Jefferson City Writer's Group

While I am sitting here waiting for the Superbowl to get back on track and watch the Raven womp all over the 49ers I decided to write a little blog on my encounter with the wonderful people at the Jefferson City Writer's group. When I lived in Missouri I didn't do much writing and I was starting to feel like something was missing in my life so I went searching on the library's website and found that there was group who met once a month and did writing. I decided to take a chance and go. I was nervous at first because I did not know anyone and I wasn't sure what to expect. Little did I know at the time that I would end making some wonderful friends who would be with me for the rest of my life.

I pulled up to the library parking lot on that Wednesday night, notebook and pen in hand and a little bit of nervousness too. I took the stairs up to the gallery where they were holding the meeting and met the person who was running the group, Adam. He introduced himself and I told him who I was and that I was interested in joining the group and he said welcome. So I sat at the table and put down my notebook and pen and waited for the rest of the group to appear. The first night I went there weren't alot of people there because sometimes there is a big group and other times it might just be one or two people. It just depended on what was going on that particular month. At seven o'clock more people came in and sat down and then we went around the table and introduced ourselves and told what we like to write and how far we were in the journey of writing. I was a little intimidated at first with how far many of these people were and I wondered if I was in the right group but they never made me feel inadequate and encouraged my writing.

That first night we did a quick writing prompt and we picked a picture that was on the wall and wrote about what we saw. I wrote about a yucca plant since it reminded me of New Mexico. Everyone was very encouraging with what I had written and I felt wonderful. I was like wow I am in the right place and there are people who want to encourage me to write and not tell me that I have nothing but a pipe dream of writing the next Great American novel. I was felt alive again and hopeful and I had found an outlet for my feelings and frustrations and I felt like I belonged.

That was almost four years ago and somewhere I think I might still have that writing prompt. And so started my journey back into writing and doing what I love and expressing my feelings on what I wanted with no fears of being ridiculed or looked down on.

Through the group I was able to write down what I wanted and got some good ideas from some of the writing prompts and a couple of times I was told expand the prompt into a story. Still haven't done that yet but maybe one day I will go back and turn them into a story of some sort.  

When I left for Texas with my family and left my wonderful group I still kept in touch with them and even did a writing prompt or two via email but it wasn't the same. I missed the interaction and the friends I had made and when one of my fellow writers was about to be published I was so happy for him and I could now say I know a published author. I was sad to go and missed them a lot and then when I went back a year later to be in Missouri once again do to family issues they welcomed me back like an old friend who they had missed greatly and encouraged me to keep going with my work. And they were sad to see me go once again when I made the decision to come back to Texas, which I still wonder why. But through it all I have made some wonderful friends and two of them are near and dear to my heart because I can tell them anything and they won't put me down and make me feel stupid or small. Thanks guys. Also just this past year another one of my fellow writer's got published and I hurried to buy his book so that I had it to keep in my collection. It is nice to be able to say you know a published author and how much you aspire to be the same.

During National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWri) I had my group behind me to finish my novel but I fell short and they encouraged me to finish anyway and I did finally on December 31st. Thanks to the pushes and shoves (figuratively) and the drive to get it accomplished. I just now need to revise it and see if it's worth trying to get published. 

Thanks guys for standing behind me. I appreciate it and will never forget.