Barbara J. Hamby

A Shot in the Arm

My writing critique group is down to four people and fairly often only two of us show up. But we still help each other out as much as we can. This week the critique partner really encouraged me to get cracking on my memoir stories with her interest in the stories as well as the writing. She commented that, every time she asked a question, I brought up some interesting details not already included. She thought they should be, and told me so. If she, who is not related to me, finds some value there, then I’m inspired to stop procrastinating and get back to work.

I spent several hours at the computer yesterday moving paragraphs around to weave stories together. As tedious as such work is, without computer word processing software, it would be infinitely more difficult. I’m grateful to have the ability and the tools to get the job done.

Today I gave it a rest while I went to a meeting, had lunch with some friends, and ran some errands. Tomorrow I’ll get back at it. There are more stories to be written, as well as more to be integrated into a chronology of sorts. But I have new energy to apply to the tasks that have been dragging along for a couple of years now.

I’ve run across more poems that I may tuck in here and there among the stories, while I’ve been attempting to clean up my workspace. That should be fun also.