A piece written on 16 November 2020
Short hair, piercings and earrings filling her earlobes... A woman with delicate eyes and a slender frame came up and spoke to me.
“Is this, perhaps, the writing group...?”
In May 2018, after ending thirteen years of organisational life and living as something like half-unemployed, I started a writing group once on weekdays and once on weekends. I posted a notice recruiting participants in an online community that existed to announce gatherings. A gathering run by one organiser who was not a writer, not in a related field, and had nothing in particular to put forward about writing... “Writing, This Good Time.” I wanted to give it a stylish and hot name, but it was not easy. Wondering who would come to write with me in such an awkward gathering, I kept going back to the page, anxious to see whether anyone had commented on the notice or whether there was anything in it that could invite criticism.
On a peaceful, idle afternoon of unemployed life, at last, exactly one applicant appeared. It was her. She was the person I was grateful to for opening that beginning for me. Just by her appearance, she seemed to live in a world completely different from mine. I had to write with her. She looked free, yet not free; pretty, yet somehow sad. That was my first impression of her. I learned later that she was a nurse, and that it was the day after she had resigned after going through difficult things at work.
Next, a man applied to the writing group on his own. He was three years younger than me. What if a strange person comes? Will it be awkward? With these worries, I chose a busy cafe full of people as the meeting place. He seemed a little intimidating, but the more I got to know him, the more I found him cute and kind. He was a well-mannered student of literature. He also had the astonishing ability to turn out a science-fiction story at every meeting.
After two or three months, the gathering began to gain energy. At its fullest, about nine people came. I also thought hard about the procedure of the meeting, and refined it several times while considering the order in which we would write. We talk about one shared topic, exchange our thoughts, find ideas along the way, and get hold of the thread of thought. Then we write, but we write within thirty minutes. I think my biggest worry was how long the writing time should be. I learned that thirty minutes is not short when you enjoy a little tension and somehow bring the writing to a close. After finishing the writing, each person reads their piece aloud. It becomes a time of self-revision. We listen to the pieces, give feedback, ask what we are curious about, and talk things through.
Each time, I chose the topic for the writing group. Thoughts that passed by while eating, words lifted from good passages in books, issues I had pondered when a relationship went wrong... From a life connected to someone, I drew out small, inward-looking thoughts and set them down on the table. Sometimes with a good poem, with a good piece of writing, with stories of living. With different jobs and different living environments, we cooked the topic placed on the table together, with the goal of completing a piece in thirty minutes. Within a comfortable distance with no excessive understanding and no coercion, we were honest through writing, and honest again. Through writing, we comforted one another, and comforted one another again. Even with writing that seemed strange or unfamiliar, we found what was good in it, and tried to notice what could be learned from others and from their writing. There is no wrong writing and no wrong person. There is only daily life and writing that have not yet been refined.
Everyone wavers. The people who wrote were people trying to find their centre. After thirty minutes of happy silence had passed, the table was richly set. Each person offered writing seasoned in their own colour and shape. The same topic was dissolved into each life and turned into different themes. They expressed their hearts in their own voices. Some voices trembled, some were calm, some were sad. I felt the distance between speaking and reading one’s writing. They were like actors. In that way, we listened to one another’s stages and moved closer. Thanks to one another’s dishes, we gained the strength to become healthy ourselves. During that time, our hearts grew a little brighter. That is why the name changed to Sunshine Writing.
For me, the writing group is the beginning of beginnings. Since starting the group, many beginnings have appeared. I became a startup CEO and began living in a new region. I am riding a bicycle again. Among these, what excites me most is watching the beginnings of the people I meet through writing. They found new jobs, changed jobs, started businesses. Someone found someone they liked, and someone made a literary debut. The beginnings of my writing friends are becoming my own beginnings.
Standing before the topic of beginning, I think about the end of the writing group. In the writing group, the topic changes every time, and the people who participate also change. Even if a topic is repeated by chance, when the participants change, the meeting becomes entirely different in atmosphere. It is a new universe where countless beginnings exist. Anyone who has written alongside others will find themselves seeking out that time and space like a drug; the only question is which group they write with. Without any great resolution, I have continued the writing group for more than 220 sessions.
I have fallen into a happy maze that has a beginning but no end.
Recruiting openly, with anyone welcome, I have held writing sessions about 300 times, and recently opened a writing programme for CEOs. Please refer to the “Community” section of the website.
May my thoughts be a small source of strength on your sustainable path: SUSTAINER, Seo Uk