The blog begins...

So, I was sitting around a small kitchen table today with a couple of fellow writers.  We get together every month or so to read our work aloud and jaw about books we've read and people we've met.  We talk about our amazing kids (among them a tall ship sailor, a couple of soccer players, a boy who'd like to be a mailman...) and then we go back to talking about writing.  And it's amazing.  Three hours fly by, soup gets eaten, words are read and I am back in my car with book recommendations, support, encouragement and an assignment: start a blog.  Do it even if you don't show it to everyone (or even anyone.) Do it so that you write everyday.  

Though I consider myself a writer, I don't write everyday.  I don't know how to go about it as a "job," even though it's the only job I really think I'm qualified to do.  My husband says that since I've finished a book (yet to be published) I am doing okay so far.  But this book took 8 years on and off to complete while simultaneously having and raising two kids and I'd like to think that as the kids grow, so too, can my productivity.  But how?  What does this practice look like?  

My yoga practice, such as it is, needs to take place in the company of others.  I look forward to a class where I can be there to steady the legs of the person next to me, where I can reach a hand toward the sky and know that all around me others reach as well.  It means something to me to know that I am not alone.  

So these monthly gatherings around a kitchen table, a bowl of soup, a plate of muffins -- these gatherings are a way of group practice.  As I write these words, I can almost see, out of the corner of my eye, other fingers moving across other keyboards.  Writing every day.  At least here.  At least a little.  I am in good company.