Wednesday, 12 November 2008

The red pen.

Born to bear and read to all
The details of our ending.
To write it down for all the world to see.
But I forgot my pen,
This morning held a write-in. A ritual began and then abandoned as life took over. Chris and Joel and I invaded the diner with our colored pens and printed drafts and ordered breakfast and began to pass around our offerings, their research papers and my short stories. We edit each other's works, when time permits, and there are strict rules in place. We don't critique content, we only work with making sure the spelling, formats, syntax and tenses are watertight, editing-wise, and then the work must be accompanied by a full and complete breakfast (i.e. something hot, Bridget.), followed by at least half a dozen coffee refills.

It's been a long time since the last one but it was nice to be prepared with stories I have managed to put down and print off, surprising myself. Still writing. Still ticking, still going, still trying to create something worth creating.

They will call this my dark period, which is kind of funny, since the stories are not all that dark, just different. Maybe a little deeper. I don't know, really, that's for future critics to decide.

I ate hash browns and bacon until I was stuffed and drank coffee until I was floating on caffeine and I had to really fight both Chris and Joel not to go easy on my errors, not let things slide just to give me a break and I was hard on both of them, especially on Joel's tendency to use his Newfie colloquialisms.

I have a lot of work to do now before the next write-in, which will be moved to Fridays once a month to accommodate my new job, and so for the day, that's all I'm going to write here. See you tomorrow.