I love my writer’s group. I love them like a family. The kind of family you see in prime time television. Not quite the Cosby Show perhaps, or even Everybody Loves Raymond. More like… Hmm. Let me think about it a moment and see if I can come up with a more precise analogy. In the meantime–some facts about our group:

If we’d been perfectly consistent, tomorrow night would mark our 200th session, as we’ve been meeting roughly every two weeks since the summer of 2000. Of course, we haven’t been perfectly consistent, so we’re probably approaching something more like the 150th or even 125th meeting given the reschedules, postponements, and temporary gaps that have occurred over the years. And, of course, when I say “we,” I’m stretching the definition a bit. Todd Fahnestock joined in 2002, followed by Giles Carwyn, Chris Mandeville, Morgen Thomas, and, most recently, Leslie Hedrick. During that time, the other founding members all went on to other places and other things, but the soul of the group has, in my mind, been maintained.

Every writer’s group is different, of course. Some meet online, some in person. Some focus on improv writing, some on revision. Some are supportive and uplifting. Others make fun of you at least once per meeting for each of the previous 142 meetings over the last eight years.

Our typical agenda goes like this. Every two weeks, on Friday nights, we meet at a different member’s house. The host cooks a big meal and we spend the first two hours (at least) eating, talking, and making fun of me. This is followed by another 3 to 5 hours of reading aloud and commenting on each other’s work (and, when appropriate, making fun of me).

We’ve experimented with time limits, but typically reverted to a general free-for-all in which each person reads as much as s/he wants and then we make comments until we’re all talked out. While long, the process does, generally, leave each person with far too much information to assimilate and the desire to give up writing forever and go to work in a war zone, slaughterhouse or forced labor camp where one could hope to find a shred more human decency.

Eureka! The television show we most resemble: America’s Most Wanted–only with a bit less compassion and a bit more ritual homicide. I joke, of course. None of us, not even Morgen Thomas who I do not live in constant fear of, has ever killed. More than three or four people. Ritually. At a time.

Ha ha. I jest, of course. In truth, our group is immensely supportive, but part of that support is that we’re painfully honest and often highly critical. This forces us all to strive constantly to improve and has, I think, made us all better and more prepared for the challenges of publishing. Giles and Todd have recently finished their third book in a 3 book contract with Harper Collins. (If you haven’t already discovered “Heir of Autumn” and the sequel “Mistress of Winter,” you should immediately hop over to Amazon and order your copies.) The rest of us, meanwhile, are getting much closer to our own contracts and I fully expect to celebrate our 300th (roughly) meeting as a group of authors all of whom are published, successful novelists.

(Okay. They just left. Please, if you’re reading this, call 911. I’m locked in Morgen’s basement, bound by strands of human ligament. Wait! They’re coming b…)

I am to jobs what last week’s featured guest on Jerry Springer was to his 11 wives, 31 children and 2 girlfriends: trouble. My résumé resembles a hobo’s wardrobe–ill-fitting, mismatched and full of holes. I have been a bookstore clerk, an office lackey, director of multimedia development for a software company, a waiter, CEO of an internet startup, a moving estimator, center manager for a tutoring company, a model, project manager for a web development company, (okay–the model thing is a bit of a stretch–I was nine years old and I did an hour of modeling for a math text book–but I got paid $75, which was a fortune to a third-grader and damnit, it made me feel good), a substitute teacher, executive producer of a youth television show, a journalist, regional academic director for a leading test prep company, and a landscaper.

Just as Buford Leroy Jones III earned the devotion of his many chubby trailer tramps, I have seduced many an interviewer into hiring me. While Buford Leroy clearly excelled in charming the extra large panties off his beloveds, I have always been a star employee in my first few months, winning rapid raises, shining reviews, and the respect of my superiors. Inevitably, however, Buford and I remember our real purpose, our one true love. For him, it’s the newness of a fresh-won fanny. For me, it’s writing.

At a certain point, I simply can’t stand not having sufficient time to write and I tender my resignations. I then spend as many weeks or months as I can writing as much as I can before my financial fears catch up to me and I am forced to seek out my next great sugar mama. And yet, as bumpy a ride as it’s been, it’s been a good one–a fulfilling one–and for all the voices that’ve reminded me how foolish the writer’s career is and how silly I am to leave good jobs for total uncertainty (or rather: certain poverty), I simply can’t help myself. In the words of the inimitable Buford “I gots to get my thang on. I just can’ts help myself.

P.S. — No news is no news from the publishing house. I continue to wait eagerly for word, but have given up expecting anything any time soon.

Not wanting this diascribe to be merely a dumping ground for vomit writing, I have published somewhat infrequently. As a means of generating traffic and regular readership the effectiveness of this strategy rates a little below a schnauser mating with a tennis shoe, and a little above the war on drugs. Therefore, I shall be embarking on a bold, new direction in diascribblation.

Starting this Thursday (the 13th), all future entries will appear on Thursdays (at some point). If you are one of my regular readers (either one), you can now rest assured that you only need to check in weekly for updates. If you are one of my irregular readers (i.e., Reader #3 as I like to call you), now you too can become a regular reader, entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof, namely…umm…weekly updates.

During his wonderfully well-polished and well-delivered seminar last weekend, Jeffery Deaver said that he’d heard it said that being a writer is like always having homework. How apt! During my first few months in my first real job after college, I reveled in the thought that the end of the workday meant the end of work for the day. How nice that was, after sixteen years of school in which I routinely procrastinated and subsequently constantly worried about homework…to finally relax. But then, growing quickly bored and annoyed with my job (a pattern that has come to define my “career”), I decided I had to make it as a writer. Ten years later, Jeffery Deaver’s statement reminds me that it has been a full ten years since I’ve been able to fully relax–to feel like my work is done for the day at the end of the day and that I’ve earned some time off. Instead, every moment not spent working on my writing is a vaguely troubling moment in which I regret my lack of progress. Then, when I do write, I’m always in a hurry to get as much done as possible since I’m already SO far behind. So, thanks Jeff, for reminding me of that.

I would also like to thank Mr. Deaver for helping me better define my work. I’ve struggled for some time to accurately identify what it is I write. Is it literary fiction? Is it mainstream? Experimental? Is it post-post-modern, neo-deconstructionist, disestablishmentarian seriocomic realist fantasy? No. Thanks to Mr. Deaver, I now know exactly what I write. I write ham toothpaste. Or rather (protests my inner vegetarian)–I write broccoli toothpaste. When friends in my writer’s group suggested that my work seemed to belong to a new genre, I’m not sure that’s the classification I would have preferred, but perhaps it fits.

Mr. Deaver’s point, and it was a good one, is that if you want to make it as a writer and lead a writer’s life, it’s best to think of your work as a commodity. Your job as a writer is to craft books that appeal to the largest possible audience and that consistently meet people’s expectations for enjoyable, page-turning stories. Having just finished reading “The Blue Nowhere” (staying up late to get to the end), I am very impressed by Mr. Deaver’s ability to do just that. I’m also impressed by the discipline the man seems to have in regards to his work. From what I could tell, he treats his profession very…umm…professionally. In fact, I’d almost guess that he’s the kind of guy who gets to the end of a well defined workday and feels he’s done with work for the day. Imagine that? In case you’re wondering, I’m not in any way trying to cast aspersions on Mr. Deaver’s commitment to his work, nor am I being the least bit sarcastic. With sincere admiration, I can see that Jeffery Deaver has found a way to succeed in an industry with a .0001 percent success rate. This is why I hate him.

Ha ha. I am kidding of course. In no way do I feel jealous of Mr. Deaver and his 24 books, many of them bestsellers. I don’t envy his trips around the world on book tours, his movie deals, his…Motha’-fu#$@ @@#$%#%!&*&(*!@##@$!…numerous writing awards. Indeed, I wish him continued success in all his endeavors and I very much (honestly) look forward to reading the next book of his that’s sitting on my night table.

While I don’t think I’ll ever write the literary equivalent of Crest or Colgate, I do think I can learn a great deal from Jeffery Deaver’s approach. One of his most significant pieces of advice was “Promise and don’t deliver.” I’m an impatient person. When I write a conflict, I often resolve a great deal of it as quickly as the story allows. I do this in part because I’m always in such a rush when I write since I always feel so far behind. Still, regardless of the reason, this lets me and (unfortunately) my readers, put my books down. But, I can fix that.

I can also fix my workflow. The trouble with feeling like I’m always behind schedule, always a week late on a homework assignment, is that I rarely feel I have the time to take the time to do things right. In school, one of the reasons I always did my homework at the last minute was that doings so forced me to do the minimum to get a good grade rather than letting myself get carried away with any particular assignment. But writing is not just some assignment. I want to get carried away. I need to. When the odds are a hundred thousand to one that you’ll be successful as an author, you not only need to be good, you’ve got to be brilliant. Jeffery Deaver was 40 when he began to write full time. I’ve still got time to “make it.” Perhaps instead of spending 8 minutes on a book outline followed by 8 years frantically trying to write said book, I can spend closer to Deaver’s 8 months. I can chip away and make gradual, but steady progress…while I keep my readers turning pages.

My books might not turn out to be pulse-pounding thrillers. They might be thought-provoking tragi-comic literary fiction instead, but if they’re compelling and well written…

When Jeffery Deaver polled the audience about what kind of toothpaste they used, most people used a major brand. But some of us, enough of us to be counted, used Tom’s.