This is What I'm Doing: The January 2014 Edition

I kind of went heads-down over the last few months of 2013, more than I intended or expected to. Between family and work, the holidays, the extreme weather adventures (I know I'm not alone there -- for a while it seemed like the entire continent was snowed in and frozen solid), I was pretty engaged in other things. 

Oh, and there was winning NaNoWriMo, but I kind of feel like I bragged about that one enough, on Twitter and Facebook, when it actually happened. It's worth mentioning, but more because obviously it was taking up a lot of my time and my writing energy in November. 

(It left me with a post-NaNo hangover, too. It was hard to buckle down and write in December. I spent a lot of the month feeling wrung out and like I needed to recharge my creative batteries.)

The important thing is that I used NaNoWriMo to kick off what appears to be my next novel, a science-fiction story with the working title Nobody's Watching. 

So, what am I doing now? 

Nobody's Watching was on hold while I shook off the post-NaNoWriMo doldrums, but I'm about ready to resume work on it. It helps that it's the work-in-progress that I've been taking to my writers group, because I do get motivated by deadlines. 

I've been continuing to take my short fiction to market, so far without success. I currently have three stories out on submission (with a fourth that just got a rejection, so I really need to get it out there again as well). More news on that as it happens. In terms of time and project management, short stories tend to be one of two things for me: the short, sharp idea that gets stuck in my head and won't go away until I write it; and/or creative palate cleansers between long stretches of working on a novel. 

The result of this is that I have a backlog of short fiction pieces in addition to the ones that are currently out to market -- about six or eight, I think, in various states of readiness between "just needs a polish" to "oh my FSM what was I thinking this calls for a page-one rewrite". 

My plan is to work on revising and finishing these stories over the first half of this year, in between working on the big ticket projects -- Nobody's Watching, until it's done. I have a pretty good sense of what the novel after that will be, too, but I'm going to keep my powder dry on that one until Nobody's Watching is actually a finished draft.

In other news, I spent a lot of the fall polishing All That Glitters, and my other big initiative for the New Year is going to be using it to query literary agents and seek representation. I'm not sure how much of this process I really should go into -- certainly I'm not going to name any names, that's just unprofessional. So let's just say that the manuscript is ready, and I've been honing my query letter and, more painfully, my synopsis. And now I'm as ready as I'm going to be. It's time to see if my first novel is ready to fly. 

Nervous? Ha. I'm feeling a combination of heady excitement and stomach-curdling anxiety that reminds me of nothing so much as when I was in theatre. It's exhilarating and terrifying to be confronted with the prospect of taking a step that could lead to either success or showing my ass in public (which has actually literally happened to me a couple of times, but that doesn't seem to make this any easier).

For now, let's just say there'll be more news on that when I have something I can share. 

I'm also continuing to focus on home and family, work and on my own health, the latter of which I sort of lost the thread of over 2013, and need to get back on top of. And there are other creative projects on the horizon, including some interesting potential ones relating to my comics work. Again, more on that when it's less nebulous. 

2013 was a remarkable year, full of peaks and valleys. I did some of my best writing last year, even if it has yet to see the light of day. I also had a personal health crisis that literally could have killed me. The peaks were high. The valleys were real nadirs. All in all, I'm glad it's a new year. 

It's January, 2014 and on reflection, it seems like I've got rather a lot I want to do. It's time to do it. It's time to move forward. I hope we can all move forward, together. And I look forward to telling you about the steps I take in my journey -- and hearing about yours. 

Onward!

The Shape of Blogs to Come

Well, I haven't been doing much flying so far. It's been a hard week to get on top of -- I just can't seem to get my head in gear.

I've been tired, and out of sorts, and not writing much and not getting the gym and eating too much crappy food.

But you know: Meh. The week is almost over, and then it's on to a new one.

I've had one minor triumph: I field-tested my new notebook computer, which I have named Trogdor, after the internet's most burninating dragon.

I've been taking Trogdor to work with me, and yesterday I sat down in the cafeteria -- the busiest I've seen it for months, full of university students -- and tried it out.

And yeah, overall, things went well. I'm still adjusting to the idiosyncrasies of the keyboard, which is obviously more compressed than that of a regular desktop or even a laptop computer. But that's going to be relatively straightforward. The battery seems to hold up, and by the end of the hour I was making fewer typos than when I started.

With all the noise, I figured my best bet was to try writing something that didn't involve too much intricate plotting or having to hear idiosyncratic character voices in my head -- so, no finishing Chapter 3 of Cold Iron Badge or starting a new draft of the screenplay.

That will come, but I think I'm going to have to start taking my lunch later. Chuck Palahniuk is apparently a great advocate of writing in hospital emergency rooms, but I need to have a little more peace and quiet.

So I tried writing an Erstwhile post. Not this one; because I don't have wireless internet access, and didn't actually remember to buy a USB flash drive when I bought Trogdor, I currently have no way to get my writing from Trogdor to the desktop at home, which I can use to, you know, actually post here.

I'll remedy that goof-up before the weekend's out. Until then, I'm sort of writing a new post now and sort of trying to reconstruct what I wrote before while sort of also updating it because it's not something I'm doing live anymore, but something I did yesterday.

Regardless, what I was getting at yesterday, and what I'm getting to now, is this: In my bold announcement last week, of my bold return to bold blogging... I neglected to boldly, or even cravenly, address the question I raised in my post previous to that, about five months back.

Namely, what this blog is for now, if I'm kind of back from erstwhile.

And yesterday I came up with a couple of answers to that.

First of all, and let's be honest here, I really am only "kind of" back from erstwhile. Cold Iron Badge is going extremely well, and Patrick is getting better all the time. I'm active in the writers group and I'm excited about the feedback I've been getting there on my screenplays; I think the next drafts will really take them to a new level.

But there's a lot to be done, too. Getting more readers and recognition for Cold Iron Badge and Xeno's Arrow, and monetizing them as well. Getting an agent, so that my screenplays can go to market.

Essentially, I want to not just be a writer, nor even a professional writer, but a paid professional writer. I know that's mercenary, but you know, I'm comfortable with being mercenary. I'd like to be paid for my work.

And I think that will be an interesting, blog-worthy process, and one that I'd like to put out there (as long as I'm careful not to use the real names of people and organizations when things are "in development".)

But also, writing isn't the only part of my life where I need to de-erstwhile.

Over the past few months, I've started trying to get to the gym regularly again, and eat better. Or at least, eat with more restraint. I was doing pretty well up until the holidays and my weird post-holiday snacking binge this week -- well enough that I was starting to see the beginnings of results.

Frankly, this is a process where I could really use some support. Again, I'll be circumspect about details at the ickier end of the spectrum, but it'll help me a lot to know someone's in my corner.

And there's another area of my life where I can get back from being an erstwhile -- an opportunity to re-open a closed chapter. But I'll save that for next time -- it's worth a blog post of its own.

New Year's Revolutions

Hello and happy New Year!

I've been away from here, but I have been blogging -- at the Cold Iron Blog, where my Cold Iron Badge co-creator Patrick and I talk about the origins, process and future of CIB.

You can also follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook, both of which I've been updating rather more frequently than this space.

Other than the Cold Iron Blog, though, I haven't been writing much over the past few months; my head has been in other spaces, and there's always the issue of time. Not of finding it, so much as managing it. But with the recent holidays, I've upgraded my tools in a way that I think will help a great deal -- my Christmas present from me and the family to myself was a netbook, one of the new generation of really small, light, efficient laptops. It weighs about a kilogram, and the battery works like a dream, so I can really take it anywhere. Now I can write with ease on my lunch hour at work, for instance.

The ghosts of Shakespeare and Robertson Davies are laughing at me. "You don't actually need a computer to write, you know," they're saying. "Or have you not heard of the bleeding-edge technologies that we call a pen and paper?"

Supercilious dead bastards.

The fact is, there are things that it is easier for me to write on a computer. Longhand is all very well for jotting down stray thoughts, or for outlines, ideas and character sketches -- things that involve me crystallizing my thoughts on paper. But for the actual writing, the things that other people are actually going to read, I just find it easier, faster, more efficient and more fluid to use a computer.

I'm going to push myself to write for at least an hour every day, more if I can make the time after the kids are in bed. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's much more than I'm managing now, and I think it'll make a huge difference.


Because, after a long period of erstwhiling, and then a long process of de-erstwhiling by fits and starts, I feel like now is the time to really push forward.

There's so much I want to do. A couple of my screenplays have gone through the critiquing process in the Writers Group, and it's time for new drafts that'll polish them up. There's lots of exciting stuff coming up in Cold Iron Badge. Greg and I have been talking about launching a new Xeno's Arrow website, building our readership, and eventually merchandising and creating new material.

It's an exciting time, an exciting place to be in.

There was a lot of pain for me last year, but a lot of good, too -- my new job at the University and the launch of Cold Iron Badge were two big ones. I've been describing 2008 as the year I stopped falling.

That means that 2009 is the year to fly.

Here Comes The Sundry

It's been a fairly hectic couple of weeks. Lots going on at work, and at home, and on the creative front as well.

All of it vital, productive, interesting background and developmental stuff that makes for lousy anecdotes.

Patrick and I are gearing up for the launch of Cold Iron Badge on Modern Tales. Greg and I are talking about some new things to do with Xeno's Arrow. I have a writers group meeting coming up this week.

Good stuff. It's keeping me busy. I'm thinking all the time. But it's just not a particularly interesting part of the process to anyone who isn't actually in it.

Sorry. There'll be plenty happening over the next couple of weeks. Around mid-July and August, things are really going to start popping -- and there'll be announcements before that. But right now, it's all in such early stages that there's nothing to tell.

How Can I Be So Boring When So Much Is Happening?

Just a quick update -- it doesn't really merit the venerable and honourable title of "Sundry", you see.

I have been very busy. Writer's Group was good! Progress on Cold Iron Badge continues! I baked a loaf of bread!

Yeah, the excitement never stops with yours truly, I tell ya.

Sundry, Bloody Sundry

It's been a hectic three weeks. Lots going on at work, always stuff to do at home.

I've been working away on Cold Iron Badge -- Act 3 is still a bit of a bear, but that's more because it's turning out to be a longer script than I thought, not because of any insoluble issues in the narrative.

I mean, I knew that plot points that could be expressed in a single sentence of the outline ("Our heroes fight a giant clockwork banana. In space!") were going to take up rather more pages of script. But the ratio -- the number of script pages it takes to express a plot point -- has been higher for Cold Iron Badge than in my other comics work.

It progresses. Slowly. But it progresses. A related project, which is not so much on the creative side -- and which I'm not going to go into details about yet -- has been moving more quickly.

I Know Where My Towel Is

Today is Towel Day, when we honour the memory of Douglas Adams. It's a good day to know where your towel is, try a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster and, if you're especially ambitious, to try to throw yourself at the ground, and miss.

Rory Root and Robert Asprin

And as of this week, two more names that can only be honoured in memory from now on.

On Monday came the untimely death of Rory Root. Rory was not well-known outside of comics publishing and retailing, but within those realms he cast a very long shadow. His store, Comic Relief, was literally one of the best in the world, a model and inspiration for the industry. He was a tireless voice advocating for comics and graphics novels, and a supporter of Xeno's Arrow. I only had the pleasure of meeting him in person a couple of times, but I liked him very much and respected him tremendously.

He was a boundlessly energetic and positive person who did an unbelievable amount of good for the medium and business of comics. He will be greatly missed.

Then, on Thursday, Robert Asprin died. A writer of science-fiction and fantasy, his work was among my favourites when I was a teenager -- especially the Myth Adventures series of comedic fantasy novels. And although his writing and my own tastes eventually went in different directions, I still remember and cherish the delight I felt at enjoying his work for the first time. His style -- at least in the books of his I most enjoyed -- was breezy and sunny, full of wit and comedic asides. I suspect that it influenced my early development as a writer rather strongly.
He, too, will be missed.

I Didn't Really Want to End on a Down Note...

Let's see... my Writers Group meets this week. That'll be fun.

Oh, and Greg and I were finally shamed into reviving the long-moribund Xeno's Arrow Forum. Drop by to read all about it and chastise us for our lack of internet-savvy!

I may have some actual news over the next week or so -- it depends on the Cold Iron Badge-related matter I mentioned. I'll keep you all posted!

Or, uh, the BI-weekly Update...?

This Year, April Really Is The Cruelest Month

Yeah, I'm a little out of my groove this month. I've been really tired for some reason, and having a hard time focusing on anything that isn't work/kids/sleep.

That, more than anything, is the reason for my not posting a Sundries last weekend. It's like the old Bloom County strip about the media trying to cope with a day when literally nothing happens. ("Nothing: Is it the new something?") It's possible. But it's embarrassing.

Slow Iron Badge

Chapter 3 of Cold Iron Badge progresses, but v...e...r...y... s...l...o...w...l...y. That's with a capital "...", if you're curious.

I've been writing on my lunch hour, even on the subway (I normally find public transit way too crowded and stressful to write, but you gotta use the time you've got, right?) So it is happening, albeit at a pace that frustrates me.

Part of the problem with this incremental approach is that the characters are still pretty new to me, so it can sometimes take a while for me to find their voices. And then I have to stop and go back to work.

I'd love to have a day, even an afternoon, to go heads-down and finish the chapter -- maybe May will be more conducive?

The Writers Group and the Screenplay

My Writers Group met last week, and another piece of my screenplay was up for discussion.

Hmm. Have I talked about the screenplay recently? I back-burnered the postmodern-y, genre-bending romantic comedy I originally brought to the group, and instead I've been offering pieces from the thriller I started, and blogged about, a couple of years ago.

It's about time for me to incorporate some of the great feedback I've been getting and write a new draft. One which, uh, actually finishes the script, which kind of ran out of gas at the Act 2/Act 3 transition and has been languishing ever since.

It's called Dark Green, by the way.

A Colder, Rainier, Better Week?

The weather in Toronto is supposed to get back to seasonal norms starting tomorrow -- rainy, and in the mid-single-digit Celsius range -- from the June-like temperatures we've been enjoying.

For all that, I think it might be a better week for me. I took a real kick at my sleep deficit today, and I'm feeling excited about both Cold Iron Badge and Dark Green. I'll keep you posted, of course.

Sunday Sundries VI: The Undiscovered Blog

Well, I feel tres nerdy, dropping Star Trek references in the titles of the three most recent Sunday Sundries. But really: Not a lot of franchises get to six. It's Star Trek, Star Wars and various slasher series from the 80's about nubile adolescents being disembowelled. And I very much didn't want to call this update Sunday Sundries VI: I Stab Your Naked Head.

Wasn't this Supposed to be a Writing Blog?

So, it's the end of a long weekend -- no holiday on Monday for me. Progress on my writing continues to be of the barely-eked-out variety, but it is happening. While things are still going swimmingly at my job, life has been handing me a few lemons on other fronts lately -- enough to outstrip my capacity for lemonade-making.

My writers group meets this week, and I'm hoping that will help to re-energize me.

That's about it. I was hoping to pull it all together with a witty conclusion for you, but that seems to be beyond my capabilities tonight. Eh, they can't all be gems.

Sunday Sundries 2: Electric Blog-aloo

The weekly round-up returns. With a vengeance. Well, no. But it returns.

Socks & Barney Tips the Hat to an Ignorant Canadian!

Fellow comics guy Steve Conley is an old friend from the convention circuit. I was surprised to see that his new webcomic was political satire. Not because I didn't think he had the wit or cartooning chops to pull it off -- he's got those in spades. But Steve has always been in the running for the title of Nicest Guy In Comics; did he have the touch of Alien-esque acid in his blood that a satirist needs?

Oh yeah, he does. Socks & Barney, which is basically election year political commentary by the Clintons' cat and George W. Bush's dog, with a supporting cast of real and fictional pets of the various candidates, quickly became one of my daily must-reads. It's smart and funny and has just the right amount of acid.

Anyway, Steve runs news and commentary about the presidential race on his web page as well; I forwarded him a couple of links to articles in the Toronto Star about the Democrats Abroad primary (which Barack Obama won handily). He posted them, with a very kind tip of the hat to me. If you have any interest in the future of America and therefore, you know, the world, you really should check out Socks & Barney.

New Job: Awesome, But Time-Consuming!

My new job -- it's at the University of Toronto -- has been great so far, but the adjustment to my schedule has certainly impacted on my writing time. I'm getting up a bit earlier, although not a lot, because the kids are early risers anyway. And then I'm busy until after they're in bed. And then I'm pretty worn out, which doesn't make for the most productive writing time.

But the good energy that came from landing my job -- and the feeling of generally coming unstuck that came with it -- have balanced out the tiredness a bit. I've gotten back to Chapter Three of Cold Iron Badge, which is going to be challenging and a lot of fun to write. And I've been mulling over other projects, too, like finally finishing one of my back-burnered screenplays. More news as it happens, of course.

The Writers Continue to Group!

My writers group met last week, which was cool, because one of my projects was up for discussion. Unfortunately, illness and confusion led to a lower-than-usual turnout (and there are only five of us to start with), so Nicole and Dave had to bear the considerable burden of critiquing me on their own. But they were able to rise to the occasion admirably.

I submitted Act One of one of the long-neglected screenplays that I mentioned above, and came away with some really good feedback that will help me build a better second draft. Of course, I really should finish the first draft first...

More Cold Iron Badge Coming Soon!

Patrick just needs to finish some final edits, and then we'll be posting a second preview of finished pages for Cold Iron Badge. I'm very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Or I Could Just Be A Glutton For Punishment

I've been thinking about short fiction again, lately.

Over the past few years, I've written the occasional short story -- including two pieces that I wrote as part of my back-from-erstwhiling.

Prose is, in general, something I that flounder with. I don't know how novelists do it -- 250, 300, 500, 800 pages of characters and plot and description and all the rest?

But it's not just a matter of sustaining a novel, because the same thing has cropped up in my short pieces too. I'm good at character and dialogue, and I can handle plot. They aren't the problem.

It's description. Every single time.

I worry, too much, about my descriptive prose. I worry that I've described too much, or not enough. I worry that I'm being too direct and explicit, or too poetic and opaque. I worry about the voices of my characters, and the discrepancy I see between their dialogue and the narration when I use the first person.

I don't know why I over-think this stuff. I'm not exactly a master of plot, either, but I don't seem to get hung up on it.

That's why it's kind of a big deal for me to pull my short stories out of the trunk, and dust them off.

I have one piece that probably just needs a little tweaking, and then can go to market. That one, I've actually already submitted to four publications with no takers so far. I'm not sure why -- I think it's quite good. I might make it my next writers group submission and get some more feedback.

I have another piece that I recently submitted to a short story contest, so we'll see how that goes. It's pretty solid as well.

And there's a third story that needs some major clean-up. (Among other things, I switched from the third to first person half-way through.)

So, given my anxieties around prose, why am I doing this?

For one thing, I'd like to at least try to confront my anxieties around writing prose.

And I have these stories, and they aren't doing me any good just sitting on the hard drive collecting... well, not dust. Random electrons, I guess.

Also, short fiction -- especially in genre fiction, which is what I tend to write -- is a far more open medium than most to newcomers and "emerging writers."

And although the money isn't big -- one of the reasons that it's a comparatively easy market to break into -- getting paid anything for my work would provide some much-needed validation and ego-boosting right about now.

So, I'm going to review the three short stories that I think are solid enough, and finished enough. I'm going to rewrite where I have to. And I'm going to start getting the work out there.

There you go: The first, and probably simplest part of my plan for the New Year. Keep good thoughts in your head for me, okay? It's a simple plan, but it still involves wrestling with a demon or three.

I'll Be Fine... As Soon As The Bleeding Stops...

And how did writer's group go, you ask?

Actually, it was productive, and a lot of fun. It always helps recharge my creative batteries to talk shop with my peers. I enjoy discussing my work, and other people's work, with people who have useful insights and sharp analytical capabilities.

And Nicole made spaghetti. I do love spaghetti.

But yes, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, it was my turn up at bat. Or my turn to be hit with the bat, that might be more apt.

It's not surprising that there was -- how to put it? -- a lot to say about my submission. The outline for the New Screenplay, which is the project that was up for discussion, is kind of an odd beast.

It's probably the "youngest" work that the group has yet reviewed. Of the five participants, I'm the only one who didn't have a longform project that I wanted to bring to the table already underway, and created something new specifically for the first meeting. So it's very much in the early stages, with all the plot holes and handwaving and stupid ideas I would normally have edited out long before showing it to anybody else still flapping in the breeze.

Also, I'm doing something that I normally strongly encourage people to avoid at all costs: I'm flouting the genre. Without going into too much detail at this early stage, I can say that it's a romantic comedy that relies on the audience's expectations, based on familiarity with the genre, to subvert those expectations.

That means that part of the point of the story artistically, for me, is that it not pay off in the usual and expected way, while still paying off in a different way that is powerful, satisfying, emotionally honest.

I know -- an "emotionally honest" romantic comedy. I'm already treading on dangerous ground.

This inner tension between the genre and the actual thrust of the narrative may be why I had the slightly bruising experience Thursday night of hearing one of my smart colleagues say, "Your story still has no Third Act, dude."
And replying, "Actually, I think it does have a clear Third Act."
And having the other three people in the room, all of whom are also very smart, say, "Um, no Stephen, it really doesn't."

My subversive, slightly perverse and rampagingly un-commercial intentions aside, there is clearly a lot of room for improvement. It's obvious, first of all, that the act turns in the outline, the dramatic reversals and changes that mark the phases of the story, are not strong enough. A lot of the other feedback I got was just as solid, and just as indicative of work that I need to do in other areas.

It was challenging, but I loved it. It gave me so much to go on! I'm excited. And fired up. And not sure how to proceed.

I have, first of all, another project on the go -- the New Comics Project, which is only a quarter written. It's important to me, and it's going to move forward much, much faster than a movie script ever could. If the Genius Artist and I do it as a webcomic, as we've discussed, there's no reason we couldn't start serializing it online just after the New Year. And it's a really fun project to write. So that's a priority.

More importantly -- because it's not like I couldn't alternate writing projects from day to day -- I need to figure out how I'm comfortable moving forward with the New Screenplay. Thursday's comments showed that, yes, there are definitely some very important gaps in the outline.

So how much work do I put into fixing the outline? Do I polish and polish what is essentially a twelve-page synopsis of the story? Of course it has some gaps -- if all the gaps were filled in, it wouldn't be an outline! And would overworking the outline suck all the creative joy out of the project for me? Should I just start writing the screenplay? But am I ready to start the screenplay?

So, yeah, great feedback, leaving me with a lot to consider. Further thoughts will be posted here as my agonizing unfolds.

(Oh, on the subject of feedback? If anyone wants to let me know that you are still reading and I'm not just talking to myself here, that would be cool too.)

You Want My Honest Opinion, Huh?

Today, I spent some time getting down some thoughts about somebody else's writing.

In the writer's group that I'm part of, two members (there are five of us) get our work critiqued at each of our monthly meet-ups. Thursday, my screenplay outline is up at bat, and so is a chapter of Charles's novel. So today was all about organizing my thoughts about his work.

As I've mentioned before, this is my first writer's group, so I'm still finding my way to a degree - I have some comfort zone issues, not about being criticized, but about feeling free to criticize.

People who know me well are probably staring at their monitors right now, laughing uncontrollably. I have a bit of a reputation for being a downright bloodthirsty critic.

But here's the thing: that's among my nearest and dearest. I really do have comfort zone issues with critiquing. It's funny, but the better I know and the more I love someone, the more likely I am to hold nothing back when I respond to their work.

It's a trust issue, and it's something I have to work on, while making sure that I don't overcompensate in any direction. I need to strike a balance, one that respects Charles as a colleague who has requested my honest opinion, and myself as someone with an opinion that's worth expressing honestly, even if I'm sometimes a little reserved about doing so.

I'll post some thoughts about how writer's group went tomorrow, after I get home. Right now, it's later than I wanted to be up. My honest opinion: It's time for bed.

"More Frequent Updates" I Said. Ha.

Hmm. I'm not all that great at this "blogging" thing, am I? Anytime I'm doing something interesting enough to blog about, I'm too busy doing it to blog about it.

But other people are interesting and blog about it at the same time. How do you do it, interesting people who blog? How, I ask? HOW?!

In other news, I turned 36 yesterday. I'm working on a neat new comics project with an old friend who also happens to be a great artist, so that's exciting - more on that later, since he doesn't want me to post any samples yet. (There's no finished art, only designs.)

Oh, and the writer's group meets on Thursday. I circulated my submission, an outline for a new screenplay, to the others at the meeting in late September. I haven't thought about it much since - I've been busy with the aforementioned New Project. I should re-read it before I have to defend it, huh? :)

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Writer's Group

As I sit at the keyboard, sipping on some decent Scotch (with soda, or I'll have twelve headaches tomorrow) it occurs to me that I have not mentioned that I recently joined a writer's group.

So, just to be official: I recently joined a writer's group.

There are five of us. There's Nicole, and Greg, both of whom I have mentioned here on occasion. There's me, who has also come up here once or twice. Dave and Charles, who I met for the first time at our inaugural meeting last Tuesday, round out the group.

This is my first writer's group. I've always been a little skittish in the past about them, and I can't quite articulate why. No, not because of the Scotch. ::)

I think I've always, on some level, suspected writer's groups of being glorified social clubs, venues for people to noodle over vanity projects and feel like Capital-W Writers. Places to talk about "writing", instead of talking about the work.

This is, patently, an absurd notion. Many well-known writers have benefitted from being part of writer's groups, including writers that I enjoy and admire. Steven Brust was in a writer's group. Cory Doctorow too. J. R. R. Tolkien was in a writer's group with C. S. Lewis for crying out loud - the legendary Inklings.

So perhaps the concerns I had about writer's groups were really concerns that I projected on to them. Concerns about myself. I do have this tendency to let planning get in the way of action, process get in the way of practice.

I don't think that's going to be a concern with the new group.

The group - we don't have a cool name like "The Inklings" yet - was Nicole's brainchild, and she was very clear from the get-go that she wanted a small, focused group of writers, working on longform projects, whose feedback would be beneficial to the other members.

Based on the outcome of our first meeting, it looks like her plan was a good one.

Greg and I are the odd men out, since the other three are all working on novels. I'm working on a new film script, and Greg... well, I shouldn't steal his thunder. He's got a non-novel, non-film thing.

I got really solid feedback on my outline, and I think - I hope! - that I was as helpful to the others. I'm looking forward to our next meeting, in late September. My work will next be up for review at the meeting after that, in October.

I think, having finished an entire screenplay - the new one that I haven't blogged about yet - and having realized just how hungry I am to write and better my writing, that my concerns about writer's groups have evaporated. The anxieties about my own productivity are fading away, and don't need to be projected any longer onto organizations that, after all, are only as good or bad as the people in them.

I seem to have gotten myself into a very good one. This bodes well.