Honkey Dorey here

My class is going wonderfully. All my writing is going into that. The writer who is instructing us thinks I can submit some of my work. First is to try a re-write of the "Latest Batch of New Americans" (expanded quite a lot actually) that originally appeared here to the local newspaper for an editorial. I will be very busy getting this polished up after my class ends, so that's good, my first little project.

My critique went very well. I had to read a small bit, and I started crying. It's funny, cause I usually don't cry when I hit that spot in that particular essay, but saying that I miss my daughter out-loud in front of 10 people was kind of hard.

The comments were all really helpful and I have lots of ideas to improve my writing. They thought the Natural Disasters one was a poem and loved the piece Don't pick that scab. These were all "improved" after being here on my blog and they certainly need more refinement for a wider audience. The best thing is that everyone in the class was really great about it.

One thing hat stuck in my mind was that several of the people described my work as expressing pain, that they could tell the author was in pain. (We say "the author" so that nothing sounds accusatory, or hurtful to the one receiving the critique. It's very nice). I had never thought of it like that.

Anyway, maybe I can make it! Triple S has taken to referring to me as a bohemian and advocates that I spend time at coffee shops. He's funny. I'd rather not spend our money at coffee shops.