you and your writing in a positive way. (2) It might be great to hear their opinions, but in the end make your own decisions about your work and don’t feel like you need to apologize for not taking their advice. Ever. (3) It can be very helpful for your work to read and comment on others’ work — I sometimes figure out how to solve my own story issues by reading someone else’s — so you can benefit that way, too. (4) Even if you only find one person that you really connect with, it’s worth it. (5) Laura is right. You are not likely to find a group of super confident writers. That’s an oxymoron. (6) Much like #1 above, if you find you’re dreading going to meetings, stop going.
Tetman’s thoughts about Cormac McCarthy is right on. Sometimes the best writers friends are non writers. I’ve always had sports, so that’s how I find friends when I move around. I just spent last Friday at a golf tournament with 4 girlfriends and it had zero to do with golf and was all about laughing and talking about life in a beautiful outdoor setting. They are very supportive of my writing life, even if it’s a total mystery to them, and they are interesting women with crazy-ass life stories — a perfect place for this writer to spend her time!
To close this long ridiculous note, I have to say that our little on-line group is a special thing. It just works. Our crowd in these parts is one of those great mysteries, and I am thankful.
*sigh*
Okay, I’m officially confused and on the fence about this writing group. So much so that I’m going to crawl away and scratch my head for a day or two and maybe post about it again later.
Love you guys.
XO
Averil, you are a good writer. A natural. We wouldn’t all hang out here with you if we didn’t find your site compelling (and it’s not just because of the pictures). You have a way of putting words together that’s open, intelligent, and honest.
My concern about you getting in with a writers’ group is that it might bring you down or hinder you in some way. There are almost certainly going to be writers in such a group who won’t get you or your work. Others will be bare beginners. Still others may be stuck in limiting ways. And there’s bound to be at least one imperious asshole.
You’re a professional. You have an agent and a contract. You didn’t just start at this. Stay out of the kiddie pool.
And time is a writer’s most precious commodity. How do you want to spend yours? What will you get out of a writers’ group? Will any such group do, or could there be more than one to choose from? One with a more professional slant? Or one with some other focus?
If you’re looking to get out and about and join a social circle in your new hometown, there are so many more options than writers’ groups. Hell, you could go to school. Take a class in something. Continuing ed. Pottery. Voodoo doll deconstruction. The multi-manifold universe and how that relates to the application of liberal noir sexuality. Who knows?
I gotta go. It’s National Boss’s Day. As far as I can tell, every day is National Boss’s Day, but I’m at the office and should get back on task.
XO
Okay, my good friend. I will stay out of writing groups. I was bummed about this until I read Sonje’s comment below. I wonder if crocheters are allowed in the knitting circle. . . .
Ooh! I bet there are lots of crocheters in your neck of the woods.
Tetman’s right. And I think it’s better for your writing to spend time with non-writers. It will replenish you.
I don’t read other’s comments before making mine. This is a good one.
Writers groups, eh.
Do you knit? Even if not, but you have the vaguest interest, I highly recommend knitting groups. Seriously. There’s often beer and/or wine.
As for what I’m working on after all these years: My anger. Always my anger.
Capital idea girl. Get out there, outside the comfort zone. Shrink says this move is a good one!
I have a suggestion… the writers group sounds like a good idea, but you might also consider volunteering for a local charity or community function, like the library. I help prepare the new books for circulation… our library has a very limited budget and relies on volunteerism… I’m sure your’s is in the same boat. That will get you out meeting people… and not just other writers.
p.s. yes, I know, the comments were turned off on ‘Winter Hymnal’… I liked it.