Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Sometimes You Just Take Notes
I belong to a writing workshop that has a Monday morning Zoom check-in. It is a small group of about a dozen writers, most of them fiction writers, many of them published, and a couple of them famous. I have brief bouts of feeling inadequate in their presence and then remember that, sometimes, the function of being in a group is to take notes.
Last Monday, the opening topic was what we were all reading. This is always appropriate for a group of writers since the first piece of advice given to every aspiring writer is to read. One person after another rattled off the two or three books they had going, remembering perfectly the title and author of each. I got up from my desk and scurried to my bedroom to find my Kindle and see what the heck was the name of the book I was reading about women in the Resistance who’d fled a forced march from one Nazi prison camp to another at the very end of WWII. It is called The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany, written by Gwen Strauss.
I was glad to have something substantive to offer – I did, after all, spend most of 2021 reading all of the Outlander books, yes, all nine of them, huge thick, heavy books that I’d prop up on pillows while being buried under my old white down comforter and my sometimes crushing anxiety about Covid and my age and whether the latest thing my beloved dog ate would finally kill him. I consider it a sign of improved mental health that I’ve left the world of Jamie and Claire although the books stay on my bookshelf like the oversized box of Bandaids in my cupboard. I am prepared for relapse.
I said almost nothing at the last check-in after I reported on what I was reading. Instead, I listened to what others said. This is new for me and a good thing. I have for a long time, my whole adult life, positioned myself to be/sound/act wise and informed. I like being the authority, the person people look to to sort things out, but in this writers group, I am an outlier, writing in a way and on topics that are far from fiction and not destined for publication, except here, this sweet, safe place that is my blog.
My father used to say, I don’t know why, “you don’t have to say everything you know.” These days, with these writers, I often don’t know anything, so I am free from the struggle of having to restrain myself, hold back on my wisdom, cut short my critical analysis. Instead, I take notes. So many notes. It is oddly freeing.
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Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash
Originally published in 2022
11 Comments on “Sometimes You Just Take Notes”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
As the oldest child in a horror of a family I always felt the need to know how and what to do at any moment. Starting this blog was a wonderful cure to that. I have continually had to ask for help from other writers. Thankfully I have received it. Of course it helps me remember why I learned not to ask for help! You have encouraged me to think about joining a writers’ group. Think about, mind you, not dive right in.
Yeah. It took me a long time to join a writers’ group. I just could never see the point. But then I just did it and it’s become a really valuable part of my life. But I was also lucky to be part of a really supportive, yet helpful, group. Very gentle, but quite wise folks.
Thank You, Jan – for your comments on the Monday morning writer’s group. Other folks often evoke my inadequacies… and you are one of those! I, too, was once seen as an “authority.” Interesting and life-giving to be a novice in another world – so to speak. You are an excellent writer. Provocative and evocative.
Nancy – I was so hoping that you’d be on today’s call. I want to read more of your work. I remember the first piece I heard you read – it was sort of a postcard format, and it blew me away. I hope you are in the Tuesday group again.
Writing is like no other job or hobby that I’ve ever done. But if I don’t write, I struggle.
Same here.
Your blog post reminded me of the novel. Where the heck did the start of that sentence go?
Jan, I take note when I read your blog. It’s all relative, isn’t it? Anyway, Neville Shute’s “ A Town Like Alice”. It is much more than a story about women being forced on a march during WWII. I know because, ahem, I watched the mini series. Anyway, Neville Shute also wrote “On the Beach”, which was turned into a movie with Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner in the lead roles. I think you might like “A Town Like Alice”. Now that I’ve remembered this, perhaps I will try to read some of his novels. Maybe, if I remember.
I just wrote down your recommendation. Thank you!
You’re welcome.
Everything you write is interesting, Jan.