I Joined A Writing Group

You'd think, being married to another writer and living in NYC, I wouldn't feel such a yearning for a writing community. But I'm a shy woman at heart (I know! Who'd've thought?! I'm such a loudmouth in writing) and so in year and a half since R and I moved up here from the South I haven't made a single literary friend.

Granted, I haven't really put myself out there.

And it's not like I don't have writing friends scattered across the globe: M. and my sister, both in San Francisco; P in Washington, DC; S and W, both in Charlottesville; and now Martha in Fort Worth. But my relationships with most of them are now conducted over the internet and I've found more and more that I really miss just hanging out other writers. Quirky and often outrageously freakish lot that they are.

So. Over the Winter holidays when I saw an ad on craigslist for a female writer, I answered it. And went to meet with the group leader. And audited a session last night. I even got to submit something! I workshopped the opening chapters of my novel, The Jar-Born Sage. (I finished the fucking thing two years ago but continue to struggle with the opening 50 pages... And believe that the sluggish and awkward opening is what's kept the book from being picked up by an agent, honestly. I decided on New Year's that I'd give it one more go-round before tossing the thing into my desk drawer and taking a four year hiatus. ) And god did it feel good to be a part of a workshop again. To have my stuff read and critiqued and--well. I just didn't realize how much I'd missed it is all.