A Writer's Life

Friday night I attended an event hosted by S.O.M.O.S (Society of the Muse of the southwest - an organization devoted to writers) at Cafe Tazza (yes they do serve espresso drinks). It was a quintessential Taos experience. The adobe walls, painted in vibrant colors, the ristras (wreath of dried chilis) hanging from the ceiling and the packed antechamber livingroom of writers, poets, and wannabe's was intoxicating. I felt like a real writer. This combined with receiving accolades on a written piece during my thursday morning writing group has made this a banner week - despite having a chest cold, not sleeping well and not able to work out at the gym.... I coupled my experience with finishing Natalie Goldburg's novel, "Banana Rose" set in Taos, NM - it was fun to recognize alot of the landmarks she mentioned - altho - alas there is no more Rexall Drug's that has a soda fountain and serves malteds. Goldburg moved to Santa Fe sometime ago and is still an active writer and teacher. On my wish list is the desire to attend one of her writing workshops (she wrote, "Writing down the Bones" among other books.

The night's readers included Dave Perez, a local well known writer, who read from his memoir in progress, "Wow" about growing up puertorican in NYC in the 1960's and his antics at a catholic private school, St. Luke's, and his comedy routine as an unruly altar boy. We then heard from a classically trained flamingo guitarist and the ending of the evening was two readings from NY Times bestseller author, Lisa Valdez Rodriguez from Albuquerque who read from a young adult novel, "The Haters" and her current book to be published in July '09, "The Husband Habit". Perez and Rodriguez were both hilarious, colorful, and riveting. It gave me some idea of what publishers are looking for in fiction/non fiction material. Especially with Rodriguez who has already published 6 books.

Although I attended the event solo it was obvious that many of the folks there know each other and there appears to be a definite "inner circle of writers" in Taos that I can only dream to be a part of. I've discovered that like any field of training there is a writer's jargon, "prompts, scenes, pacing, character development, plot development, point of view - first person, third person, narrative, etc." At least I now know what most of the words mean....

Firming and toning has come to a stand still this week as I focus on recovering from a chest cold. I haven't been to the gym since last Monday but am hopeful that this week will be more conducive.

The Tarot class continues on Saturday mornings. We covered 3 more major arcana cards and got assigned yet more homework, 2 videos and meditation time. I'm anxious to actually do the readings and yet know that the background historical info is critical to meaningful interpretations.