Fish stories...
It has been said that "There are plenty of fish in the sea"... The trick is finding them.
Many of you may be thinking this is in reference to dating and such the like, but you would be wrong! I am, in fact, referring to my writing group, named Big Fish.
You see, my dear readers, for the past year or so I've been involved with and supported by a group of like-minded writers. Admittedly, when I call them like-minded, I'm referring to the fact that we are all writers, though we do focus on completely different aspects of the craft.
Like many social groups, we argue, discuss, cheer, and laugh with each other at opportune moments, but the focus is always on construction rather than destruction. We gather together, edit and work shop each others pieces and then separate to let the comments stew for a fortnight before we come back together to start the process again.
It's a wonderful experience. The best way I can describe it, to those of a non-writerly persuasion, is it's like having your own personal cheer squad who doesn't rhyme (too often) or cavort about but will tell you straight about areas in need of improvement and show you ways to fix problems. In many ways a writing group is like a coach and cheer squad rolled into a nicely put together package.
The issue is, though, that getting a group of writers together in one place with a single purpose in mind is like herding cats. As I've said in previous posts, writers are very individualistic people and thus tend to have different priorities. I've been lucky with my group, in that we all started from a single place. My writing group evolved out of a class I enrolled in two semesters ago, where we workshopped each others writing on a fortnightly basis.
However, recently we off the "Big Fish", being the name we gave our little merry group, have met with some set backs. Namely we lost one member to her exponentially growing magazine enterprise of which she is an editor, we lost our second member to domestic issues - specifically a corporate occupation to support his growing family, and now we've lost a third member to an evolving job opportunity. Whether we'll see any of them back as part of our merry little group only the Fates will tell, but I have been left with a personal side effect.
Given that you may have noticed in my past few posts I had set myself on the path to dealing with some of my more pressing personal issues, I have recently noticed a new issue growing because of this changing scenario. Unfortunately it seems to have flowed on from the issue I had at the beginning of this year.
I feel as if my support base has been cut dramatically, and a wave of ennui has swept in to fill the void. Translation - I seem to be suffering from a severe case of "Can't Be Bothered" syndrome.
Here I am, in the final semester of my course, and I really don't know if I want to quit or to finish. Logic dictates that I finish and my sense of pride won't let me quit, but I know that my inspiration and drive to finish have left me. I have "hit the wall" or so marathon runners would say.
So I'm left asking myself "How and Where am I going to find my drive when what kept me going was the support group of friends and Big Fish has vanished?"
As for the answer... I'll have to get back to you about that, cause I don't know what I'm going to do...yet.
Any and all suggestions will be considered!