Cathy C. Hall Writes

Yeah, I was looking for my Inklets pic, but Libs in her Howl O Weenie shirt is much cuter.

I’m sprinting into the finish line on my latest middle grade masterpiece and so I’m thinking of critique groups.

Specifically, I’m thinking of my once wonderful critique group, The Inklets. We met regularly and we wrote and we critiqued and…well, you never appreciate what you have until you don’t have it, right? When several members moved on, both literally and figuratively, we didn’t have a group anymore.

I tried another group, eventually, but it was such a trek to get to the meetings. And they met on Sunday afternoons which, if I’m being honest, conflicted horribly with my football watching. So I had to give them up. (I know. Football, right? But all work and no play makes Cathy a dull writer.)

Now, I have a group of writers I reach out to online when I have something that needs a look-see. And they’re great, but I miss that human contact of the critique group that meets in person: the bickering, the defensiveness, the sulking! But mostly, I miss the laughter and fun, so when I have an opportunity to meet up with writers, at a workshop, a conference, a book-signing, I try to go. I need that writer camaraderie, don’t you?

Anyway, that’s a long introduction to let you know about my post over at The Muffin today: On Taking Advice From Your Critique Group. I hope you find something of value there, and if you have something to share about your experience, I’d love to hear it!

pexels-photo-355952 So I went to a writer’s workshop last night to hear Ruth Spiro’s journey–and oh my goodness, what an interesting story AND what fascinating board books she’s written for babies!–and she mentioned the Maker Movement.

Yeah, there’s a movement afoot for people who make things. They have Maker Faires and everything. And it’s not just for inventors. Nope, these faires are for artisans and tinkerers, designers and engineers. Pretty much if you make something, you’re a maker.

Call me crazy, but haven’t we always had makers? You know, people who come up with ideas and then make those ideas happen? We used to call them entrepreneurs or inventors. How is this a new trend? With their own magazine (cleverly titled, MAKE)?

Not a day goes by that I don’t make something, even if it’s just a sandwich. I mean, making is part of the human condition. We make our beds, we make plans, we make cookies, we make babies. And I’ve been pretty darn innovative in all of those activities at one time or another. I call it “making do” but if I’d thought to call it a movement, I might be rich by now.

And then I read in my morning paper about a new book on de-cluttering. It’s called The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, and it’s by Margareta Magnusson. It’s about the kind of cleaning one does late in life (or after a family member dies).

Basically, it’s the kind of cleaning I’ve been doing for the last year and a half. Except I just call it “cleaning up Mom and Dad’s stuff now that they’re gone.” I guess the bottom line here is that one should clean up one’s stuff before dying and save our kids the trouble later.

The problem with that is we’re still using our stuff. Or we do downsize and we try to get our kids to take the stuff we’re not using, like the silver or the china, but they either a. don’t have room for it because they prefer to live in super-expensive, urban, tiny spaces or b. they just don’t want it.

Anyway, that’s not really the point here. The point is, this slim book is apparently so popular it’s about to be published in America. And it’s a book about taking the time to basically throw away most of one’s stuff before one dies so one’s kids don’t have to do it.

Excuse me, but that’s been a time-honored and expected child’s and/or spouse’s job since…well, I guarantee that Cain and Abel argued about what to do with all their daddy’s loincloths. How is that a book now?

First the Maker Movement and now a book about the common sense practice of throwing away stuff. I don’t know whether I’m more annoyed about the craziness of it all–or that I didn’t think of it first.