Writing Community

Tonight was my first writers' group since August. These are long, rather boozy affairs - I drank water this time - that go on for between three to four hours :) Heavy duty stuff. I read the last piece of fiction I wrote all the way back in May and was tickled pink with the reception I got. It's amazing how much creative people need validation that what they're doing is good. It's a weird feeling, because inside I know that I am a good writer. I also don't know at all that I'm a good writer. Which makes no sense but there you have it.

Uni returns next week. I am only doing one subject again. I'm sure I could take on two, but I like the pace of only doing a subject a semester. This one is a combined Literary Studies/Professional Writing subject called Writing Selves, which "examines issues of the text as autobiography. Examples will be drawn not only from work traditionally classified as autobiography, but also from diaries, letters, 'fictional' biography, journalism and ephemera. Issues of privacy and publication, and the role of editors, will be discussed. Some contemporary theorising of the writing subject will be examined. Gender, race and ethnicity will be a continuing focus."

I have been dosing up on some new stuff that I think is helping me get my health back on track. I'm feeling more energy, feeling over the past few days that my glands aren't standing up like golf balls on the side of my neck - which has basically been their position for the last several months. It feels so good to have extra energy so that I can look with pleasure to these two outward creative things which will give me a bit of structure. I think I subscribe to the romantic idea that I should be able to entirely set my own structure with no outside interference. Which is quite ridiculous when I consider how much I get off on the interaction of being with other writers, talking about processes, critiquing others' work - I feel so inspired after being back after all this time away. Writing is a lonely enough practice; sharing it with others is a necessity for me.

It's been so long since I was last there; it felt a bit weird at the beginning. I felt kinda shy. But I soon got into it and by the time I left I had the lovely warm feeling of community, pleased that I am finally at the stage again where going isn't a pointless enterprise because (a) I'm sick or (b) I'm not writing anything anyway. I feel, suddenly, like writing a small piece of fiction isn't beyond me. It's all coming back to me. Oooh, oooh :)

I typed some strange words into Gooogle before: "fear of success". I am so much more aware of my blocks now and the things I use to try to get myself away from the scary and hard and scary and scary work of writing. I have never considered fear of success to be something I grapple with, but the possibility is slowly dawning on me that maybe it is so. I'm just reading an article that's telling me to sit for 15-30 minutes and think of all of the things that will happen and how my life will change if I achieve my goals, to try to determine what it is I am scared of ... I really don't have the foggiest idea what would be. It's amazing how many of our fears sit underneath our waters like giant icebergs, isn't it? And it's amazing how they pop their noses up when we're ready to look at them. Time to do some (more) soul-searching.

This week is the last of my Artist's Way course. It's been 12 weeks and I am so glad I have done this. I feel like I have gained a much safer place to write in. It's been a real buzz.

Much safer - but still scary ;) But hey, so is much of the good stuff.