10/10/09:  I missed writing a blog yesterday so this is my "Saturday penance."  My workshop  (Scribes) met yesterday morning.  It is the only one in which I read my own work.  It is small but because three of us are writing books and reading a chapter at a time, we use the time from 10 until 12 and sometimes spill over. This group is helpful and inspiring to me and I am more than grateful to have the members willing (faithful for four years!) to meet at my home twice a month. All other groups number between six and eight members and all are reading shorter work, so we are able to get to the writing of each in any given meeting.. 

The material for the book I'm working on now is captured (fortunately!) in typwritten pages that I compiled in the '60s.  The details are there and usable–things I do not now recall as vividly as they are recorded in those pages.  My fiction to date has come primarily from my imagination.   When I set off on this project, I did not know that relating facts and making them engrossing for the reader as fiction would be a new and unnerving experience in my writing career.  This is where the Scribes are helping me immeasurably!  

I hope you have a similar group that you can depend on!– Willma