I’m back with my writing group, and it feels like we’re getting the band back together. We start tonight and I’m bringing three new friends who write well, so there are seven of us. As far as bands go, we were a pretty prolific group. We stayed together for over a year before we broke up, so that’s like twenty-five years in dog band, writing group years.
I’m bringing my novel workings to workshop or to add to. I’m not sure what the format’s going to be, but I’m excited. We were a great band. My only problem is that the Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble is inferior. The coffee sits in the urn forever and the coffee people…the cantinas? the..what are they? the…damn, what do you call the coffee givers…the baristas! Yeah, the baristas in B&N aren’t up to speed, but what can you honestly expect from Barnes & Noble, Pittsfield, Massachusetts? I went there a few weeks ago to renew my teacher discount, and you’d think I was asking the homely guy with the bowl haircut for the combination to the safe that held his Star Trek blow-up doll collection.
We’re a special writing group, because we’re poets and essayists, and short story writers, and aspiring novelists, and not one of us has a blow-up doll collection, bowl haircuts, or a job that makes us loathe teachers.
5 Comments
I know exactly which Barnes & Noble employee you’re talking about. And, to be fair, while he may indeed be lame (I couldn’t objectively say), you have just taken the time to denigrate him on a blog on the internet. Well, at least you’re pushing yourself to keep going on that novel. I really want to read a Frank Tempone novel someday.
Also: I’m doing a reading on Wednesday. I’m going to read “There is a House”…the ghosts one.
Thanks for the encouragement, Frank. I’m glad to see you’re getting out there too. Writing is such a roller coaster of emotions… sometimes I simply feel unfit for all of this. But we’ll see. Gotta start somewhere, right?
will add you to my read list.
always great to find someone working
on a (first?) novel. esp one who has
two bubs to fend off at the same time. =)
Hi there Frank,
I’m glad to hear you don’t hate teachers! (How did you guess I’m a teacher? Are you psychic?) I belong to a reading group with a few friends but I’ve recently decided to join a local writers’ circle. I don’t know anyone in the group but I’ve been along once and they seem very nice.
I feel I should learn to feel comfortable reading my work to other people as I may be doing this when my books are published. I’ve written a series and the first one is out in the spring.
I’m going to the writers’ circle for the second time tomorrow, and may read then…
Please visit my blog where comments from fellow writers are always welcome and let me know how your writing group is gettin on. How many of you are there?
B&N cafes are not “real” Starbucks; like the ones in Target and the ones on the NY state thruway, they are just franchises, and the baristas aren’t trained by the company. The Pittsfield B&N cafe is actually a lot better than most of those other versions, but nowhere near as good as the actual Starbucks that’s just a few parking lots away.
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