writing selves

It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done.  Well, not necessarily hardest, but one of the bravest, and scariest.  A whole roomful of people that I don’t know, but one at a time, one by one, I feel like I’m inside of their heads. 

And for a moment, they were inside mine.  A scary thought since I don’t know one of them outside of there. 

I took the easy way out and used old entries – public and private, but mostly private.  That’s what scared me.  I added bits in, not to the entries, but inbetween, as a means of explanation, mise en contexte.  Some said they found my writing compelling, as if it was written so fast that they were getting sucked in like a whirlwind and couldn’t stop reading.  Some said they were confusing [entries], some said they loved the confusion and some said to remove the explanations, that they detracted from it. 

Reading theirs was unbelievable.  There are some with the standard so low I can barely stand to read them, but last week’s standard was amazing.  K’s was the best – it drew me in immediately and I couldn’t put it down, I never wanted it to end.  Suddenly I felt like we could be the best of friends.  I’d always known we had that in common..

Even R’s, one of the same old boring topics, but she just did it so well.  It wasn’t like J’s, that was whiney and whingey and boring, but she was just so good at capturing pain.  Everything she felt came across so clear, and she just said things brilliantly.

I kind of don’t want this class to end.  I don’t want the workshopping to end.  I don’t want to just walk away in a few weeks, knowing that I still hardly know anyone’s name, that I don’t have any of their phone numbers and that I’ll never see them again.  Because suddenly it seems as though they really are all worth knowing.