We’re starting the Writing Clinic this week. Check it out below, and please send us your writing questions or problems. (Send to StuartandCharlotte@yahoo.com or click on “comment” below. You can use just your first name and a fake e-mail address if you want to. No need to fill in URL.)

I’m winding up my spring course at UCLA Extension, “Writing the Healing Story”, and during the workshop in class last week some amazing pieces were read. An essay about denial and a mother’s illness, another about a sighting of Cher in Malibu and how she’s inspired the writer who shares her ethnic diversity, a chapter of a memoir by a mother dealing with a child’s chronic illness on a daily basis, an introduction to a memoir about a mother’s decision to have quality of life rather than quantity, an essay about visiting a mother in a nursing home, (mother’s are obviously a big theme with writers), an essay about the meaning of clothes, a memoir chapter dealing with giving up a baby for adoption, and an essay about physical limitations, illness and coming to terms with life and death by a young rabbi in class. I love my students – their honesty and courage in writing about the deepest, most vulnerable parts of their lives, their tenacity in rewriting. And their kindness, honesty and generosity with one other.

I mention this because:
1. They’re anxious about their writing when they read – Was it good enough? Was it interesting, was it clear? Did it make sense? Would anybody care about it, want to read it? The response from the rest of the class was a unanimous Yes, keep going. And also: Maybe you could rewrite that part to make it more clear? Maybe you don’t need that paragraph. Could you go deeper with XYZ? Etc. But the main point was Yes. It’s good enough. More than good enough. And from the questions below in the Writing Clinic I know their anxiety is shared by just about everybody who wants to write.
2. I hope this might inspire you to find your own class or group to support your writing. It’s hard to get started writing without this kind of support and community of fellow writers.