Like Riding a Bike (in the snow)

Last week was the first time in what felt like forever that we managed to have a meeting of our critique group. It also marked the first meeting since the shifting of the group’s attention to someone else’s work, which led to some embarrassment when Kent started setting up to take notes rather than give feedback.

But it wasn’t difficult at all to get into the proper mode, and it felt damn good to flex some muscles that hadn’t seen a lot of use in the past year or so. Unless you count the fact that Kent and Jen give each other feedback almost daily… but that’s not really the same thing.

On the way to the car, we were chatting with our fellow author whose latest revisions are now the group’s focus. We talked about process a bit, bringing him up to speed on our status (still brainstorming, but we have about one-third of a preliminary outline now!). The conversation inevitably slid into mutual admiration. He shook his head in bewilderment about how we coordinate everything, while we stood in awe that he does it all by himself.

This week, we generated some (probably apocryphal) prose. It was the first new fiction either of us had written in quite some time, and just like with the crit session it felt fantastic to return to something that we hadn’t done in a while.

The outside temp might be eleventy-below, but with all this newness and fresh starts it’s feeling a little like spring in the Writing Cave.