I attended a writers workshop yesterday...my first since deciding a year ago that I would be a writer. I met most of the other participants...there were seven of us...in the white gravel parking area outside the large old farmhouse. There were two housewives, a therapist, an IT specialist, a retired lawyer, an animal rights activist, and me. The leader/instructor had driven up from Charleston that morning and was in need of coffee.

Once we settled down and took our seats, we passed around our 3 pages of essay to be reviewed after lunch. I shook most of the day, partly from the chill of the room and partly out of anticipation. I have written nearly 80 essays for the book I'm writing and had yet to have them reviewed or critiqued. I nearly held my breath during the readings of the first four essays. Then it came to be my turn.

I had actually brought five small essays and the participants took turns reading them aloud. They laughed in the right places, which was good. They read with the right inflection. Also good. They hmm'd and nodded at the part where I reveal that I'm bipolar. And they sighed and sat back with nods when it was over. Yes. I got what I came for...affirmation. Yes, I'm that weak.

They did have suggestions to beef up a paragraph here and perhaps cut a sentence there. I will seriously consider their suggestions. But for the most part I needed to hear my work read by someone other than the voice in my own head. And I needed it to reflect the light of day. Writing about such a potentially dark subject is difficult enough without the tendency to draw too far inward. And of course, like all writers, I write in a vacuum. We need the audience to speak to.

So I have survived my first writer's workshop with all fingers and toes intact. I was exhausted after the ordeal and had difficulty sleeping but am ready now to do it again. This writing business can be addictive.