Writing Group

Posted on October 15, 2002 in Writing Groups

I went to the writer’s group in Aliso Viejo again last night. Though the people were nice enough, I shook badly enough to dump part of my green tea over a corner of the table as I sat down. A large drop left a kidney-shaped splotch on my right thigh. After my not so effervescent arrival, I had to keep up a stream of inner reassurances that the reason why the group leader pointed her eyes at me every time I looked up was because she was trying to make eye contact and not evaluating me as a hairy freak who had no business associating with real writers.

As I struggled to keep in my chair, I realized why the LA bloggers and the Quakers had not seen my shyness: I went to these affairs with Lynn. She sat next to me, broke the ice, participated in the making of group decisions on my behalf, and talked to me during the awkward silences. This time I winged it on my own. I didn’t completely withdraw: Nannette succeeded in drawing me out a couple of times with comments and information about those key “books that every writer should have” like The Elements of Style and Rodale’s Synonym Finder. I participated in a game and passed out web log cards so folks could get to know me through this blog if they wanted. When we adjourned at 8:15 pm, I stammered out a goodbye and scurried to the truck, stopping to check the remainders rack but thankfully resisting temptation.

The game we played was called Best Seller. It worked like this: the “editor” (a group member who didn’t feel like playing) selected three cards from a deck. She turned two of them over to reveal a letter and a third a genre. The players then had two minutes to write a short work of fiction. You got points for each word that began with one of the letters. I did well, but not nearly as well as one woman who seemed to have devoured a thesaurus just before coming. She doubled the points the best of the rest of us achieved in both rounds. Still, fun was had. The game stimulated writing, that addiction to sound and sense that brought us to the bookstore. We read our bits aloud and had a good laugh at our forced mediocrities and the clever turns of phrase that we sometimes blundered into.

Here is what I wrote for each of the rounds. Note: I do not call these works of genius:

Letters: W and F; Topic: The Underworld

Wary Felix wandered to the fell brink of death. A wondrous vision wove its fairy spel over him: a few skeletons wafting as a fog over a fallow field. There was a hole….

Letters: X and Y (and a groan went up!); Topic: Behind these bars

Xeric. Yellow dust the color of the flesh of yamns spreading over the desert. Yale’s thoughts studded up from the plain of his imagination like the bone keys of a xylophone.