After taking a number of CNF writing classes online I wanted to stop spending so much money on writing and actually write. But I know me and I knew that to stay focused and writing consistently instead of writing only as inspiration struck, I would need a deadline or some sort of mechanism of accountability. Not a coach–that one-on-one relationship would be intimidating for me. What I wanted was a group, a writers group full of support and yet with the invisible pressure of accountability. I wanted the class without the fee.
I’ve been a baker my entire life. Baking requires a recipe because of the interactions of specific ingredients required to raise the dough or batter and create Mary Berry worthy textures and flavors. I didn’t really have a recipe in mind for putting this together and I didn’t read what other people had done. I was behaving more like a chef, a pinch of this, a handful of that.
I investigated various online software programs so that I could meet with people from across the country. That was the easy part. Software is always easier than people.
I looked at the people in the various classes I had taken on Memoir writing and I selected those participants who I felt were a good personality match for me and each other. I selected people whose writing had inspired me or that I found very interesting. That was my starting criteria. What could go wrong, we already knew each other?
I sent an email out to 22 different writers to get a feel for whether or not they would like to participate. More than half were eager and jumped at the idea. Only slightly more than half of those showed up. Some people showed up once in a while and then faded away emailing sorry excuses. I meant, sorrys and excuses.
“I’m really busy with work.” The no-time-for-writing excuse.
“I’m really busy with my writing.” The too-much-time-for-writing excuse.
“I got a dog.” Seriously, not my dog ate my writing, just I got a dog and I will be too busy walking it and cleaning up after it to write.
It’s quality not quantity we told ourselves. No one was being forced. We wanted people who wanted to write as much as we did. It settled down within the first two months to a solid group of eight.
There were bumps in the road.
One former member showed up only sporadically in order to garner support and endorsement for an outside project that she promised would be good for all of us. A self-published compilation anthology about women and their memories of their mothers. Once her compilation was completed and published on Amazon, she was gone. The reviews on Amazon are an interesting lesson in encouraging friends to write reviews for you. There are 19 reviews on the anthology–18 glowing 5-star reviews and one disappointed 3-star review that indicated the other reviews were misleading. Authenticity…it’s important.
Another former member, other than myself the only participant with perfect attendance, had no writing to share. She was there every week armed with nothing to share but her critiques of our writing. I took the time to send her prompts. I encouraged. I coaxed. I begged. Then at one meeting, she revealed that she really wanted to write for pay and was told by an instructor in one of her classes to never write unless she was paid. I had questions about the likelihood of getting published for pay when you’d never been published at all, but I held my tongue. What did I know? I wasn’t a paid instructor. I was a volunteer facilitator.
I suggested she write something she felt she could write for pay–she wrote a movie review. We were a memoir group, but at least she was writing. This was progress. Others were unhappy with this situation. We were sharing difficult, emotional pieces of writing. We were sharing memories we’d ripped from our hearts and minds, examining them and exposing ourselves. She wrote a movie review. This could have worked had she linked the film to her life, to an experience, to something. She didn’t. We weren’t buying it and she wasn’t getting paid.
I wrote her a lengthy, ripped from my heart, email about why she might want to look for another group and ushered her gently on her way. She never responded.
And then, there’s the name dropper. She had what initially seemed a healthy obsession with published writers and stalked them both online and in person. I use the term “healthy” loosely. She uses the guise of starting a network of emerging writers as if there aren’t already a hundred of those networks out there. But it gives her a talking point when she starts to chat them up. Once she has their email address in hand, their budding relationship changes to that of old friends. These old friends whose names she feels compelled to drop during every critique she offers.
Name dropping in a professional network setting does tend to get someone up a ladder. But our group wasn’t a ladder so much as it was a booth at a local diner. The corner booth with condiments pushed to one side so that our notebooks and drinks diluted with ice that melted during the course of two hours of readings and feedback.
Others working on manuscripts, blogs or just the art of writing shared honed pieces of writing with us twelve-hundred words at a time. We laughed together. We cried and sniffled into our tissues together–hundreds of miles apart. We shared links to resources and book recommendations. We encouraged and supported each other.
I discovered a confidence in my writing during our sessions. I discovered my strength: metaphor; and my weaknesses. There are quite a few of those, the biggest of which is writing dialogue. I am extremely grateful to all the members of the group–those who did not want to join, those who left, and those who are still hanging in there.
I learned never to share a first draft with anyone if I can avoid it. I learned to read aloud to myself or to my cats so that my ear could witness the flow or lack thereof. More often than not, the beginning of my first draft ends up in the middle or at the end of later drafts. I am submitting essays to online and print publications and happily getting rejections. It’s about the process for me. Everyone has their own reasons for joining, but we all have one in common–we write.
Kim Beckham has had numerous jobs over the years but her interests in writing, photography and genealogy have remained steady companions. Born and raised in the Mid-West she was an avid fiction reader as a child, continuing characters’ stories in her notebooks after the books themselves ended. She currently resides with her two cats in Central Massachusetts where she spends early mornings ambling in the woods and afternoons at her desk writing essays (or the local movie theater depending upon inspiration).
You can find her photography here www.wachusettphotos.com and her blog at https://aplaceatthetable.blog/.
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