The Writing Group

I was just this week suddenly informed the writing group I’ve been waiting for was finally beginning.  It will start in less than a week.  

I have been fixating on joining a writers’ group; telling myself it is the one thing, the only thing, that’s going to push me through, make the difference at this critical juncture – the only thing left I have to have “until.”  Well, that and the time of course, which I tested out in my ‘trial run’ from my last post. 

So here I am, backed into a corner once again.  I have to face this writing group, just like I did the time I took off, to test myself out.  Maybe the universe got sick of my incessant whining and rationalizing.  “Okay, enough already – you think you need all that before you sit your butt down in the chair and stay there for more than a half hour at a time?  Here you go.  You’re move.  So now what?”   

Now what?  Well, now what if it doesn’t work?  What then?  Does that mean I’m not a writer after all and that I will be forced to face that once and for all?  What will I do when I have to read aloud and have nothing on the page at all, or what I do have is pure crap, or I open my mouth and nothing comes out because I’m terrified of public speaking?  What if I make a bush-league amateur grammatical error and they all snigger, roll their eyes at one another, “who let this one in?”  What if the other kids don’t like me and are mean to me; what if they make fun of my writing?  What if the teacher hates me and picks on me? 

What if I truly see myself through their eyes and am embarrassed – mortified – by the pathetic fake I see reflected?  The rest is only jitters on top of that one.  

Is this writing group really the thing that’s ultimately going to make a difference – make it or break it for me?  Just like having the time to write, it’s no magic bullet.  These things may be essential, but are not sufficient. 

They aren’t enough on their own, or in any combination, to “make” me write.  If I have all the time in the world, it doesn’t mean I’ll write.  It’s a subtle point,

but so very important.  It needs to be kept  conscious.  I can’t set myself up by virtue of wanting something so badly like the group; to then expect that thing to be "the one to save me", lift me up and place me just where I want to be.  These things are, at the end of the day, just tools, components of what I need, what can help.  But in themselves, they are not going to be the thing that makes me write.

Only I can do that.  And the only way to do that is to do the work.  If you think about it, that’s really the good news too.  There’s freedom – ultimate freedom – in that.  I don’t have to wait for

anything or anyone.  I’m not at the mercy of any one person’s whim; the day job does not in actuality hold me hostage.  I am not trapped, waiting “until.”  Everything I can get to facilitate and cultivate my writing, like more time or a writers' group, is then just gravy.

A very empowering concept to hold on to; it means the only thing I need to write, to do what I truly want to do, is just me.  That’s it, that’s all.  Nothing else to hide behind, nothing left to wait for. 

Holy crap and double gulp.  I wonder what my writing group will have to say about all this.