Everywhere we’ve moved I’ve had to find a new place to fit in. It makes sense that, because of what I do, one of my first priorities has always been to locate a writers’ group.
I’ve been in Marble Falls for five years now. Usually I would’ve jumped right into a new group, but when I researched, the nearest ones I found were in Austin; and while I’m sure a clutch in Austin would offer members with interesting perspectives and high levels of proficiency, it’s an hour away and, for this reason, I’ve been lazy about pursuing. But then, a few days ago, David heard about a writers’ group right here in town. It meets at the library, only five minutes away from our house! It’s time to commit.
The thought of joining yet another group brings about anxiety. Walking into a new place where I know no one and no one knows me, but everybody else knows each other, is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in life. And I’ve had to do it again and again. It looks like I would’ve become used to it, but I never have. And then there are the other inevitable distressing questions—What if I don’t like them and they don’t like me? What if it’s just a bunch of people wanting to chronicle their dreams? What if, and this is the worst, they can’t write?
Also, because writers pack their egos in soft foam and carry them baby-style, a balance can be tricky. Some abused souls slump in with their self-esteem dragging on the ground. When offering an opinion after a reading, encouragement is vital, but it can’t be effusive or it may mislead the writer into thinking that his or her work is perfect. And because of the delicate state of the egos, criticism must be so tactfully couched that often the impact is diluted, if not lost altogether. In a vocation that is cruelly competitive and pejorative, a writer deserves support and good cheer from his or her peers. So what do you do when the writing sucks?
I’ve joined groups in Cairo, The Hague, London, Aberdeen (the poets didn’t consider themselves poets unless they could write in the style of their beloved Rabbie Burns, which led to some good times), at Rice in Houston, Sugar Land, and Singapore. I’ve come together with published authors and would-be authors everywhere—but not Kuwait, where writers kept to themselves and wrote longingly of elsewhere. When it comes to scribbling huddlers, I’ve had exceptional experiences and lousy ones.
The group in Sugar Land was the weirdest. One evening a week we wandered into a local bookstore, where the manager offered us coffee and set up a circle of chairs. None of us knew each other well and so the greetings were subdued. The meeting was presided over by a middle-aged nutjob with fierce eyes and a swagger. By way of getting started, he would send a mean squint over our heads and begrudgingly invite members to inform the group about book fairs and upcoming author events. Then he would come to his feet and, head tilted so we could gaze at his hairless crown, begin his reading. He went first, always. Somewhere along the way he decided that British historical romance was his genre. My thought at the time was that he probably picked up one of his wife’s paperbacks and decided that, though he’d never read a book or written a page, this bar was so low that even he could write one.
For a couple of months I sat in the circle with eight other writers as our whackadoodle leader vehemently sputtered his way through the same, yet slightly altered, first chapter—an eighteenth century parlor scene in which men poured tea and aristocratic ladies called one another bugger, which derives from the word buggery and, though its usage is borderline acceptable in our modern day, during that era it simply was not. Nor would men pour the tea.
After his reading he stood, bowed as though he’d achieved a pinnacle, said a gruff goodnight, and departed, leaving the rest of us stunned, me with my mouth gaping and my head drowning in horrified protests. Not only is reading and running rude; he’d broken the prime rule: write about what you know.
And then David got transferred. As has been my happy luck over the years, when something like an incomprehensible writers’ group became wearing, it was simply a matter of time before we moved away. Not so, here in Marble Falls. And that’s the source of my apprehension. This is our final home. I will run into these fellow writers until they die, or I do.
Inexorably, it’s come around again. Another new group. Another agonizing stint of thought holding and tongue guarding and expression controlling—all of which I’m woefully bad at.
So. First meeting in two weeks. I’ll let you know.
There’s been curiosity about my dress for Sam and Julia’s wedding next month. The color at the shoulders is navy, which gradually changes to periwinkle at the bottom. I’ll wear it with black boots and plenty of diamonds and gold. Pearls, do you think? Comfort and style, my eternal dual goal.
