Well it's done. I've signed up for my first writer's retreat. I guess I've begun to own the word: writer!
It will be during the middle of my summer vacation, during my one kidless period, a month after returning for a once-in-a-lifetime trip with my kids and a month before Frank starts High School and Lenora enters her Senior year. Seemed like the prime time to commit to practicing this craft with a master teacher.
It will, by then, be 8 months that I've been blogging. It will be my 46th summer of scribbling down my thoughts. It will be my 4th year of thinking, seriously, about how to frame various segments of my life and what might allow them to be of use to my children, students and readers down the line.
It will be the first time I'm exposing my writing to a teacher and fellow students since college, almost 30 years ago and I find that this time round, I'm seeing the constructive criticism process for what it is, a gift. Being a teacher, mentor, and agent most of these 3 decades, I now find myself eager to learn and listen to what others will have to say. In college I was cowed by my peers and put off by my teachers. They were all encouraging, yet there seemed to be an element of snark, before there was the word to describe that sentiment.
The analogy of bringing a book to life being like a pregnancy is much over used. However, I feel like I'm in the seed stages (pun intended) of coming to grips with plowing my own history, planting a nourishing crop and figuring out the best environment to harvest it. Should I dig deep and dark? Should I alternate between new plantings and established roots? Should I focus on one crop and not try to show the full diversity of my acreage? What do I want to grow, nurture, graft, prune, fertilize, propagate and ultimately pick as my unique story to bring to the reader's shelf?
I know that great memoirs answer a question and in so doing give insight into the author, while also connecting on a universal level. I've been told at many ages and stages that my choices and stories resonate with people from all walks of life and across many barriers. Now I have to focus on how to zoom in on an essential story that shows something emblematic and essential to who I am, while also being of use to others. That is the key.....what question has brought about a unique and universal answer? That's all!
So, I've set a marathon of a task for myself (had to allude to last nights post in here somewhere)! Good thing where I going to write has a huge lake to swim in and mountain trails to run! It has a big campus and I'm staying in the smallest cabin ~ a single cabin, for this single writer, to develop a singular idea and commit it to words.
So Good Night, retreaters and writers, G'night!
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