Winter in Winnipeg: Time to Write

I sat down to write on Friday night--old school style with pen and paper, a tall mug of tea beside me. I started with a sketch of a character and then put her in a setting and state of conflict. I got a page written before I reviewed it and frowned.

I needed something I could share at the writer’s workshop I had signed up for on Saturday afternoon. I considered backing out. It didn’t cost me anything and I had been so busy during the week and the week before that I needed some hours at home to catch up on laundry, recycling, alphabetizing soup cans, etc. It was so cold out too, ugh, did I really want to go out in that cold? Without another word written, at 10:30 I called it a night and went to bed.

I woke up on Saturday morning thinking about Meg, this fourteen year old I had started writing about last year sometime. I love Meg. I’m not sure that I am keeping her name as Meg though, I seem to name all my girl characters Meg, Maggie, M-something or other. But anyway, I love this character, Meg because she is so smart, so wise and certain for fourteen. I looked at what I had written for Meg’s story (also done in pen in a notebook) and evaluated it for its readiness for sharing. I felt surprisingly good about it—surprisingly because it’s not often that a first draft like that feels ready for sharing with strangers. I typed it up, doing some edits along the way, and ended up with seven good pages.

I took the bus downtown to the workshop location. There were nine of us, which seemed like a smaller group than I remembered from last time, but is probably about the same. There was one white-haired guy amongst the group of women ranging from twenty-something to sixty (seventy?)-something.

Last time I had brought a blog post that I re-purposed for the workshop, mostly keeping the real story and “character” intact. I hadn’t let on then that it was a creative non-fiction piece. This time, all but two of us had brought pieces of memoirs. It was all good work. Many of the writers were struggling with how far they could stray from the truth. They wanted to tell an interesting story, but they also wanted to stick to the facts. Welcome to the challenge that is this blog.

I was pretty quiet during the discussions but I tried to make up with it by nodding in agreement or sometimes saying yes or an emphatic mm hmm. Often someone would say the same thing I was thinking. I find it hard to contribute feedback in a group setting like that. If I was working one-on-one with another writer I believe I’d ask more questions to first get a sense of what they wanted comment on. I would have felt more comfortable sharing some insight into what I do to make a true story more interesting to an audience.

I volunteered to read first after we came back from a break. I explained that I feel description is my weakest part of my writing and that I worry when I do make the effort to include it, the description sounds forced or cliché. I chose a few different sections of my seven pages to read out loud as I had more than enough material to read from in my fifteen minute time limit. After reading I looked up and waited for someone to say something.

Oh my gawd, no one is going to say anything. They don’t get it, they can’t relate, they think it’s totally not plausible. Crap.

I’m sure that’s what every writer thinks when they look up from their reading and wait for the feedback to come. It feels like forever before someone breaks the silence. In that long moment after my initial panic while the hum of the elevator out the door and around the corner was clearly audible, I reminded myself of being in the creative writing class I took at the university in 2009. Sometimes I’d find myself without anything to say simply because I didn’t think I had anything helpful I could offer; the piece was just plain good.

The feedback, when it came, was all very positive. The moderator asked me questions about where the story was going and then compared it to Catcher in the Rye. It was agreed that my dialogue was strong and believable and the story felt authentic. Eight people confirmed that I had a story to tell and I was off to a good start. I really should get over myself and just write already.

I regretted the decision to take the bus on the way home. Of course, the bus was late. I stood in the bus shack on Main Street shifting from one foot to the other trying to keep my toes from freezing while simultaneously being paranoid that someone was going to demand my purse and iPod, or worse, my down-filled parka . I’m sure I must have looked like I was doing the Potty Dance. I didn’t get to start my laundry until I got home last night, and I don’t know when I will ever get around to alphabetizing those soup cans, but I’m glad I got myself to the workshop.

Other highlights of the weekend…

 

• Bought a new Cooking Light cookbook—every recipe has a coloured photo and detailed nutritional information.  

• Bought a Timex heart rate monitor at Costco for $69.99. I went straight to the gym after purchasing it to test it out. Nothing makes working out more fun than a new gadget or a new outfit to try.

• Went with Lisa to see True Grit. Warning, if you are considering seeing this movie, be prepared for snakes and horses getting shot. I’m okay with people dying, but I hate to see an animal go down, except for snakes, which I’d rather not see at all.