laramie

At today's MFW meeting I gave a presentation on my journey to publication. My very long journey - starting with childhood daydreams before I ever learned to read, continuing on to my discovery of sf fandom and other people interested in writing, when I joined Will Shetterly, Emma Bull and Pamela Dean, among others, to start our Writers' Bloc critique group. But I dropped out of that group in the summer of 1980 to hitchhike around the country in search of sufi masters and to attend sf conventions along the way.

From my first sale of a short story that placed in the 1986 City Pages Fiction Contest, to my disappointment when the agent who liked my third-written, first-presentable romance novel failed to sell it, to my twenty-year hiatus, to the 2006 NaNoWriMo that got me writing again, on through the stages of revisions, critique-group feedback, submissions to agents and editors, false hopes and contract offers.

I talked about my inspirations, and the help I received from my critique partners - especially Nancy, whose knowledge of the market led me to several key opportunities. After the meeting, I went out to lunch with a group of seven other club members and our guest speaker, David Uniowsky, (who once owned the Hungry Mind bookstore) and spoke to us about independent bookstores then and now.

Over lunch, fellow writer Barb Longley asked me the question that few people ever have: i.e.: did I ever find the sufi masters I went in search of after dropping out of Writers' Bloc?

This simple answer is yes: In Boulder, Colorado I met sufi writer, Reshad Field and attended the dhikr he was conducting a few blocks from the home (at that time) of Jon Singer where my traveling pal, Marty and I were crashing during our visit.

I only attended the dhikr a couple times and really, what I've learned is that the answers I was looking for were not the kind found by searching for teachers, so much as by living and loving and paying attention to the workings of my heart and mind in relation to the world around me. I found that writing is as good a practice for that as any other practice I might choose, and I might have saved myself the trip - but then again, it was an adventure, and I think it's good to have experienced adventures before writing about them.