Illumination

Last night my baby, a little bit of the book i've been working on forever, was read for the first time by other people. I've been secretive about this for years. I am not an artist who shares work well when it's not ready for public consumption.

I have been working on this for 5 years now, alone.

I am so grateful for this opportunity that came into my life. Richard's class is an unexpected gift. Granted, I had seen it two years ago and planted it in my mind, and I hoped someday I'd get in and make it down here, but I didn't think it would happen like this. I didn't know I'd be living here. I didn't know what a rare thing this class is.

Everyone in it is really, really good. Everyone.

My mentor, Richard Bausch, reads the work slated for that week aloud. Other people are then supposed to comment, and the author is supposed to stay silent. Well- if you know me, you know how that went. I didn't stay silent. Unfortunately my classmates didn't get a word in edgewise, but I have some of their comments on my manuscripts, and they are incredibly helpful. Richard was fierce with me, telling me that I am a good writer, that my work is clean and my sentences razor-sharp. That it was beautiful. I needed his fierceness. I am inclined to dramatics and I had a lot of opinions about my own work. That's how my brain works - I need to critique and fix, critique and fix. I am not wired to be passive in this. One of my classmates blew my mind last night. He's an entertainment lawyer who commutes over an hour AFTER WORK to get to this class. He then stays with a good grace until the class is over (sometimes it carries on until 10:30 pm), and THEN... he goes home to write. That's his time to write. holy Shit. sometimes until 2 am. with a new baby, with a high stress job, he gets his words in. I was complaining about being tired. I have so much to learn. And there is so much more to be done here. And I am finding people who inspire me to work harder.

The great things: My mentor reads things in a way that makes them all sound super cool; it's like Clint Eastwood delivering the most killer, gritty pieces of genius. so it makes us all sound really good.

second - I learned a lot. i learned that I am, in fact, a writer.

I learned that I know nothing about getting my fantastic plot across. That my intense love for words, and my incessant reading, serve me - it wasn't pointless or a waste of time, after all, to devour every book I came across...

but I have no idea how to give it to the reader. Everything I've been told or read about how to do this is incorrect.

Apparently we have to clue them in on *everything* -- it's the opposite of a film, really - we have to let them know. no hiding.

What the reader doesn't know is not a powerful thing.

Back to Alfred Hitchcock now --- we have to show them the snake under the bed, or they aren't going to be nervous when our hero is getting ready to go to sleep. .

Third: It didn't hurt as I had thought it would. I didn't die or cry or feel anything but interested. It was so CLEAR to me what needed work. and hearing from others what they needed has removed the blinders from my eyes. we cannot work in the dark.

We need peers we trust, who can tell us what they see and what they need in order to understand. I am thinking again of an MFA program. I had thought it wouldn't be a good idea; I thought that I would learn by trial and error and by reading books -- but there's a GAP here between what I love to read and what I am writing --- and I think an MFA program with someone I trust like Richard would help me bridge that gap much faster than I am doing on my own. bottom line: if you are a creative, find teachers you trust. not just any teacher, because we take on a flavor of them and that can be a departure from our own style that takes years to correct (I am talking about acting here, not writing, as acting is the bulk of my experience.) and find other writers. I was SUCH a sceptic about this ... and since the incredible blessing of Richard's class came my way, I am seeing how valuable this is. Whatever you do - whatever form your creative expression takes -- we need the seers now more than ever. Keep going - keep believing, even if all you have to sustain you right now is your own belief in your talent, and your own drive to speak.

Richard Bausch reading to us from his newly published work, Living in the Weather of the World