Writing Goals?

Checking In! :)

Hey there!

This has been—and will be, still, up ahead—a week of saying goodbye, saying hello, saying don’t go and gotta go, saying see you later, saying you know where I am, saying anytime…saying, See you in the fall! And then, I’ll be there in a few days, for a few days.

Are you doing it, too, as summer days melt and the nights are so beautiful, wherever you are?

We’ve wrapped up a craft seminar (online, Sunday) and a workshop (in person, Monday evenings). I hope neither of those endings are actually goodbyes, only see-you-later-enjoy-the-summer-keep-going-sending-love moments.

Last night, it was beautiful to sit outside in a perfect backyard, in weather that wasn’t cold or hot, talking about writing, being together, six of us, checking in and sharing work.

Thank you, Peter, for hosting, and thank you to all who were there!

Thank you, writers of workshop, for putting your trust in my insights and spending the past weeks working together. I am honored. I hope you’ll keep going, keep writing. I look forward to your pages and your books.

As George Saunders wrote recently, “…how we tell and receive stories is central to how we think, which, in turn, determines how well (how lovingly, how fully) we live”. I feel that so deeply.

In a day or so I’ll be heading to Michigan, to a town I haven’t seen in twenty years and then not for another twenty before that. I’m going to see people I look forward to catching up with, Michigan friends, old high school days. The Midwest is a tricky place, and interesting space, the heart of the heart of the country.

It’s a place where I once lived surrounded by incredible natural beauty, as the suburbs rolled in. I grew up wading into swamps and roaming through unfinished basements, looking into creek water and swamp water, never feeling dressed enough, never feeling quite…enough…to get through five days of school a week, forever, but doing okay overall. People make a sense of home, in a place, and a place shapes the people.

There’s one thing I know we’ll all be bringing to this 40th reunion: our stories. Our lives have shifted, over decades, of course.

I’m here for it—dear friends, people I love, and the stories they tell, as fact or subjective fact, or outright fiction, in meaning and metaphor, I’m here.

I was lucky to see Tom Spanbauer recently, author and teacher, workshop leader, dear friend. Beautiful times!

People matter. Ideas matter. Hearts matter.

When I come back from my trip to the so-called heartland, I have two writing plans: finish an essay, draft a novel. Both are started, both will wait for me. I’ll keep them in mind as I travel away and back, as I keep so many of you in mind while I write.

Cheers,

M