I participated in my first writers’ group this weekend.

I attended a writers’ luncheon a few years back, but I would not say I participated.  For one thing, it was supposed to be a potluck, but besides my Pineapple Stuff (pineapple bread pudding, my usual what-the-hell-to-bring fallback), and perhaps some cheese and crackers, the other writers only brought coffee and wine.  I made a joke about how we as writers are supposed to avoid clichés, not live them, and was met with an awkward silence.

And then things got a little weird.

A few people stood up and read or recited some of their poetry.  Now, I love good poetry.  I don’t really get it—I fear I’m as deep as a mud puddle—and I can’t write it.  I can do a pretty good Robert Service type story with rhyme and cadence, and I can turn out a dirty limerick without a second thought, but real, true poetry is something I can only gaze at from afar.  If I hear a poem about a tree, I don’t think, “Wow, what a beautiful representation of the meaning of life well lived.”  I think, “Trees.  I like trees.”

The stuff my fellow writers were spouting left me sitting in the corner with that odd expression you get on your face when you’re sitting in a German pub and everyone else is smoking and speaking German, and you do neither.  Then someone got up and dragged in a tree branch they’d splattered with paint and strung with wire, beads, and what appeared to be a voodoo doll.  I took my empty casserole dish and never looked back.

But this group was different.  It was a local NaNoWrimo thing, and they were singing the song of my people.

NaNoWriMo, for those of you cursedly sane folks who have never heard of it, is an exercise in frustration, insanity, art, and the neglect of all things domestic.  The official definition is:

NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

You can learn more about NaNoWriMo here: http://nanowrimo.org/about

But I stand by my words.  NaNoWriMo is great for the coffee industry and possibly the whiskey industry, but not so great for family members who wish to be fed, driven to school, or spoken to during the month of November.

Yeah, yeah, cry me a river.

We were back in the woods, away from normal humans, just the way I like it.  Everyone spoke of their projects for November, and I really hope everyone finishes their stories because some fabulous ideas were presented.  Someone gave a little speech about worldbuilding, a topic new and fascinating to those who write literary fiction; we spoke of characters and plot, tension and frustration, exciting hooks and sagging middles.

I find that speaking with other writers is almost a meditative experience; I left feeling grounded, and validated, and excited about this year’s NaNoWriMo.

I will be working on Heart of the Forbidden City, Book 2 of Song of the Sun Dragon.  I will be drinking a lot of coffee, talking to myself, and probably losing a bit of sleep.

I will not be doing laundry.

Jai tu wai,

Debi