Thinking about the recent post regarding members of my writer’s group has made me think a little more about the writer’s path. So I wanted to add a postscript to the previous post.

Quite a while ago I read a book on writing that I believe was actually called The Writer’s Path.  To be honest I wasn’t too impressed and felt the whole book would have been stronger as an article.  It seemed like there was a lot of repetition.  But one thing that stuck with me was when the authors compared the writer’s path to musical chairs.  They drew an image of a circle of chairs and writers sinking down onto the chair that was right for them at that moment.  They talked about beginner writers and polished writers, but they said that we revisit that beginner writer chair every time we start a new piece.  Hence the circle of chairs rather than a linear path.

I believe that to be true.  There are two beginner writers in us.  The one when we are first starting out as a writer, and the one we become each time we face a new, unknown, unwritten story.  As we move along in our writer’s life we of course collect tools to improve.  In that way we leave the beginner behind and grow into that intermediate writer.  But when we start that new piece, our tool belt hangs on the back of our chair until we have faced that new beginning.

When I talked about the members in the writer’s group in the previous post, I’m not sure I was clear enough about what I was thinking.  A beginning writer means so much more than simply someone new to the craft itself.   Each word we place in our story is a symbol of both the growth of the writer and the growth of the piece, from beginning, through  middle, to end.

I suppose that means that after ending the story as a confident, polished writer, we must walk away from the story, bury ourselves in the editing process, and then resurrect ourselves in the next, brand new beginning.  Interesting.  I’ve thought of writing as beginning, middle, end, but never as birth, life, rebirth.  Makes the craft of writing sound mighty lofty doesn’t it?

Anyway, just wanted to add a further thought on what it means to be a beginner at writing.  At least for me.

Several years ago a friend and I met to support each other in our beginning writer status.  Those meetings evolved into the O-Pen Writer’s Group.  I realized the people who have attended, their stories and their writing paths, are stories of all writers in a way.  I’m only going to mention a few due to space constraints, but I think you’ll see what I mean.  Each description goes beyond that person’s individuality, to describe the writer in all of us throughout our writing life.

Pat is the soul of the group with a kind word for everyone, the balm on any contention that arises.  She comes from a difficult history, but through it all she has continued to journal and to write poetry.  She feels she is not a writer because she ‘only journals’.  I miss her inner joy when she isn’t there.  I believe over the years she has slowly come to realize that her journals and her poetry are valuable and beautiful, and a true form of writing.  She is the writer in the closet, just realizing that she truly is a writer, like Jenni, a close friend who attends through Facebook, and who is also just budding as a writer.  Both remind me of beginnings.

Lisa has written an amazing novel.  Strong, original, funny, heart wrenching, everything you want in a story.  But for many personal reasons she has not returned to the story.  I wait for the day that she realizes the strength of that book, and picks it up again.  She is the writer in the middle, the one who has passed the beginning, works on her craft, and has created.  Yet sinks under the weight of the inner critic and has yet to realize she is truly gifted as a writer.  She reminds me of the heavy struggles of being in the middle, of knowing where to go but not yet able to see she has the tools to take her forward. Right now we walk together.

Susan came with a draft novel that had problems she wasn’t sure how to fix.  We realized her actual beginning was five chapters into the story.  Ruthlessly she hacked and deleted, outlined and studied, and ended up with a published novel.  She belongs to large groups, has chaired local chapters, attends conferences, studies, works diligently and regularly, and is now publishing her third novel in the series.  She is the experienced writer, striding along with the discipline to work.  She’s the writer who has left the twists and turns of a narrow path in the dark woods, for the clear straight highway, the horizon within reach.  Lisa’s husband Mark is on the same segment of path as Susan.  A writer who is also an engineer, he has perfected the ability to remove the creating hat and put on the marketing one.  His published short stories and anthologies are compelling and entertaining, and he, too, now speeds seemingly effortlessly along the writing highway.

There are other members who also show me those stepping-stones on the writer’s path.  Maybe I’ll have to do a part 2 to this post.  But for now, I thank those who walk beside me along this learning curve.  It’s great to not be alone.

When I started this blog I decided to not put any of my writing here.  I didn’t want to make people feel obligated to read or comment, to be polite.  And I also didn’t want to deal with criticism when I was just feeling my way back into writing.  But Lisa, from the satsumaart blog (link in the blogroll) has been sharing these amazing writing prompts with me.  And not only that, but she’s been so brave, posting her prompt results.

Everyone knows a prompt isn’t something to spend time on.  The purpose is to open those gates and let the words flood out freely, in whatever form they want.  So there’s no editing, no plotting, no forethought at all.  Which is me taking a roundabout way to say that I am going to post my first writing prompt here, just to honor the task Lisa has given me.  Don’t expect perfect writing.  And please excuse me for hogging the spotlight and digressing from talking about writing.

Prompt #1 Salvation

Wasn’t a life change supposed to happen with salvation?  I expected it anyway in my early twenties, and so I figured I must have done something wrong.  I’d ask again, and nothing.  Maybe I wasn’t humble enough.  Or, wow, maybe I didn’t really mean it.  The people in the bible study group made it sound so easy.  So I started asking questions, and the answer I repeatedly got was as deflating as the lack of fireworks.  Faith.  You have to accept it and believe it on faith alone.

Excuse me.  If you want me to devote my life to something, I need something back.  Something more than faith.  Like answers.  Like explanations.

I walked into the woods instead.  The trees became my faith.  They were concrete, I could touch them, they were quiet, non-judgmental, didn’t act like I was going to hell, seemed content to be my back support and a sharer of dreams.  I could sense their roots digging deep, not only into earth, but into history.  I could sense their branches reaching high, not to something in the sky out of sight, like heaven, but opening to breathe in, to breathe out, to be part of and mingled with and shared.

I could sense timelessness, a slowing of rushing, an attitude of bringing that errand-driven heart-rate under control in order to be part of, to walk among, to simply be.

I felt weird, maybe crazy, definitely foolish talking to the trees.  I’d whisper, looking over my shoulder.  Until I found out I wasn’t the only one out there doing the same thing.  Not a tree-hugger, not an environmental hippy, just someone who felt okay being with trees.  Part of something bigger, part of something older, more majestic, more spiritual and holy.

I want my salvation to be growing old like a tree.  Gnarled, bent, wise, patient, living each second like it’s a year, feeling cool earth between my toes and a cool wind in my hair.  And when I die, cremation, fertilizer for seedlings.