Getting Started With Groups

I had three children in four years, so even though well-wishers assured me I’d be able to write while the kids slept, I confess to being a slacker: when my kids napped, so did I. But not writing made me even more desperate than not sleeping, so I signed up for a one-day writing workshop at a nearby college, where I practiced automatic writing for the very first time. About twenty of us wrote for ten minutes to the workshop leader’s prompt, and then we read our vulnerable, new, work aloud. As listeners, our role was simply to echo any words that resonated. Just being out of the house and writing was a relief, but reading what I wrote to supportive listeners was an absolute thrill and proof-positive that my talent had not leached out with my breast milk.

At this workshop, I also learned about an on-going journal-writing group of women who met weekly. I was invited to join them. Members took turns hosting the meetings; the hostess was tasked with providing hot water for tea and the prompts. About ten regulars usually wrote for two ten-minute stints, with time for each of us to read our new work. For two hours every week, I was a writer again. Often, I wrote about the tribulations of being a mother. In stolen hours between meetings, I turned these ten-minute free writes into essays, which were published in the local paper. I wasn’t writing the Great American Novel, but I was writing, and writing was keeping me sane.

By the time this informal group disbanded, I was hooked on the power of writing for short, intense, bursts in the company of others. By then, I’d learned about Pat Schneider’s work at Amherst Writers & Artists, a non-profit arts organization dedicated to the principle that everyone can use words to create art. Schneider is the author of The Writer as an Artist: A New Approach to Writing Alone and With Others.

I live in southern Vermont, just an hour from Amherst; several AWA workshop leaders run writing workshops nearby. I signed up for one, this time paying for a ten-week class that met weekly for three hours. By then, I had written a two-page short story that was a seed for a novel. I’d never written a novel before. I didn’t know how; I didn’t even know if I could. But every week, writing in the company of others, I didn’t have time for self-doubt. I just scribbled as furiously as the others around me.

Our workshop leader provided the prompts, sometimes as elaborate as old-fashioned film cases filled with pungent odors to trigger ideas, and sometimes as simple as a line from a poem. Generally, we wrote for two twenty-minutes stretches. It was always a marvel to hear the wild variety of responses to the same prompt, and it was always empowering to hear my own voice when I read my new work out loud.

The workshop helped me generate a critical mass of ideas and confidence to continue on my own. I arranged my day job so that I could write more consistently, while the kids, now older, were in school. It took me six years to complete the first draft. By the time it was finished, I had an idea for another novel. I found another writing workshop based on the Amherst model, this one conveniently close to my home.

Again, I was encouraged and supported by the group to explore my new project. And again, once I clicked into first gear, I dropped out of the group, able to continue on my own. This time, I finished the first draft in less than a year. After several more years of revision, that book, Into The Wilderness, was published to critical acclaim.

I’m now starting another novel, and I’m again part of a writing group – this one less formal than the others, but modeled on the same principles of writing weekly in the company of others to a common prompt. In this workshop, we write for forty to sixty minutes and then read. Even though we are a motley crew of poets, songwriters, essayists, playwrights and novelists, we are all energized by writing together, and to listening to each other read.

My children are grown now, and I’m at last living the life I’ve always dreamed of: writing full-time. But as I’ve learned, that can be scary and isolating, especially when trying to get started with a new book. I’m delighted to have found groups that offer support simply by creating a safe and nurturing time and place in which to make my jackrabbit start. Once I get going, I’ll cruise to the end on my own.

Deborah Lee Luskin is the author of the award-winning novel, Into the Wilderness, a love-story set in Vermont in 1964. She is a Visiting Scholar for the Vermont Humanities Council and a regular commentator on Vermont Public Radio. Learn more at www.deborahleeluskin.com

This post first appeared on The Writer’s Life at hercircleezine.com.