Ah…here we are again. The first week of August at the annual Cape Cod Writers Center Conference. I always call this week summer camp for adults. It’s a week to mingle and chat and learn and, this year, work in the bookstore. I love working in the bookstore. I get to reconnect with people I haven’t seen since “camp” last year and I learned to use a credit card machine.
I’m taking two classes; e-publishing, so I can get my books up on Amazon, and of course, writing for children. Adam Gamble, author of Goodnight Cape Cod and a whole slew of goodnight places books, is my teacher for the children’s writing class. I loved our first class. He took time to tell us the road he traveled to get to where he is today. I liked that. I always sit and wonder, as I sit in awe, of a successful author, “How did they get here?” He spent a lot of time talking about that spiritual spot where all authentic writing comes from. Writing from the heart is important to me so I resonated with a lot of what he said, especially the parts about writing everyday, finding the best time of day that you write best, and setting deadlines and getting used to meeting them.
He ended class by telling us to bring paper tomorrow and come prepared for a writing exercise. Awww…here it comes. Creeping in. That fear of a successful author looking at my work and thinking I’m ridiculous for even trying this. That fear of reading raw work in front of some of my most successful peers, etc. I wasn’t excited. Now I’d be nervous to come tomorrow. (I’ve been here many times before – some turned out well, other times not so well.)
Then Adam said something no other teacher said before. He said he wasn’t ever going to read it, nor were we going to read it to each other. We’d be free to write and change and rearrange things and see it from different viewpoints. Another words, we could write without fear in our own little box and really examine what we could do. Knowing we don’t have to share the piece makes me excited and open to learning instead of trying to craft something to please the teacher and the crowd. I think it’s going to be fun. Let “writing camp”, as my students would call it, begin.
And so, as another day goes by, check out Adam’s books and say goodnight to some of your favorite places, and…I have written.
Leave a Reply