Robbie Thomas
The Write Stuff
In 2012, I was working on my fourth book called The Gambler Volume One. I would later finish it in early 2013 and publish it on Blogger. I would later move it to a previous website I had called Highway 29, but later moved it again to WattPad. Be sure to stop by and read it. I began work on it during my last days while living in Roseville and when I decided to end Super Human Intelligence Towards Exile. Later to start that again nine years later. I would later move to Clinton Township and make the storyboards for the Gambler Volume One. While playing Fortune Street on the Nintendo Wii.
While visiting the Clinton-Macomb Public Library, I discovered that there is a writers club that meets once a week at the library, I had to sign up. If I remember correctly, it was every Wednesday. I got to meet quite a few local writers. I would later become friends with one of them, Rita Sorensen. We even bought each other’s books, I bought By The Tall Oak and she bought my third book, Thirteen Years Of Gray. We also autographed each other’s books. I hope Rita doesn’t mind if I mention her name in this blog.
Attending The Write Stuff was fun, and I got a lot of knowledge and found some other good stuff from other writers nearby. But one of the things I ran into was some bitter writers. Not all writers I ran into at The Write Stuff were bitter folks and I’m not including Ms. Sorensen to that group. There were people there mainly for NanoWriMo. November is considered National Novel Writing Month. And there is a contest each November for writers to write a 50,000 word novel during the said month. By August, the attendance of The Write Stuff began to increase and the room we were in was quite full during September, October and November. It began to die down in December.
I was never interested in NanoWriMo due to at that time and even now, I work full-time plus overtime. I know I can’t write a 50,000 word novel in just a month with my lifestyle and ADHD. Hell nah, can’t do that. I don’t have any problems with people participating with Nano, it’s just something I’m not interested in. To go back to the beginning of the previous paragraph, I did run into some bitter writers. Also, I can acknowledge that my writing isn’t the best, but I have to say it. During most times with The Write Stuff (sans November), we would do critiques. There were two middle-age female writers who would be totally ruthless to all the other writers. They barely said anything good about the others writing samples. Mine included.
These two writers weren’t saying, “You suck, you can’t write, you’ll never make it.” Nothing along those lines, but they were quite ruthless with their words. I learned a few things due to their critiques, but it was mostly that my (and others) writing was sub-par. Both of those writers had written multiple books and I do remember the names of one of them but I ain’t going to mention them. My guess is that these two had been in the game for a while, and they haven’t found the fame. I’ve been there! But after some time before attending The Write Stuff, I was okay with the idea that I may never find it.
These two, like many people attending this weekly event, were not very happy with The Fifty Shades Of Grey, same with me. And yes, my third book Thirteen Years Of Gray had a similar title. However, unlike me, these folks read a chunk or the whole book and they were angry and bitter about it. That book’s quality of writing was known to be horrible according to most of the folks in the creative writing community. So, I could see why some folks who have published multiple books and haven’t made it can be bitter about The Fifty Shades Of Grey. Even Opie And Anthony bashed that book in mid-May 2012:
I stopped attending The Write Stuff in January of next year due to me switching shifts at my job. Going to second shift and I couldn’t attend it due to it being at 7pm. I was working 2pm-2am most days at that time. In April 2013, I went to the Library and inquired about that event, the lady there said barely anybody goes to it. Not sure if they are doing it as of this post in August 2023. The CMPL is a nice place, but I don’t go to it often compared to 2004 and 2012.