Our hero and heroine embark on their quest

Episode 1 – The Creation Stage

“This is just insane,” Joe groaned as he and Josie left their first session of The WriteSpirit Writing Workshop.

“What is?”

“You told me if I signed up for this workshop, I’d learn to write.”

“Yeah. So?”

“That guy is nuts.  How’s this journaling jazz supposed to help me learn to write?  I don’t know how to write.  I don’t even know what to write about?”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“Yeah, I was listening, but what he was saying doesn’t make sense.  ‘Sit down and write for twenty minutes.  It doesn’t matter what you say.  Just put your pen on the paper and make words.’  That’s not writing.  That’s balderdash . . . blather . . . gobbledygook.”

“Why don’t you just try it before you get all wound up?”

“Because I just told you, I want to learn to write some real writing.”

“Look, the reason we signed up was because we both agreed that we didn’t know how to write.  This guy is a writing teacher.  If we already knew how to do it, we wouldn’t need to take the course.”

“Okay, okay, okay, but it makes me feel like an idiot. . . . Write anything . . . See Spot run.  Run, Spot, run.”

“If that’s what comes out of your pen.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“Yes, I am, and you should too.  At least try it.”

“But I told you I don’t know what to write about!”

“It doesn’t matter what you write about; just write.  Write about your big toe, or what we had for breakfast.  Just open your notebook, put your pencil to the paper, and start.  Make a letter.  Make another letter, and keep on making letters until you’ve made a word.”

“It just sounds too weird.”

“I think you’re scared.  You want to be in control.  You don’t want to take any risks that might make you look bad, so you’re making excuses to get yourself off the hook.”

“Thank you, Dr. Josie.  When I want to be psychoanalyzed, I’ll make an appointment.”

“You know what you remind me of?  There’s a story of a big hot-shot general in the Middle East somewhere who got sick and went to a famous healer.  The general had it all worked out in his head what the healer would do – wave his hands over the general’s head and say some magic words.  But when the general got to the healer’s place, the healer didn’t even come outside.  He sent his servant out with a message.  ‘Go dunk yourself into the river.’

“The general got insulted.  ‘I came all this way for this quack to tell me to go swimming? No thank you.  I could have gone swimming back home.’

“And then the general’s servant — who was, I might add, a woman – said, ‘Why are you having a hissy fit?  Just go do what the guy says.'”

“So you’re saying I’m acting like that general and having a temper tantrum.”

“I’m saying you should do what the man says before you decide that it’s a waste of time.”

“Oh, all right.  I’ll try.”

“No, Joe.  Don’t try.  Do it.”

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