Last night I attended a writers group (courtesy of meetup.com - someone’s going to start thinking I’m a paid sponsor for them …).  It was a small group of perhaps a dozen people, and three had been selected to read pieces of writing they had prepared.

It was a good group of people, and I think they all appreciated the feedback they received.  What was challenging for me was not the listening or the feedback, but the variety of pieces.  The first piece was a “chick-lit” erotic romance piece; enjoyable, but not quite my cup of tea.  The second piece was a historically-based screenplay.  I *should* be interested in this sort of thing, but screenplays are not meant to be read by one person, and I found it difficult to follow.

The third piece was the prologue to a fantasy novel.  Nothing against fantasy, but it’s a genre that does nothing for me.  I was one of the few who only made it about five pages into “The Hobbit” before giving up completely.

The organizer of the group asked me to bring a piece of poetry to the next meeting (first-timers *never* read at the first meeting they attend, and I completely agree with this), and I’m really debating what to bring.  A lot of my private (non-blogged) creative writing of late has been poetry, but it’s an entirely different ordeal to expose that writing to other people.

Vulnerability.  You make yourself vulnerable in a group like this, and you have to trust the people around you.

It’s a good thing, though, and I’m looking forward to opening up to this group and sharing some of my own scribblings.