Progress: It’s a Process

Who knows where the side path will take us?

It’s hard to tell if you’ve made progress until you’re a little way down the road and happen to look over your shoulder. Life as a whole is like that, and the side paths we take also. Sometimes, you want the side path to bend back toward the main road so you can travel both. But it can take a while, and sometimes you just don’t know when the merge will come, if at all. Maybe I will get into this idea more when I write for my other blog, but for now I will apply it to my writing journey.

I finished my two semesters plus a summer session in 2008, about 10 months after I started back to school. But, now that I was the proud holder of a “Writing Certificate,” I was at a loss for what to do next. Of course, I had to continue my medical transcribing, which I had been doing all through school anyway. Burned out on it after 16 years, I plodded along, and every day wished I could find a way to write and make money at it. I wanted to do something I love and contribute to our household, to paying for the kids’ college, to those unexpected expenses we all face at one time or another, because it’s always something, isn’t it?

Along with other publications, an important tool of the trade.

I began to try to understand the business of writing (still working on it). I read a zillion books, which I’ve mentioned before, and I did learn so much that writing classes didn’t cover. Now, this is important:  I took out a subscription to Writers Digest magazine. Every year, the magazine publishes 101 Top Websites for Writers. Here I found The Internet Writing Workshop, an online critique website, which hosts different groups such as Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Novels, etc. I joined the Nonfiction group and the Practice group, which provides a prompt every week for practice and critique.

I had never been in a real critique group before, and I was not prepared. These were real writers, it seemed, not just aspiring writers like me. The Practice group was okay, because it was…practice. I critiqued pieces and had pieces critiqued in return. Oy! Let me tell you, if you don’t already know — there is an art to critiquing. There are rules, both written and unwritten. If you do join an online critique group at some point, my advice is to lurk a while, until you get a sense of things. I wish I would have taken a longer time for assessment before diving in.

All in all, the Practice group was good for me. I admit I unknowingly broke some of those unwritten critiquing rules, but (…sigh) hard as it is, there are no shortcuts on the learning curve. After a while though, I had the hang of it. I got good feedback on my work and enjoyed reading and critiquing the work of others — so many creative writers. Amazing, really. And I learned to be short and sweet. Pieces had to be 400 words or less, if I remember correctly. It was a job to write and then edit down to 400 words. When I’m not writing facts, it’s too easy for me to go on and on and get wrapped up. So, short and sweet was good for me.

As for the Nonfiction group, I knew immediately that I was way out of my league. Here were not just “writers” but authors, established magazine freelancers, experienced bloggers. Blogs were not even on my radar then, never mind writing a book. I wanted to freelance for magazines, but it seemed an unattainable goal. Oh my gosh. What I had gotten myself into?

Here, I will pause on this path and save the rest for next time. Maybe tomorrow, since it is already half-written. I hope you will come back to find out what happened next. It was wonderful and unexpected…

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