October 21st - the date of the WriteGirl October weekend session - was a date that came up in a blink of an eye from when I first heard about it at the WriteGirl Mentor Orientation, and yet, so much had happened in the interim. I had moved, which sounds so simple but wasn't. I was now 40 minutes away from where I had been living before, which meant I was now 2 hours away from Los Angeles. This made me iffy about participating in WriteGirl, but I remembered some things I had told myself, and thus had accepted as My Truth:
- You can't expect "someone" to take care of something, i.e. "Someone should do something about that!" That someone is you (or in this case, me). It would be easy of me to think, "Oh, WriteGirl has tons of mentors to choose from, they won't miss me." And they possibly wouldn't. But the commitment I made is not only to WriteGirl or the girls at WriteGirl. It is to myself, and to my own integrity, and the example I set to others by following through with my word.
- If something is important, you'll make it important. I can always say, "Oh, I don't have time/it is too far away." But those excuses just reveal that you don't really want to do something. And I really want to mentor! I thought, "Is WriteGirl 'a tank of gas, 2 hours, and paid parking' important?" Only I could decide that for me, and I decided it was.
I used up that tank of gas, traveled those 2 hours, and paid for that parking, and made it to the "Eyeboogie Studios" in Echo Park/Westlake, which turned out to be a really cool place that you'd totally miss if you blinked. The entrance opened up to a cool astro-turfed courtyard with a picnic table laden with free journals. The building entrance was lined with doodled-upon chalboards, and rooms with octopus wallpaper. The kitchen featured old books and a lighting fixture crafted from a canoe and Christmas lights. My favorite part, of course, was the bathroom, which featured a "Mac Counter" with an old Apple computer resting on a bench and targeting practice wallpaper.
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| Eyeboogie Studios via Figure 8 Realty |
We, the mentors, sat in the courtyard to receive our assignment. Girls started to arrive, and I was paired with a lovely girl who was interested in journalism and non-fiction writing. I could tell that she was concerned with the humanity of current events, and she even taught me a few things in that regard! After she completed her intake interview, we made our way through the different "stations" that had been set up.
Each station had a specific theme, i.e. Rebel Girls/Women, Campfire Stories, Blogging, Poetry, Sound Immersion/Discovery, Wreck Your Journal, etc. We spent some time at the blogging and Rebel stations, where I found that Tweeting is something I need to work on.
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| The Campfire Station via WriteGirl |
At lunch I said goodbye to my girl, then ate lunch before receiving another assignment. This girl was a talented fiction writer who had a knack for characterization. We spent time at the Campfire, Rebel, and Wreck Your Journal stations, but also visited the Blogging station. This wasn't something she was particularly interested in, but I mentioned to her that as an author, sometimes you will have to market your own Author Brand and works, because publishers seldom do that for you.
After each half day session, girls were invited up to the microphone for "Rants and Raves," where they shared issues that were relevant to their lives, usually to hilarious results. Some girls then also shared a few pieces they wrote that day.
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| Reading the day's pieces via WriteGirl |
My favorite station was the Campfire station, which allowed you to pick up ingredients for s'mores (chocolate, crackers, and marshmallows) which had parts of a prompt on them, and together they made a whole story idea. We then sat around a "campfire" which had paper cutouts of lit logs surrounded by flickering faux flame candles and blankets.
At the end of the day, I helped to clean up as part of Wrap-Up and then skeedaddled on home, rounding out an 8 hour day with 4 hours of a commute. Even though it had been a whole day's worth of an event, it felt as if the time had passed too quickly.I felt energized and inspired by the events, and wished there had been more. The next WriteGirl event isn't for another month, so I will take that inspiration with me to continue my own writing, and eagerly await the next fun filled day of writing.
