Writers Group Misfit

Belonging to a writers group can bring many surprises. I'll never forget the day, for example, that I brought in a story about my debauched college years. Once I finished reading it aloud, one of the members  passed around a bottle of Tums from which the other members dug in for multiple helpings. Why, I could induce massive indigestion. I wasn't expecting that.

I've attended the Old Town Writers Group in Traverse City for quite a while now. About seven years ago I met these folks when I responded to a notice that the group was accepting newcomers and would be holding a "mixer" at a downtown bookstore. I was nervous and didn't know what to expect. I remembered that a mixer used to be a term for a high school dance, at least back in the 1960s when I lived in Indiana. I supposed that a throng of people would gather at the bookstore's multi-purpose room as popular oldies played while wannabe writers did the fox trot.

No throngs. No multi-purpose room. No oldies. Instead, a group of five pleasant women sat at a table and welcomed me and another gentleman to join them. They introduced us to their writers group approach, how often they met, and other guidelines they followed. It sounded promising. I had always fancied myself as an untapped font of creative writing juices and pledged to make an appearance at their next meeting. If I had a group to attend, I told myself, it would force me to produce. What, exactly, I might produce I wasn't sure about.

The other gentleman seemed to have a more specific agenda. He wanted to know if he could use profanity in his writing - most notably the word "fuck". The others were a bit taken aback by the question, but in true diplomatic form, responded that if the language helped advance the story, then by all means.

I wasn't able to attend the first meeting, but the other gentleman did. I heard all about it. Apparently, he had been referred by his sex therapist who felt the gentleman needed an "outlet" to  express his feelings. Problem was, the gentleman struggled with compulsive masturbation. He wrote all about it and shared the hyper-graphic details in his reading. I don't know how "therapeutic" the experience was for him (poor guy), but the ladies in the writers group either felt ill or ill-equipped to make their organization an extension of sex therapy. They told him so and I guess he accepted that.

But I have lingered in their midst for these long years. There are six of us. I mainly have steered away from writing about my own humiliations, although in one essay I did admit that I have developed minor relationships with two skin tags in my left armpit, relationships to the extent that I went ahead and gave them names: Pierre and Fatso. I say hello whenever I shower. I also wrote a story about a sweet-natured grandfather who chases his toddler grandson around the house to capture the child in order to change his stinky diaper. It was meant to be funny, but truth be told, it was the first time I noticed a roll of antacids make an appearance at the table.

Armpit skin tags and stinky diapers are my ways to illustrate that this writers group is willing to put up with a lot, compulsive masturbation notwithstanding. These people, good writers all with their own projects, want to help each other maximize their best work. But sometimes my heart goes out to them. I have made them listen to dozens and dozens of strange essays and memoirs that depict the madcap foibles of a lost soul. More often than not, right after reading my final sentences, their initial reactions have been, well... awkward smiles with pregnant seconds of stone, cold silence. But who can blame them, bless their hearts.

However, one member may have turned on me. About a year ago, I shared a harrowing and true tale about getting thrown into a Turkish jail when I was a young man. The tension rises as my fellow inmates suffered horrible beatings from the jail guards. When it came time for me to receive the same beating, the guards seized up - they would not brutalize this young American - and I escaped the torture unscathed. It was then in my reading that I glanced over at the member in question. There was no mistaking the look on her face: disappointment. 

Some of the other members have gone on to publish books and articles, have held signings, and labor away regularly at their work. I envy them. Oh, I have sent my work around only to be rejected or to be dealt the familiar stone, cold non-reply. Sometimes, I guess, a rejection letter simply isn't worth the effort. However, I did get an article published in an obscure magazine called, All About Labs. My piece was a eulogy to Darla, our beloved labrador retriever. How dog lovers resist a eulogy to a lab? When I read the story to the group, some eyes moistened. I was able to bring Darla back to life for them.

Another surprise came when I received sharp criticism for my political essay, "The ABCs of a Disemboweled Liberal." The members didn't shoot down my writing, per se, but some took sharp exception to my political views therein. This hurt my feelings. I had misjudged them. Surely, these creative types, like all properly minded people, must share my radical leftist views. Not so. 

Our group exists to help writers become better writers, not to unkink the knots of those with emotional malfunctions. The need for approval, that yearning for acceptance, the siren call of an unrequited ego -- if these struggles raise their ugly little heads, they're best dealt with on the long ride home. It is then that you counsel yourself: separate the work from the self, separate the work from the self. After all, they're just words. There's no blood in them.

I've churned out dozens of essays and memoirs. I even wrote some fiction. Most pieces are peculiar and silly; two or three longer ones might have merit. And thanks to my fellows at the Old Town Writers Group, I've learned a lot. The most important lesson is this: the crucial thing all writers do... wait for it... they write.

This is where I flounder. I don't write much. A day or two before a scheduled group meeting, I get my ass in gear and vomit forth words and sentences that just might form mental bubbles based usually on a funny idea. Funny, at least, to me. It's all last minute. And that's what this is, this series of paragraphs right here. I got a text message yesterday that our group was meeting today. Oops. I completely forgot. I scrambled to come up with something and... you're reading it. I confess: I don't really write. I cram for a final exam.

My fellow group members will be listening to this in a few hours. They will be kind. I expect, as usual, long seconds of silence right here and probably a few awkward smiles. And I wouldn't be surprised if there erupts a frenzy of Tums.