The Eagle Has Landed / What Color Does The Meter Read?

SECTION ONE: THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

Ok, it's done. The proposal we, a collective group of cyberspace dbm's have worked on for two weeks has been delivered to Lisa, the contact person, the totally awesome childbirth nurse who, even as she quickly flipped through it, had tears in her eyes!


If you have NO IDEA what I am babbling on about in partial-code, click here and it will all make sense!


So, tonight would be a great night for me to kick back, relax - maybe with a glass of wine and just "be", right?

Um...no. On to my next adventure, for I seem NOT to be able to do NOTHING lately. S..l.o..w is just not on my current radar and I think it is because EVERYTHING I am doing is so self-motivated, so exciting, so turning a new page in my greiving proccess. Like my internal grieving is seeping through to the outside world and they (now get this...) ACTUALLY WANT TO HEAR IT!


Tonight I am going to my first local writer's group meeting and .....(internal silent scream)...reading a 5 page excerpt aloud to real live people and will get their ....(louder scream)....real life reactions. I AM SO EXCITED. Finally Emma's story, however brief, will be heard by other writers. I am a fairly flexible person in my post-loss re-design, but I have not had others critique my writing for a loooooong time.


So, this is a test run to check the boyancy of my "constructive critism sensitivity meter" after all these years. Next comes the Barren Bitches Book Brigade which I am so honored to join! Then, the big leagues and (shhh...don't say this too loud or it might tempt the writing gods...) an ed.it.or who will, without a doubt, have much constructive and not so tapered criticism!


I'm writing this post in sections on purpsose. See you after the meeting!


SECTION TWO: WHAT COLOR DOES THE METER READ?

I'm back! (but this is the next day) The meeting was AMAZING for so many reasons. The stars all alligned themselves to make it "my" night!

Let's see if I can clear this up. The whole point of this gathering was that the "local writers" from last summer's group was re-connecting with this amazing woman who visits twice a year from Florida. She is the mother of a local Inn owner, a lifetime writer, an English teacher and she gets paid to write other people's life stories and get them pubishlished! So, as excited as I was about getting together with my fellow yocals...I was over the moon about the feedback I would receive from this woman!

Meeting begins at 7pm.
I am there at 6:57 (I'm always a few minutes early)
I am the first one there (of course)
7:30 - M. and and are I have having a really personal "get to know each other chat"
No one else has showed up
8:00 - We are really connecting on so many levels : as people, as writers - still no one else comes.

The point? We realized that we were supposed to have this private session. I was the "guest", invited at the last minute and none of the regulars showed up, because they weren't supposed to. Our ease at accepting this as fact was overwhelming. We opened our exerpts and dug in.

I had brought two pieces...better to be over prepared, right? And she reviewed BOTH. Really honest, heartfelt feedback (and not so much criticism - yeah!), mostly she corrected my grammar. (misplaced commas, chopping extra long sentences..etc)

I was blessed with three hours of this woman's well saught after time. It flew by. If I had any remaining doubt that this is what I am supposed to be doing with my life right now, the evaporated last night.

BBBB - see you on the 15th. Can't wait.