HWG HISTORY - June 6, 2004 Meeting

The June 6, 2004 meeting was memorable for two reasons. First, I received an email from Frances, Ed Wildman’s partner, who said that Ed wasn’t feeling well and would be unable to attend our meeting.

I emailed her back and asked if I should pray for Ed. She didn’t think it was serious.

(The first three members of the Headwaters Writers’ Guild had attended Ed’s writing workshops in Honeywood. We didn’t have a name in the beginning but that’s another story.)

On Broadway on the way into the library, I passed by a woman with two children and wondered if she might be our new member. Down in the basement of the Orangeville Library, the woman introduced herself, as Pat Gallant.

We started with Goldberg’s recommended prompt, what I don’t remember is. And the second prompt was what I remember is. (We used to use this prompt for all new members.)

What I remembered the most about Pat is that she went for the jugular just as Natalie Goldberg suggested in her book, Writing Down the Bones. (Our meetings follow Natalie Goldberg’s workshop that Ed Wildman attended.) She didn’t hold back and she went where her pen took her and she read her writing.

I’ve never figured out why this prompt leads people to write dramatic incidents of their life. Maybe it’s our soul prompting us to remember the stories of our lives that we’ve forgotten.

New members often ask if they can pass and not read their raw writing. Often they say, “It’s too emotional.”

Pat mentioned that she’d completed her first novel. She also told us that she was encouraged to continue writing as her poem had been published in the Toronto Star when she was a young writer. Now we had three members with completed novels and a published writer.

Writing is a lonely life and I believe it helps to ease the loneliness when you spend time with other writers. From the first meeting that Pat attended, it felt like she'd always been a member and a friend.

Now, we had seven members. But it wouldn’t be long before the membership changed.