Writing groups: the same and different

Sorry, blog. I disappeared. A weeklong Mother's Day visit in Connecticut.

While I was there, I read the picture book manuscript of an old friend of my mother's. My mother is Constance C. Greene. She wrote children's books in the 70s and 80s. I'm very proud of her.

Her friend, Mary Jane, was one of the members of my mother's first, and last, writing group. They started in Darien, CT 50 years ago. To every meeting, they invited an editor from New York. It was one such editor who identified my mother's first manuscript - A GIRL CALLED AL - as the one my mother should pursue.

Writing groups sure have changed over the past 50 years. Imagine getting an editor to come to yours.

Anyway, Mary Jane is 85. She has had breast cancer. She lost her husband and daughter to cancer. Her picture book manuscript is told from the pov of Ellie, a little girl whose father is at war. She and her mother are living with Ellie's grandmother in a very small house.

We know the mother is upset because Ellie tells us, "She threw her shoe at the wall. It left a big mark."

We feel the delirious joy of their happiness when they learn that the father's coming home when Ellie says, "We threw oranges out the window because that's all we had."

It was all about "show, don't tell" in those days, Mary Jane told me. I think those are two pretty fine examples.

I guess some things about writing haven't changed in the last 50 years. Kind of reassuring.