mkf joins a writing group

there are all sorts of reasons i've avoided doing this, not the least of which is fear of finding myself in the midst of yet one more group of civilians who will never in a million years get me--and, of course, that's exactly what's happened.

i mean, they seem really nice--mostly grandmas, single women and soccer moms, with a couple guys thrown in--they've all been writing for years, and their bio's read like a cross-section of america.  happy, shiny people all, putting their best face forward to the group.

i put it off as long as i could, but just now submitted the following:


I've given thought for the better part of a week to how i should introduce myself to my new writing group--I mean, seeing as it's my first go at this, do I go the safe route and try to ingratiate myself to all these new people who seem so nice, or do I tell the truth?  So I mixed a cocktail, because booze always seems to show me the way.

See, when I think of myself as a writer at all, I tend to think of myself as a writer in the grand tradition of Hemingway and Fitzgerald--not the talent part, of course; just the drunk part.

I never wrote growing up--not outside of school, anyway.  Nor, for that matter, did I drink much.  I only discovered these things later in life, and they came together four years ago in the form of a blog.  What started out as political ranting morphed into something else one night when a random song from my past came up on iTunes and triggered a memory at just the point when the vodka had overcome the voice of the inner critic that had always told me i couldn't, and I wrote the story.

It wasn't a great story, but it was something.  They got better over the years, or at least I like to think so.  Problem is, I dunno if the world agrees--and, for the longest time, I think I've been trying to avoid the answer to that question.

It's fairly easy for the author of an unsuccessful blog such as mine to rationalize the fact of his failure--lack of exposure, clueless clickers, Twitter-dulled attention spans--but far more difficult to escape the scrutiny and judgment of a small group of writers who are also, presumably, true readers.  Am I toiling away in obscurity because I'm merely undiscovered, fellow group members, or is it because I suck?

(It's also fairly easy to write whatever and whenever the drunken spirit moves me, but a different thing entirely to do it on demand, as I'm finding out with our first assignment.)

Thank you, Gotham Writers' Workshop (oh, and Amazon, and your too-convenient "Buy With One Click" feature), for this opportunity to maybe answer these questions--or screw you; I guess we'll see.


they're gonna love me, right?