pen to paper

The first semester of my Grad Diploma in Professional Writing is drawing to a close (big test this Wednesday for Intro to Editing will be the last of my assessment tasks). It's been an important semester for me:

- writing regularly for the first time in a long time
- gaining some sense of what I really want to write, and
- having a better understanding of how to go about the process of getting writing published.

The tute group for Freelance Writing had such a nice group dynamic that we have formed a writing group. The basic plan is to continue two positive things we did each week in class:

- one person read their own writing and the group offered a critique, and
- the whole class wrote from a prompt. Sometimes we read out the results, but not always.

Tonight we met at Tilley's for our first meeting. We talked about our own writing goals and what we wanted to get from the group. The rules may change as we go along. No-one read anything out, but we set that up for next time. The writing prompt was simply anything to do with being at Tilley's. I wrote in response to the music. It was just free writing, so here's a snippet that I lifted from all the waffle:

Notes individually plucked on a guitar sound warm and sensual and real. It's not a singalong, it's a serenade...delicate, like fingertips on skin.

People are talking at tables all around me. How many of them want something right now? Most? All? What do I most want right at this moment? Not to be here writing, but to be in the corner having a lazy conversation, while buttery notes move in circles and spirals in the air around us.