Last week I taught my Courage & Craft class at the Writers Studio at UCLA Extension. This was part of four days of intensive workshops – ten courses in creative writing and screen/tv writing. Classes started at 10:00 in the morning and went to 6:00 in the evening. It was boot camp. Students began to look haunted and haggard by Saturday afternoon, not to mention the teachers. It was exhausting but also exhilarating. You have to drop out of your own life and simply focus on writing for four days.

My students arrived nervous, excited, scared – and by Sunday evening they had formed their own writing community (one of the best things I think that can happen in a workshop or on a retreat). And their stories! I’m still carrying them around in my head, in awe at how brave they became as writers, and how generous they were to each other. Here’s what one student emailed me afterward: “I remember when on the first day you told us that by the end of the weekend the group would know each other better than we know our own families. I chuckled and nodded, but inside I didn’t really believe that would be the case. I thought, after all, our families are the closest people in the world to us, surely your statement was just an exaggeration used to emphasize a point. But then it happened. I sat right there in amazement as each person brought out their heart and told me about it through their writing. Each unique voice was as different as the bodies they came from – bodies with different histories, and different mannerisms, and different beliefs – and what they said about their hearts, made me ask questions about my heart, and helped me find my voice.”

I love the way he wrote about this. And that yes, a good writing group becomes your family in a way that your real family can never be because (as the above student said) “our experience with families seems bound by details of complicated relationship agendas, but in a writing group we could escape these restrictive ties and support one another unconditionally..”

So two things about all this – find or create a writing group that nourishes and inspires you. This will not be your blood family (as I tell my students over and over) – don’t show your family your work until it’s published. It will make them nervous and anxious and they’ll either announce that they’re shocked and stunned that you’re spilling the beans, or how lovely that you have this new little hobby. Whatever they say will annoy you. Find other writers instead. And if anytime you’re in a writing group and feel put down, leave. Find positive and generous writers. Find your own tribe – it’s about putting all those spilled beans into an essay or memoir or novel. It’s about supporting each other in this glorious world of words and writing and books.

And PS!: There’s one space available for the Lake Arrowhead Writing Retreat March 17 – 19th. Email me if you’re interested: babsabercrombie@icloud.com

And a workshop at Vromans Bookstore in Pasadena this Saturday 2/22/17 (9:00 to noon) Your own tribe will there.