The Everything Group, for the right brained.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      3 comments      link this post     


I've got to stop joining reading and writing groups. I'm never satisfied.

Perhaps it's just a glorified wish of wanting to be part of a group of people who enjoy art, music, writing, reading and film. The common denominator in the reading group and the writing group which I have been dissatisfied with is...me. I can tell you all the things I didn't like about each group, but really, I can only change myself and I was the one who was part of both groups.

I'll use the writing group as an example, since I've long since abandoned the reading group.

For me, writing isn't about grammar, publishers, and novels. Writing is like art, like music, like reading -- it is an essential part of being for me; they are all in connection with each other. They are symbiotic, they feed each other and, if I try to separate one from the other, they all suffer. I need to be able to write to draw to write. It is not necessarily a career, but a way of existing. The writers' group seems only focused on writing as a career, with the goal of being published.

That, of course, makes sense. What else would a writers' group be for?

And that's why I know I just can't go anymore.

I used to enjoy talking with a former member (who no longer attends) about interesting books or things he'd found, because it gave me ideas of things to both read and write about. I feel his absence markedly. A huge frustration for me in both groups, the writing group in particular, has been a distinct feeling of square peg in round hole. I notice it more, now, with the absence of this member.

The last writers' group meeting found me without any writing sample to hand out though I dare say I write enough on all of my blogs to fill several books. Instead, I offered a handout with some web links and a few ideas that people might find helpful only to have it barely glanced at (except by one person) and essentially shrugged off. It may not have been a stellar source of information, but to have to put up with 15 minutes of discussion prior to that, about getting a person in to teach grammar as our special speaker, and not get any similar interest (feigned or otherwise) back from what I had to offer...

And then I handed out one of the cartoons I'd drawn for a comic book I'm attempting to put together. It may have seemed odd to hand out "drawings" at a writing group, but in my mind...it's all connected. It's writing, to me. The cartoons have scripts that I work through. I did preface it by saying my sense of humor was odd and they probably wouldn't get it. I wasn't too concerned about all of that, nor am I terribly thin-skinned about "critique." (You don't go through five years of art school without learning how to handle the critique of your work.) I was attempting to show the writing I was working on, even if it contained drawings.

"These cartoons are kind of like a seriously pared-down, edited story," I explained. "I only have about four to six panels to get the story across, and my dialog is obviously limited." I handed out the drawing.

It was quickly passed around the table and literally tossed carelessly back at me by a member. My reaction to that was of annoyance. I was annoyed at the disrespect showed to another person's work, not that they weren't fawning about the cartoon (frankly, they're weird humor that few people will laugh at) but apparently the annoyance was misconstrued at not being able to handle critique.

"I can handle a critique just fine," I said, carefully putting the original drawing back in the folder case, further annoyed that it was suggested I couldn't take critique even though I'd been part of this group longer than all but one other person there. "This is an original drawing and I don't appreciate you throwing it about the table."

We moved on with the rest of the meeting, but at that moment I knew I was done with the group. I very much like the people, but I do not fit with them as an "official" group, a group with a purpose.

Frankly, I don't mind not fitting.

I want to be part of group that isn't so narrow. I want to be part of a group where, if someone writes something personal that makes them cry, it doesn't have to be awkwardly sandwiched between the discussion of getting a speaker to come and talk about grammar, and a critique on writing. I want to be able to talk about a book in broad terms without falling into pointless discussions on child daycare and side-tracked conversation more befitting a Ladies' Aid meeting. I want to be part of a group where we bring things we're doing -- reading, writing, drawing -- an Everything Group.

Come to my Everything Group, the imaginary poster might say, We encourage you to be and do. If you're doing it, creating it, we welcome it.

Do you like to write? Bring your writing! Have a book or film you are dying to talk about? Let's talk about it. Really into art? Great. Got a thing for music? Come on down. Want help with motivation for your art, writing, journaling, music, or reading? That's why we're here.

A Jack-of-all-Trades group. A Renaissance Man group. A Creative Thinker group. An Aimless Wanderer With Lots of Thoughts group. A Group Without A Traditional Means to an End group.

A group where it wasn't about grammar and systems and how-to, but encouragement and creativity and, essentially, right-brain focus. A group where people who write are encourage to let it pour out without ever feeling like they have to make it a career, where people who read can gush and recommend and talk about a book, where people who have found some great new music can tell the rest of the members, where people who have an artistic streak can let it out before they explode.

Something like that.

I don't know if I'd get anyone to show up.

We humans like orderly specifics, it seems, rather than such "vague without purpose" activity.

But it'd still be cool.

Labels: art life, writer's group, writing life

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger      3/09/2008 02:46:00 PM      (3) comments      Links to this post    

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