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A friend just died and so of course I’m very sad.

A little girl cries over her scoop of pistachio ice cream melting on the sidewalk.

How sad is that empty cone? And look at those tears. She hasn’t learned that gravity works against us till our dying day.

A gull with straw in its beak perches on the peak of my roof. Two hours ago I watched it mount its mate to fertilize the egg that would hatch in the nest that no longer sits on my roof because there’s no way a gull family is going to turn my roof into a guano factory this summer as it did last. No way!

Still, it’s sad.

Life never seems to work out, however well we arrange the pieces or play the game. According to most wisdom traditions, that’s good news.

My friend’s passing is sad and yet his absence leaves me with memories of his participation in our writing group over many years. In the empty space he leaves behind I find myself more determined than ever to write well and fast and publish again without delay.

That little girl, is she not the picture of sadness? But aren’t our saddest moments those that loom largest in memory? We look back at them as stepping stones toward our growing up. This ice cream failure can serve her in this way. I hope I’m right.

And a gull with no nest, how sad is that?

I don’t mind being sad. I don’t disparage sadness as a state of being.

I’ve often been told I look sad, and yet I often fall asleep at night feeling showered by gifts.

Sadness!—if I were a poet I would write an ode to sadness.

Such as the time I received the “Dear John” letter in the mail.

I don’t expect you to believe this but as I laid eyes on the envelope thunder mumbled overhead. As I opened the letter the room fell dark and as I read the deadly words the door slammed shut with a gust of wind that delivered such a deluge of tropical rain hammering on the tin roof that sadness seemed to bury me alive.

How long was I a ghost? You’ll have to ask my then-roommate because it wasn’t long before he couldn’t take it anymore and he tossed me a book, saying, “Read this.” Just tossed it and turned away without bothering to see if I caught it, as if I were a beggar in the gutter.

The scene is vivid in my mind, the trajectory of that book flying towards me, a second in time that became the hinge around which my life turned forever.

To this day, the radical attitude I encountered in that rare little book underpins my understanding of the human condition. It laid the groundwork for my existential experiments in India. It underpins my theory of Story as I present it in my two eBooks, Story Structure to Die For, and Story Structure Expedition—Journey to the Heart of a Story.

And all because sadness turned me into an empty begging bowl, I guess. And because gifts would seem to seek the empty place. Is that true?

If so, is that a paradox? Or does that make eminent sense?

I don’t quite know how to end this. I want to return to my writer friend, Rick (may he rest in peace), and to the girl and the gull and to all lovers who fly the coop. It seems I’m surrounded by events that make me sad, but what I want to say is that I’m sorrow’s willing victim.

I could even say that sorrow likes me. It pounds on my roof. It keeps trying to build a nest up there, for goodness sake.

The mystics say that’s good news.

And that little book that changed my life explains why that might be so. It’s called Positive Disintegration, by Kazimierz Dabrowski. He was no mystic, but he had all the reason in the world to be sad.

Perhaps that’s why he and I became such good friends.

I’m going to write about that next.

 

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The Writer’s Workshop I facilitate began in the twilight of late summer and concluded its season in the windy cold of winter. Six women, all with their own agendas, their own goals, came together each week—thoughtfully, and with extreme humor—lifting each other to places it had never occurred to them they would go. At least, not in the beginning . . .

Joining a workshop can offer a safe and supportive environment for your voice to be heard. Sharing your work with others in an enthusiastic, encouraging setting allows the freedom to explore your writing while improving your craft. No matter whether you’re an emerging writer or one who has been published, the right workshop will engage you in the thrill of expression.

Our group, now in its third year, started tentatively and with the upmost politeness, for critiquing is a learned art. They began with how a particular sentence invoked an image or “what an interesting story,”; we all like to hear that. But soon, very soon, I saw them yearning to yell out, “Tell me what you really think. Give it to me, I can take it.” First one, then another began to point out a confusion in the storyline, or how that snippet of dialogue didn’t move the plot along. They began commenting on having a stronger lead, heightening the arc, and were able to say, “Let’s hear how you really feel. I think you’re trying to be too nice.”

Sitting in my den with cups of tea, some curled up on the sofa, others cross-legged on the floor, we got to know each other through our writing in ways only true intimates can. We wrote of worries for our children, the confusions of growing older, and the hardships of childhood. The fiction sometimes took us to the dark place that was not outwardly visible on the author’s lovely face. Other times, a long-hidden secret was revealed in a hilarious or harrowing encounter. Gradually, we found our voices and discovered the benefits of critiquing, how helping others turned us into better writers.

Finding the right workshop can be like finding the right doctor. What’s good for one is not necessarily right for another. Prospective members should meet with the facilitator and hear them carefully explain their rules on both commenting and the responses to the comments. It’s important to keep in mind that in a Writer’s Workshop it’s up to the facilitator to keep the focus on the writing, not on the situation being written about. That belongs to the writer.

The individuality that expresses itself in writing is a constant amazement to me. Offered with kindness, a comment may only take a minute, even a few seconds, to impart a positive change. I saw it take place every night in our group and it always makes me want to come back for more.

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 Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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By Julie Daines

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Writers Groups and Information:
Saturday, January 15 from 1-3:30 Twin Lakes Writers
meet at the new Donald W. Reynolds Library.

January 8th Laura(Lonnie), Cherie Neal and I attended the
Ozarks Writers & Illustrators for Children http://owaic.org/ in Springfield, MO.
We enjoyed a Power Point program for writers on "Building a Platform," presented by writer/member,Tom Blubaugh.
President Naomi Shaw, continues to share programs and information
with NC Children's Writers & Illustrators in Mountain Home, AR.
We always have a special time.

I learned Joyce Ragland is the new SCBWI/Mo Regional Advistor.
We wish her the best and look forward 2011. http://moscbwi.org/

Agents and Editors Who Blog can be found at http://www.asuen.com/blog/blog/.central.agents.shtml

The Society of Bloggers in Children's and Young Adult Literature:
KIDLITOSPHERE CENTRAL http://www.kidlitosphere.org/

NATURE IN ACTION click on http://tobyspeed.blogspot.com/
http://phylliscahill.com/

Remember Spring is the time to start checking out upcoming conferences.
I will soon have a list on my blog.

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Such a simple poster has recruited ten people to my class in only a few days. There would seem to be a hunger out there for writing. That’s something I understand. For 20 years I’ve happily made my living from freelance writing, so I feel I have some advice to offer, beginning with…

If you think writers know what they’re writing about…guess again. 

Writing rules and regulations – I’ll get around to them eventually. But the first draft should be a wild ride through the outback, not a trolley bus ride through the gentrified streets of the city. The story should not run on time. Keeping to the schedule should not be your story’s meaning.

A first draft should head off wildly and blindly in chase of meaning. I say ‘blindly’ because a story’s plot – never mind “meaning” – is seldom known in advance. A writer concocts characters and setting, but these are only symptoms of an underlying meaning.

Yes, your fictional hero is only a symptom of a hidden meaning.

Characters and the problems they create for themselves – these are but symptoms of what your story is really all about. It’s true, most writers are clueless when they begin. And this is the way it should be, because…

We write – not to explain – but to discover.

Of course, a writer needs a great deal of trust to continually confront the desert of the blank page. The muse demands our trust. Trusting first impulses, getting it written and not necessarily right…well, after some time something magical happens. The story takes on a verisimilitude much more profound than the sum of descriptions and scenes. You’ve created a weave of elements in which a design, unbeknownst to you, has appeared from the depths. In that design you might be lucky enough to discern your meaning.

Or it might not dawn on you until your 16^th draft.

There’s no better feeling than when we finally discover what it is we’ve been trying to say.

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Drug cartels may be blowing their brains out all over Mexico, but here in old Mazatlan it’s the weekly gathering of scribes who are doing all the bleeding. At least, that’s the idea.

Meeting at a round table in a seaside bar named Canucks, we read from our works in progress, then sit back, bite our tongue, and listen with great equanimity to feedback. That’s the tough part, the essential part. As a collective, we’ve become an organism that’s more broadly critical than any of us could be on our own.

Over the winter, a valuable but fragile trust has developed within the hard-core members of our group. Lately, though, we’ve been struggling to preserve the status quo in the face of a booming membership. While sheer numbers are obviously more unwieldy, not to mention less intimate, it seems to me that the erosion of our hard-won trust stems more from the quality of participation – which boils down to two things: sharing and critiquing.

Perhaps the situation could be improved if we took time out to reflect upon what constitutes appropriate participation. For what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on the matter:

Presenting old, rather than current, work is a cop out. It suggests that the writer is only interested in establishing some literary ground under their feet. Or they’re reading to hear the sound of their own voice. Yet, that same voice is often silent when it’s time to respond to another writer’s work? Those who haven’t the courage to share spontaneously are playing it safe (for themselves), which presents a danger (for the group).

The arena of trust, it would appear, thrives on risk. A good writers group encourages its members to expose their fresh and vulnerable thoughts. The group loves the participant who broaches the unknown, who refutes political correctness, who risks being as wrong as he or she can be. Trust grows quickly among partners in literary crime.

It’s blood on the page that any writer strives for, and which every writers group needs. Blood still wet. Not blood that spilled and dried long ago. Perhaps we should prepare a manifesto and hand it out to prospective members: bleed or die.

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For me, one of the hardest things to do is to revise my own work. It’s difficult for me to see the flaws, because I’ve usually read the words so many times that they become natural for me. Also, I’m usually so close to the writing that it just “feels” right. But I do understand that in order to get my best piece out there, I will have to do some major revisions.

My WIP right now is undergoing a massive revision. After attending the Prairie Writers’ Day conference in Chicago this fall, I realized that I needed to inject it with voice. The way it was, no one reading would really get to know the main characters, and that is key for good writing. I decided that the best way to do this is to rewrite it in the first person, thus hearing the story directly from the character herself.

The writers’ conference really helped me to look at my novel in a new way, but there are other ways to do this too. The best way is to have other people read it. Lots and lots of other people—and not just your mother and grandma, because as much as they love you, they might not be the most critical voices. I am a part of an amazing writers’ group—amazing because of the wide range of genres that we work in. There’s a children’s’ poetry author and fellow blogger, Kelly. Cathy has the eye of an editor, and she writes short stories. While Angela is part memoirist, part children’s storywriter, part editorialist. This range of eyes on my words can only make my work more scrutinized.

Another way to have your writing seen by others is to follow blogs such as Miss Snarks First Victim, and Nathan Bransford, or Legend of the Protectors, and hope that you enter their contests in time. On these blogs, you’ll get constructive criticism from other writers.

I have really appreciated all of the invaluable advice I’ve received from my readers, and my WIP is transforming from a lump of coal into something maybe just a bit shinier.

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