I’ve been facilitating a writer’s group for several years now.  There is a core group that attends faithfully, and it has been fantastic to share their voyages.  Some have become published authors, some have been able to open up about very personal journaling, and some are just having a lot of fun writing.  The thing that has been hard for me though, is keeping their interest.

A few years ago when it felt like everyone was getting bored, I stirred them up by having the group sponsor a writing event for a local grade school.  It was a huge amount of work and a lot of fun.  More recently, when I could feel the group slowing down, I contacted author Jessica Page Morrell and asked her to give us a class.  We opened it up to enough people to pay for her expenses, but kept it small enough that we got some fantastic one-on-one time with a talented writing instructor. 

I asked the members to give me suggestions about how they would like the group to go.  I got back responses such as wanting more critique time, and an online group.  I changed the agenda to include more time to present, and started a Facebook group, that only a couple of members use.  And yet, in spite of the lack of response, everyone keeps coming back, and they all seem to be having fun.  They get along so well that we have to be careful not to digress into an hour-long visit that has nothing to do with writing.  So maybe I’m worrying about them being bored for no reason.  I guess if they were really unhappy they wouldn’t keep coming back. 

What I fear, what this boils down to, is that the group will turn into a meeting where you know exactly what is going to happen, and when.  That before they even arrive, the members will know exactly who is going to say what and who will be talking about what. 

So what do you do to counter boredom or, even more dangerous to the health of a writer’s group, complacency?

My son recently attended his very first school dance.  And danced.  Twice.  Which is more than I ever did in school.  Attend or dance.  Never went to a single one.  I asked him if most of the guys danced or if they held up the wall, and he said not many danced.  He did because girls asked him.  I wanted to know why he hadn’t asked any, and his answer was ‘I don’t know.’  Which to me actually said, ‘I was afraid of rejection’.  No one who attended highschool just read those words without instantly flashing backward in time.  Rejection had to have been a humiliating experience.  But with the passage of years, I now think about how much courage it took for someone to step out into the social spotlight and risk rejection.  At least that person was doing something, instead of, like me, hiding behind a book or in a dream story.

Writing has the same risks though.  You face rejection every time you ask that first, trusted reader, for an opinion.  Every time you send out that first query letter.  Every time you open your mouth at a writer’s conference or writer’s group.  Every time you post a blog. 

What terrified me when I sent out my first query letter wasn’t so much the fear of rejection, but the fear of losing my new-found confidence.  It was safer to write in that dark closet alone, then to confess to people I was a writer, send out stories to be edited, and then think I had a right to send out a query letter.  I was terrified that getting a rejection would deflate that fledgling confidence and shove me right back into the closet. 

What happened though, was that I ended up very, very excited about the first rejection letter.  I showed it to everyone, and showed it proudly.  Because it was proof that I was doing something.  In some ways, the rejection proved to me that I was a writer.  Which is kind of embarrassing to admit to because we write for the love of writing, not for publication, so why did a rejection seem like proof?  No idea, but it did.  Maybe because it was a tangible thing I could hold that said I not only worked with words, I did something other than secret them away in the back of that closet.   And I still love getting rejections. 

I’ve also learned since that first query letter that there are levels of rejection.  Some are good, as when the letter comes with personal comments.  And some are awful, as when your return envelope comes back empty, but with a ‘no thanks’ hand-scrawled on the back of the envelope for every postal worker to see.  Of course I prefer the ‘good’ rejections, but I still get a tingle even with the ‘bad’ ones. 

Because it’s still proof of life.

Once a year, as part of my job, I have to pull out an electric typewriter.  It brings back memories of typing class, the old clunky manual typewriters, and the thrill of sitting down to my first electric version.  It felt so high-tech and futuristic.  Like ‘The Jetsons were real.

Today, I plunked out a few test letters to make sure the machine was still working, and found myself typing away.  Nonsense sentences that meant nothing but made my fingers move across the keys, pushing them down, listening to the unmistakable sounds of a typewriter.  Of course the first sentence ran off the page because the margins hadn’t been set so there was no warning beep that I needed to hit the return key.  Remember when the key said ‘return’ and not ‘enter’? 

At first I thought it might be fun to write on a typewriter again.  But after playing with it I changed my mind.  First, there is a deep intimacy between my brain and the pen and paper.  When I hand-write, I slow down, feel the letters and words, and immerse myself in the form.  Which is fine until the story takes over and the pen can’t keep up.  Then it’s time for the laptop because my fingers type faster than they write.  So why doesn’t a typewriter sound enticing?  Because I noticed when I was typing that more effort goes into pushing those keys down then in typing on a computer.  And that minute effort, as little as it is, feels like a barrier between me and the story.  The more I typed the more tense I became, as if I needed to somehow break through that block between fingers, keys, and paper.

So even though the typewriter was fun, I’m going to put it back in its dark hole for another year and stick to a medium that allows no barriers.  In other words, nude writing.  Which is not the same thing as writing in the nude…

Have you found writing mediums that block the words?  What is your preference for writing with no barrier between you and the story?  I know writers who swear by computers only, writers who have to have paper, writers who need the computer to create and paper to edit.  Let me know what works for you.  Maybe there’s even a typist out there.