Tuesday, September 21, 2010

One of the things I like most about attending my weekly writer’s critique group is being exposed to the many differing stylizations of writing each person invokes. Some are poetic. Others literary. Some love action-filled dramas. Others lace their work with sweet remembrances of years gone by. And some cleverly stash humorous lines that lay dormant until read, causing the reader to burst out laughing.

Whatever writing style or genre each adopts, all possess the same quality. The writing is born out of deep-rooted passions that erupt from somewhere so far within the authors that it even surprises them—at times.

Over the years, we have had many come and go from our group. Some are drawn by the hopes to make big bucks through writing. Those are the ones we gently try to enlighten, telling them that if their drive to generate scribed words originates from wanting to make money, then they’re probably not cut out to be writers.

When they question if we know what we’re talking about, those of us present share how writing is an undeniable passion for each of us. Some might call it an obsession. But all would agree that we have to write. That if we don’t, the words, bottled up inside us like carbonation bubbles in a shaken bottle of pop, will find their way out—one way or another.

We, as writers prefer to control that release by feeding our writer’s cravings through taking pen to paper or fingers to keyboard on a daily basis. After we’ve purged our thoughts, dreams, fantasies and fabrications on paper, we bring them to our weekly critique meeting to share with one another. And that is where the fun lies, in being able to hear the reactions of others to what we’ve created. To watch the faces of the ones who read to see how passionate they are about their written words. And the stories that are shared…nothing shy of vastly differing and magnificent in the imaginative process that went into generating them.