OK, I give up. I cannot figure out how to make myself not be
"Anonymous" on my own blog, so If it's coming from me, I'll just
start with "Hi, it's Christina" until someone out there can walk me
through fixing it.! So, here goes...
Hi, it's Christina.
I attended my first writers' workshop last night and quite frankly
I had a blast. The moderator, Beth, is an amazing woman with an amazing story.
She is fun to be around and has truly motivated me already. It nearly blew me
away when I found out she is twenty years older than me, she looks fabulous and
has such a young spirit, I had her at 15 years younger at minimum.
Last night’s group consisted of Keith, the catalyst for me joining
the group, is a middle school English teacher somewhere around my age, but
probably a bit younger, who writes psychological horror novels; Joe, who I have
children older than him, who writes fantasy; Angita (I probably slaughtered her
name here, she is a very soft spoken woman and I doubt I got her name correct)
who is one of those people who looks to be anywhere between 25 and 35, but you
just can’t tell and I’m not quite sure what she write because she is just
starting to write for herself as opposed to just helping others write; Jillian,
a beautiful senior who is writing a memoir of the trials and tribulations of
building a home in South Africa; Stephanie, an unemployed fortyish year old who is just starting to
spread her writer’s wings; and myself, a 47 year old writer of romance novels.
Needless to say, we are an eclectic group, but somehow we all
seemed to gel. We each have very unique writing styles, as became apparent
during our writing exercises, each truly gifted in our own way.
There is only one rule for the group – check the editor at the door.
This means our own internal editor as well as any need to critique the others
in the group. Beth has created a “safe haven” where we can share without
recriminations and there is no set format other than you must introduce
yourself to the group as a writer and participate in at least one (time
permitted for two last night) writing exercises. We are given a scenario and
then given 10 uninterrupted (except when I came out with a one-liner during the
silence) minutes to write. Then, if we chose, we share what we’ve written with
the group. Our scenarios last night were – “You wake up one morning and all of
a sudden you can sing opera” and “Princeton needs some swagger”. Some of the submissions were beautiful and
poignant and some were tongue in cheek, but all were wonderful in their own
way. The really interesting part was watching the one timid member of the group
who refused to share her writing the first time, share the second time and gain
some confidence because of the group’s reaction and encouragement. It is very
frightening and intimidating to read out loud something you have written.
All told, there are actually almost 40 in the group and the
sampling will change from week to week, so I am looking forward to meeting the
other members in the weeks to come.
OK, I doubt anyone is reading this blog just yet, but I’m going to
put this out there any way. Your writing exercise is:
You’re
walking along the beach and you find a bottle with a message in it.
Go. You have 10 minutes (I’m trusting you to be honest here.)
There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count
and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written.
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