I’d like to think size matters.

I have studio envy.

My sweetheart is an artist with a five hundred square foot, two-room art studio in the same house where I have an eight-by-ten spare bedroom as an office. My desk, bookshelf, reading chair, copy machine stand and filing cabinet just fit.

My desk is my talisman.

My desk is a kitchen table from my maternal grandparents’ kitchen. My grandmother was an incredible cook who raised eleven children, cooked for rich families and spent every Sunday making a batch of the best breaded and baked chicken I’ve ever eaten for all her children and grandchildren when we visited.

Memories are powerful.

Though I’d love to have a real desk with all the special features, I love my kitchen table desk more. The drawer that used to hold butcher and carving knives now holds flash drives and sticky notes. There is love in this desk.

I sit at my desk and create stories, mostly fiction. Many of them involve family and strangers, mermaids and dragons. They are retold fairy tales and futuristic possibilities. Love and loss, comedy and irony, and growing up are themes running through them.

The desk fits my little laptop, the machine that does it all: it researches, writes, connects with submission and agency sites, and saves everything in specific files.

As much as I dream of a bigger space to work in, I do pretty well fitting the world of storytelling within the space of one, small kitchen table desktop.

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”  ~E.B. White

*All images are my own unless noted.

Writing friends are a good beginning.

Over the years I’ve risen through the ranks of writing critique groups.

I started out with four of us good writing friends, all about the same level of experience. We had a few publishing credits to our name but were working our way toward being recognized as experienced writers rather than amateurs.

Open-to-the-public group.

When circumstances–mostly distance because we each traveled at least 30-40 miles to meet–led to my first group breaking up, I went on to a public writing critique group that met in a community center twice a month. A lot of unpredictability.  How many would show up, whether it’d be the same or new faces. Few were experienced writers, others were trying to get back into it after a long time away, and most were putting their first words together.

The rule was to bring five copies and read yours aloud. It worked to have strangers react to my writings in comments both verbal and written. I attended for over a year but after a particular meeting, I realized I took home one less copy of my short story than I had shared. Soon after I left the group.

Building a portfolio.

Two former students, maturing writers and unpublished, asked me to join them once a week at a fast-food restaurant. We three read our pieces aloud and gave general, good, okay, needs work feedback. The highlight of the meeting for me came at the end when we each wrote an impromptu story prompt and popped it into a hat. The rule was to pull one out and have something done by the following week.

I learned it took me 15 to 20 hours a week to write a short story from rough idea to final draft.

My portfolio of stories grew and grew. Some were unfinished but the good seeds were there to explore further some day. About a year later the group broke up.

It became more about my needs.

My writing group timeline so far was about six years.

When I didn’t have a group, I evaluated where I was with my writing. What skills had I gained? What skills needed strengthening? What part of the writing process was barely known to me?

Only as good as the best person in the group.

Critique groups are a collaborative effort. Members offer their tastes in stories, their experiences in writing, their knowledge of editing to every piece they read.

If the most skilled person in the group has never published a story, how will I advance toward my goal to be published? What if the group has members who don’t like to read? Who rarely bring writing to share? Who don’t show up?

Sticking my neck out.

A blog subject for another time, but I tend to be shy to talk in groups of strangers, so I am at a loss at conventions, for example, to share my writing life. But I am not shy to read my work aloud.

At a science fiction/fantasy writers’ convention, I signed up for open mic. I had ten minutes to read a full story. I didn’t win. The judges’ comments were fitting. The success came afterwards when a member of a vetted, professional writing critique group asked me to join.

The vetting process.

Being asked to become a member of this professional group was the easiest aspect of it.

I went online to read the requirements to be considered: submit a full chapter or full short story. Members critique the work among themselves and vote. The majority of yes or no dictates whether you are in or out.

I got in.

The members are experienced at publishing and writing. Five members can submit their work a week ahead in Dropbox, where each attending member is expected to make a copy of the submission, read and edit it. At the monthly gathering, going around the circle, we each take five minutes to verbally share our responses. The writer sits quietly, taking notes, and has five minutes at the end for any comments.

Once home, the submitted writer downloads copies of his or her story and the accompanying critiques from each member.

In addition to writing comments, members share possible sites, e-magazines and contests, of where a member’s story may fit for submissions.

I can resubmit an older work for a second round of critiques.

This group shares my preferred genre of fantasy and science fiction. They’re widely read and are professional writers who recognize the conventions of many genres.

Always a learning curve.

Starting from a lover of stories to a writer of stories to getting stories published is a learning curve. Sometimes it’s as small as the curve of a fingertip and sometimes it’s wider than a rainbow.

A writing critique group is an excellent tool. Much like the writing process itself, the writing group must mature with the writer and meet the needs of where she or he is on the journey.

“Read, read, read. Read everything–trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”  ~William Faulkner

*All images are my own unless noted.

“Crystal Love” earned third place in the Dayton Daily News/Antioch Writers’ Workshop Short Story Contest in 2011.

At six, Jade knew the best things were over her head. Candy in the top cupboard. Cookies on the refrigerator. Tiniest toys on her closet shelf. Prettiest statues above the fireplace.

When she saw Grandpa’s step stool next to the armoire in his room, she had to have a climb.

“Be careful,” said Grandpa. “And hand me that old light bulb.” He tossed it in the trash then sat on the bed, breathing heavily.

“Aw, Grandpa. You gotta dust up here,” Jade said. She sneezed a few times to show she was serious but giggled when she lifted an old framed snapshot of him and Grandma making angels in the snow.

“I make snow angels, too,” she said. “Is that you and Grandma? She’s just a girl.”

“She’s the best girl in the world, honey.” Grandpa stared at the tremor in his hands. “I would have given your Grandma the world if she’d let me. But we weren’t rich and never traveled far. Still, we laugh a lot and enjoy our time together.”

Grandpa pushed himself back toward his pillows and leaned against the headboard.

“We loved to take long walks together, especially in winter. Grandma always wishes she could hold winter forever in her hands. To her it is the most romantic time of the year.”

He shut his eyes and folded his hands across his stomach, waiting for his breathing to even out.

Jade put the photograph aside and reached for something else. It was larger than her little fists. And heavy. She knew she would drop it if she tried to carry it in her hands.

She got her fingers around its base and slid it to the armoire’s edge. It was a glass ball but so grimy she couldn’t see anything. She tilted it over and cradled it in her neck.

“Grandpa?”

“Jade!”

Grandpa hadn’t moved so fast in ages. He was off the bed and grabbing the globe from her.

“My god, child, you could have seriously hurt yourself. Now get down off of there. Go see what Grandma’s doing in the kitchen.”

Grandpa sat back on the bed and held the globe in the palms of his rough, steel mill factory hands.

“Grandpa, what is it?”

Balancing the globe on his lap, Grandpa reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a washed-out blue bandana. Like he was bathing a newborn baby, Grandpa cleaned the globe of its dusty film.

Jade waited.

Grandpa?” she whispered.

“Honey.” Grandpa lifted it up. “This is a snow globe. Grandma has loved this globe more than anything. She brought it with her when we moved in here after our wedding. She said her father gave it to her. She keeps it up on that armoire. Once in a while, I see her pick it up and shake it. She gets a little misty-eyed then puts it back.”

Grandpa turned it upside down and right side up again. “See?”

Jade leaned close and watched snow crystals sparkle as they settled over a bare tree and a bench. On a snowy pond, a boy and a girl, both in skates, stand close to each other, about to kiss.

“Who are the skaters, Grandpa?”

“Nobody in particular. Just two people in love. Grandma says it reminds her of us. We never had skates and I once asked her, ‘Do you want to go skating?’ But she just called me silly.”

Jade had better eyes than her grandpa. To her the skaters looked a lot like her grandparents. But she didn’t tell Grandpa that.

“Now, let me put it back.”

At ten, Jade stood in her grandpa’s room and stared at the snow globe.

Grandpa came in, drew her close and together they sat on the bed. “I miss her, too.”

He got down the snow globe and gave it a shake. “Look.”

The scene was the same except the girl skater was gone. The boy skater stood alone on the pond. His arms outstretched but no one to hold.

“Oh, Grandpa.”

At fifteen, Jade returned to her grandfather’s room.

“Jade?” Grandpa whispered from his bed. “That snow globe.”

No longer needing a stool, Jade reached over the top of the armoire and carefully pulled the heavy glass toward her. She wiped off the dust and shook it, waiting for the snowflakes to fall. The pond and tree were there, but the boy ice skater no longer stood on the pond. He sat on a bench, his chin in his hands.

She brought the globe to her grandfather’s bed.

“Take it” was all he could say.

At twenty, Jade unpacked the snow globe from a box. She gave it a shake before placing it in her first apartment.

The boy was gone. Two pairs of skates, their laces undone, leaned on their sides against the bench.

At twenty-five, Jade fell in love with Tony. When they moved into their home, Jade carried the snow globe up the stairs and into their bedroom.

Tony saw her give the ball a shake and watched with her as snow crystals floated around the two young lovers on skates.

“Where did you get this?”

“My grandfather gave it to me. It belonged to my grandmother.”

“Funny how they look a lot like us, Jade,” he said. He kissed his bride and left the room.

Jade’s eyes grew misty as she shook the snow globe one more time and gently placed it on the armoire.

“He’s the best, Grandpa. The best boy in the world.”

Images. All images are my own unless otherwise attributed here.