I am getting ready for tomorrow's meeting of the Na No Wri Mo writers' group that meets at Borders. We were supposed to write one thousand to five thousand words on a joke or a prank or some sort of related April Fooos' Day meeting. I have not written one. I am not a fan of April Fools Day, I have never been a fan of April Fools Day, and I expect never to be a fan of April Fools Day. So I had a heck of a time coming up with an idea a story related to this topic. What was I going to write about? A joke thing, a practical joke thing? I am hard pressed to come up with ideas for that type of story. All I could come up with was a bare bones that would end up with a punch line, or end up with some sort of joke line. But I have enough biases against short stories already, so slogging through a story just to end up with something that contains all of the biases that I already have would have soured me on the whole idea. Or at least that is my excuse, maybe I just could not come up with a story and it is relaly as simple as that. But that is why I am not interested in taking classes on creative writing, because I am not good at having to write things, but I am better at writing things I want to. To me, this makes a huge difference. One of the things I wanted to get out of a writing group was the discipline of writing, the commitment to writing and the commitment to a group. One of the things I am proud of with my participation is showing up at all of the meetings . . . after the first one, I must hasten to add . . . and that I have done most of the assignments. Not doing this one is not a critical chink in my participatory armor, I do not think.

I will make the commitment to do the next assignment, no matter what it is . . . and even to do a crit or two over the next month. I am going to sta committed, I am going to do my work, despite my dread of this particular assignment. I am going to miss the first part of the meeting because of a meeting at the office, but I will get there by 7:30 or so . . . 7:45? . . . we will see. I have emailed the group and told them that I will be there, but that I will be there late. I also mentioned that I did not do the assignment. I hope that I was sheepish enough for them to not be mad at me.

I have enjoyed the group so much this far, that I hope the group continues to move forward in the manner that it has. Maybe I will even like the next assignment. I have written more short stories in the next four months than I ever wrote before, and I know that that is a good thing. I am interested in working on the craft in this manner. But I am moving towards novels, those are the prize, and I do not want to take my eyes off of that. So if there is any way that I can tie one of these assignments to a novel somehow is intriguing, and I will certainly try to do that. It is a matter of keeping your eyes open and your mind clean, I just need to keep my priorities straight. So I look forward to the meeting, and of course to the food at Borders, too! It is always about the food . . . Saint Louis . . . Chicago . . . and now Borders . . . pretty good apple crisp and ice cream last time I was there. Mmmm . . . mmmm . . . good. So I hope that I can grab a bite while I am there. Of course I am there to fellowship and hang out and talk writing and do a little writing, too. Looking for fun.