REJUVENATION

This past weekend I spent in Los Altos, San Mateo, and Gilroy (ignore the garlic smell).  On Saturday morning I attended Ellen Sussman's BASS (Best American Short Stories) class.  I am always amazed how writers read.  If a story moved us in some way, we pick every paragraph, then every word apart. We search for the verb, or adjective, that moved us the reader.  We study the structure and timing.  Did we want - or need to know - the protagonist had green eyes?  When did we, the reader, ‘know’ what was going to happen? What made us like the hero?

 

There were ten of us and it amazed me as each student read the same letters on the page and how much of our own lives we projected into the story.  Mind you these are Tom Perrotta's choices for "Best".  So there is something in each story that was done right.  As a writer/reader, we used microscopic eyes to examine how simple words became prose.  

 

In the afternoon I brought my work to the critique group I joined.  We are four women who wrote a novel in a year ... and realized what we really did was write a first draft in a year.  Now the real writing and critiquing begins.  

 

There are days that I want to toss every piece I've ever written.  Some days my critique group agrees I should.  Some days they point out a good sentence sharing the page with a lot of bad writing.  I have never felt criticized.  I always feel grateful.  

 

I return to the silence of my office where only the sound of my fingernails tapping the keyboard keeps me company.  I throw words on a blank page, shuffle them, hunt for the noun and verb, and then let them rest.  I will come back to them later and see if they sing and if that song might move another.

 

Then on my very brave and rare days, I let it fly to you the reader.  I hope you read with your heart and are moved in some way.