I am blogging on top of my car, Tuesday night, after critique group.  It was, um, hard, at critique group.  I wish they would just throw roses at my feet and stuff twenty dollar bills in my pockets.  They don’t.  They have ideas.  Ugh, the nerve of those people, those, those, those, writers and their ideas.

But I don’t want to talk about that today.  I am standing in the parking lot of the Village Inn.  My lap top is resting on the roof of my Kia.  I’m writing this like Hemingway wrote, hardcore, yo, standing up.  Like a real man.

Soon, my friends Chris Devlin and Angie Hodapp will meet me, and we’ll spend long hours drinking horrific coffee, eating horrific food, and talking.  These post-critique writing sessions save me.  They really do.  I think every writer should have a group to hang out with that aren’t necessarily critique partners.  Just other writers.  To drink bad coffee with, to lament the life of a writer, published and unpublished, and just hang out.
This all started one night when I had lost it.  My book was coming out.   I was in sheer terror.  I needed some help.  And so we sat at the Village Inn and they talked me off the ledge.  And Angie said that everyone is in pain.  Everyone is afraid.

Look around.  What kind of fear does that man have?  What kind of pain does she have?  It’s pretty trippy, and it makes me feel better.  We all struggle.

But struggling together, that’s when it’s fun.  So thank you to my friends, to Village Inn, and to strugglers everywhere.  We are not alone.

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