Writing Group

Not surprisingly, some of my friends are writers. There are two in particular that I like to talk with about writing. I've talked with each of them separately on several occasions and we always say we should start a writing group. So we finally did. I wasn't sure how it would go, or whether the three of us would gel. I write some fiction, but mostly non-fiction. One of my friends is a poet, and the other a screenwriter, so I was curious whether it would work, bringing us together even though our writing is so very different.

It was fantastic.

We each shared a little of our writing and found that there are certain similarities, but more importantly, things we could learn from each other that might help sharpen our own writing. For instance, the screenwriter writes emotionally and sees the movie running in his head the whole time. The poet writes emotionally, too, as well as visually. The way she places her words on paper is as deliberate as the words she chooses and the effect is powerful and symbolic; something I'd like to adapt to my own work.

They both professed to think that non-fiction writing is something harder than what they do. Neither thinks they could be as concise in their writing. Funny -- I struggle with stretching things out.

Anyway, our get-together was a great success. I can't wait until we meet up again to share more work. I just know they'll be instrumental in helping me with my latest writing experiment: a long (for me) literary short story about a pig auction. (Hence the picture above.) I wonder what they're working on?