what I learned in writing class

I decided this morning to drop my writing class, the one that just started this week. My goal in registering to take it was to get, both from my peers and its leader, the direction and help I need to ready my memoir for publication.

I bring to the first class a chapter of my manuscript to share, as requested on the syllabus. After a brief introduction around the circle of writers, I am assigned to spend an hour and a half with a small group of women; we are to listen to and critique each others' writing.

My group includes the woman who taught my son 9th grade English last year; she distributes copies of several poems. Another writer has two stanzas about her 14 year old brother washing her 4 year old mouth out with soap over 70 years ago. The last member of our quartet shares a short essay recalling her experiences with menstruation, contraception and hysterectomy. I read the chapter about seeing my New York relatives at a recent funeral. We each tell the other three precisely what we need in the way of feedback. I ask for constructive criticism: where do they get lost, what is confusing, what does not serve to forward the story? The response I get instead would be gratifying, had I not just had several hearty doses of it in my last writing class: rich narrative voice, nice imagery, realistic dialogue, wry humor, we want to read more!

It was just this sort of feedback last fall that inspired me to take a mastery class this term. Thanks to reactions like these, I now believe more strongly than before that I am writer, that I have a story readers are interested in, and that I must now knuckle down and do the work necessary to get it published. I am grateful for this, but I do not want to pay hundreds of dollars for more of it, not right now.

One of my trio of readers demands that I flesh out a minor Jewish reference in my story, explaining that she is from "the West Side" (a white, Catholic part of town) and therefore knows nothing about Jewish culture, faith or history. Another wants me to tell the reader in the first paragraph that I am entering the temple for a funeral, rather than allow them to wonder until the second page why I was there. I found myself strenuously resisting both these suggestions. I define all Jewish terms in my writing as a matter of course, but my purpose in writing is not to give readers a primer on Judaism. Judaism is a rich thread woven naturally into my writing simply because I am crafting stories from my life, and I am a Jew. Neither am I interested in crafting a introductory sentence for each chapter, as if I were preparing a series of fifth grade homework assignments. I sigh inwardly, and apply myself to giving each of the other writers valuable feedback until it is time to leave the kitchen, rejoin the wider circle and wrap up the class.

On my seat, awaiting my return, is a photocopied essay from the anthology on writing that has been assigned for class, but has not yet arrived in our mailboxes from Amazon. I giggle as I see it is by a friend of mine from college, Allegra Goodman, who has published several prize winning novels full of unabashedly Jewish characters. Or perhaps I just imagine her giggling as she wrote it; Allegra has a world class giggle. I wonder if this isn't a sign, a reminder that I have friends outside this town with whom I may have more in common than I do with the women in this room. And that just possibly, there are other, arguably better resources available to me a writer. Elsewhere.

Yesterday, after I finally got around to reading Allegra's essay, entitled "Calming the Inner Critic and Getting to work" I realized that it held in its title the very message I needed to receive. My fall semester writing class taught me that I can silence my inner critic, that I can believe in the value of my story, and that I do have the skills to tell it. Getting the job of writing done does not necessitate my sitting in a circle or around a table with other writers. What it does require is a commitment to sitting alone, in front of the blank page of paper, or blinking cursor on the computer screen, and moving it along. So, with breaks to blog, fire up the juicer, parent, paint murals, practice the violin and otherwise live, I will be sitting here, just getting it done. Getting to work.