I went to a small writing group today.  I’m not going to say where it was, who was in it or who led it to protect people’s privacy.  I’ve known about the group for a long time and have been interested so I finally got the courage to attend.

There was lots of banter before we got to work.  I’m afraid I don’t do well with unstructured conversation.  Even after sustaining my brain injury 28 years ago, I still have challenges. Conversing with a small group of people is one of them.

I process things slower than others without a brain injury and it was difficult keeping up with the conversation. It seemed to move so quickly, and I didn’t have anything to say.  They weren’t strangers but I didn’t know them well. Perhaps when I get to know folks better, it will be easier. 

I’ve never been to a writing group before, and I imagine there are different kinds. It was small – six of us.  In this one, a prompt was given and each of us wrote for 15 minutes. The prompt was an excerpt from a book

I have difficulty writing due to the arthritis in my right hand.  I have a rubber insert that I put on my pen, and I also wore my hand brace.  Next time I’m going to bring my laptop even though I must type with my index finger on my right hand.  It’s slow but I think it won’t hurt my hand so much.

I was nervous because I knew I was going to have the opportunity to read what I’d written. Whenever I write, I make lots of edits and never share the first thing I have written. When the others shared folks would comment in positive ways.  I couldn’t think of anything to say, and I felt a little uncomfortable not speaking.  Perhaps it will get easier as time goes on.  It’s true that brain injury challenges get better the more one works on them – even after 28 years!

I went last, of course. We weren’t supposed to give any commentary before we read it, which was very difficult for me.  It was scary reading my writing especially since I couldn’t edit.

I think I’m going to keep attending.  It will improve my writing, but I’ll also be able to work on my brain injury challenges.  It’s two for the price of one!