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.

I think most writers, if they have been bedding down words on paper for any length of time, have come across these questions.

Where do you get your ideas?  How do I write a book?  What should I name my character?  How do I get published?  How do I know where to start?  How do I know when to stop?  Why do my stories die in the middle?  What does ‘show vs. tell’ mean?  My best friend tells me my writing is really good so why do I need an editor?  Where can I find publishers to send my story to?

Those types of questions have been asked so often that they have become clichés, and questions that make many grown inwardly when they hear them.  What I can’t figure out is, why, if these are so common, do people keep asking them?  All you have to do is go to the Books section of Yahoo Answers and you’ll find hundreds of variations on these same questions.  It seems like these have been answered so, so many times, that the answers should be floating out there waiting to descend on the next person who asks how to get rich writing.

I think most of these must be basic building blocks in taking up a life of writing.  These are the questions that weed out those who ache to tell a story and those who think writing is a get-rich-quick (and easy) job.  They get asked so often because there are so many newbies out there.   Does that mean we should roll our eyes or run away when someone asks one of these?  Of course not, because everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.  And beyond that, a beginning writer should be held in the palm of our hand and supported, because once upon a time, someone answered our questions and supported us.

We were supported until we moved past those oh-so-blatant beginning writer questions and started asking a new set.  How can I make my dialog more believable?  Why do my characters feel so cardboard?  Help me understand scene/sequel.  How do I get rid of those passive verbs?

This new set of questions become a platform for clichés, where more experienced writers step.  And so on and so on. Will we ever get to the point where we don’t ask questions that someone else sees as obvious, boring, and a sign of our lack of skill?  I doubt it.  I just hope that no matter how many questions I ask, there will always be someone there willing to take a moment and answer with respect.

After all, I think the best thing I have learned over the years of asking questions, is that the best answer always includes empathy.

And let’s face it.  After years of writing and of having days when I feel like I’m not a beginner, I still posted a blog not that long ago wanting to know how to find a title for my story.   Guess I’ll cringe here, laugh, and go back to the pen and paper.  But hey, what’s the most embarrassing question you’ve asked about writing, or been asked?