Writer? Innkeeper? I get this a lot these days from my brain, not so pleased whenever I spend time away from writing projects ... Yesterday Sven and I bumped into two fellow Wellfleetians at Eldred’s Auction House in Dennis.
“Oh, so you’re back then?” Ginny Page asked, meaning, in Wellfleet.
“I’m back, sort of,” I responded.
My enthusiasm was muted by the reality of the work involved in the 2011 B&B season, which, according to the headline in the Provincetown Banner, is off to a wild start in terms of local bookings. There are still a few Tuesday classes to attend at Grub Street, due to snow days but, for the most part, I’m back, in body, anyway, and will welcome guests this weekend.
The problem is my reluctance at switching my writer’s hat for a bandanna – or, whatever one wears to keep sweat off the face while cleaning. In my heart of hearts I know it's a masquerade, that writing is my true vocation. (Note: I did not say profession, because for writing to become a profession, it must be a source of income.) True, everyone needs a day job, we live in a beautiful place, and our green guests are wonderful. Still, I prefer to work with words, rather than green cleansers.
My Grub Street experience this winter was top-notch. I took three stimulating classes and highly recommend all of them. The first, with Scott Heim, was Novel in Progress. The second, a power seminar with Michelle Hoover, left me wishing I could return to college at BU where she teaches. In the third, called Finding Your Book, Joanne Wyckoff led a group of ten women and one man on a quest to figure out what his or her non-fiction book might be.
What fun Finding Your Book was! Those six Mondays earned big hearts on my calendar. Classmates included a lawyer who specializes in adoption, two doctors, a life coach, a documentary filmmaker (Rescuing Emmanuel), and a woman writing a memoir about the cultural revolution in China. I learned a lot, including that a blog can be an important part of “Platform.” Every writer needs platform these days. And, I was not the only blogger in the class. Here are links to the blogs of three classmates:
• Kim’s Midnight Snark
• Linda’s Jewish Muse
• Lana’s What The Fox?
