My Wonderful Writers' Group

February 19, 2010

I have such a good Writers' Group! Last night we had an interesting discussion about an excellent short story of Carol E.’s– time travel (people from a nearly-destroyed future version of our world come back to feed their children real food.) Anyhow, Shelley objected to a scene where the local cops beat up the “rich” people (who are only rich because of devalued currency). Shelley loved the story, as did I, but didn't believe cops would support local thugs beating up rich people. I said something about small towns being different, which I don’t think was expressed very well, because no one seemed to get it.

Anyhow, in an email this morning Carol E said that she figured out that those "rich" people from the future didn't have any connections here at all. And wondered if she should add that to the story. Which sharpened my thought, and I wrote back to All: “That was sort of what I was trying to say last night about class distinctions in a small town-- they have a very different quality from class distinctions in cities. In a small town, the rich guy who gave the library and owns the one business in town that hires is definitely a power, but a group of Big Spender Aliens is more comparable to the summer people in some working class vacation communities (‘Summer People, Some 'r Not’).”

I love the discussions we have there. More from last night: Edith’s journal: a wonderful insight about how when someone dies, also dying is who we were in that other person ’s eyes: she spoke of how her mother’s face lit up when she saw her. The eyes lighting up for me were my father’s: that is gone, me as an amazing phenomenon for having simply stood up and taken a step. Each of my accomplishments, small or large, totally delightful to him. No strings attached.