Volunteering in Belize

The fiction-writers' critique group was canceled last Friday, but everyone seems excited for the next meeting November 6th. According to the e-mail list, there are six women in this group, now seven including me. The leader of the group seemed pleased that I am writing fantasy fiction, since no one else is doing that genre and when I introduced the fantasy of it she was "hooked" and implied that she was happy it was not another historical romance! I guess that's a popular genre.

Another opportunity to help people of another country came up this past week. The deacon of my church knows how I feel about global humanitarianism and suggested that I join the Millennium Goals Committee. This committee has been raising funds to house a group of volunteers who will be making a trip to Belize to help at the Holy Cross Anglican School for extremely poor children. These are mostly the children of laborers who helped build expensive resorts on the water but who return each day to swampland given to the people by the government with promises of it providing electricity, water, and sanitation--promises that were never fulfilled. Still, the people built shelters on the swamp out of anything they could find and the only local private school filled up quickly.

Holy Cross Anglican Primary School in Belize.

A nice pair of tourists to the expensive resort saw that the local children were not in school and so began the project of building Holy Cross Anglican School, a K-8 school with over 400 students and 15 teachers, principal, and vice principal thankfully paid by the government. The school relies on donations to provide educational materials, food, uniforms, and the buildings. The nurse and an admin are also paid with donated funds.

The road to the school.

I spoke to the mission leader who said that a group of volunteers was going to help the school Jan. 24-31, and that one of these volunteers had dropped out of the trip. She told me that I was very welcome to come, and that my costs would be airfare and food, or between $700-1,000. Accommodations were paid for through group fundraisers. I spoke to my husband about it, but he didn't support the idea at all. It was a very negative conversation, but later, we had another more positive conversation about it. Jon said that he would support me going if I could raise the money outside of my job and other income. But still, I know he will be distressed if I choose to go. His job is cutting his hours and we will be struggling to make ends meet. Yes, $1,000 is a lot of money when you think of bills. Then again, $1,000 is NOT a lot of money when you think about an opportunity to help poor children in Belize.

I have until the end of the week to make the decision of whether to go. I really want to go. It's not Afghanistan, a people I have studied and advocated and supported for a very long time; but people truly interested in helping the poor in developing countries do not selfishly pick and choose who they help. They just do what they can to help those in need. Also, I need to research Belize but it is not involved in a dangerous war with the US, definitely a plus. (To drive this point home, a group of UN humanitarians was killed in Kabul this morning, including one American. This city is where WOHP works.) And, by going to Belize, I can employ my own unique skills to helping people. I can help in the library; I can help children and even their teachers improve their reading and writing skills. I would love to teach the children poetry.

I do not want to jump the gun, but I talked about this with my mom and cited money as one of the deciding factors. She offered to transfer her frequent flyer miles to me, essentially paying the airfare part of the trip. I was so, so touched! How could I refuse? I plan on showing Jon the PowerPoint and talking to him more about Belize after his birthday, which is tomorrow.

Invitation Extended!

I have been invited to attend the next meeting of the fiction-writers' critique group, tomorrow night! I am so happy!


I am not sure if this is an invitation to become a member, or more like a meet-and-greet coupled with their regular meeting before deciding on my acceptance. Anyway, as long as they are giving me a chance, I feel like I am pretty much a part of this group now. I am relieved and heartened that they think my writing has some community value. This is just the motivation I need to continue writing.

Call for Members Removed

Well, I looked on the writers' guild's website to look for new information and noticed that the call for members--the byline I responded to which sought 3-4 "SERIOUS FICTION WRITERS" to bring the group to an ideal 8--was removed from the web page.

At first, I was elated. I thought it was a good sign that they thought enough of my sample to stop looking for members.

Then I thought, Well, no--it MAY mean that they were inundated with samples from all sorts of writers eager to join the group, and so the leader removed the add so they could wade through all of the hopefuls.

Plus, the fact that they took down the add means that I, one person, responded to a search for 2 or 4 people, and so at the VERY least, 3 OTHER people asked to join, and so they need all the more time to read samples and consider multiple others.

Others who may have had longer samples--who may have made more heartfelt appeals to join--who have more experience, more writer's chops--who don't have intrusive jobs, and who are able to crank out words like there's no tomorrow. Maybe people with stronger connections to writers and bigger publishers than mine. People with published titles and friends in high places.

I wish I could know, already, so I can stop being insecure and start seeing where I truly stand.

Sample Received by Group

Arg! Apparently my e-mail didn't go through to the critique group leader. In response to a follow-up e-mail, I was asked to resend. So really, the group received my sample today.

I also think I shouldn't wait to see what the group says before continuing to write. I am going to write this thing regardless (right? right?) so I shouldn't let waiting on anyone else's approval hold me up from laying my plans and achieving my goals!

Sample Submitted

Well, today I completed about 15 pages of double-spaced writing. It makes me nervous that I take so long to write. Am I talented enough? Will they think I am too slow? Am I too slow for this group? If they don't reject me, am I signing up for another year-plus of stress?

The thing is, if I don't become part of a writing community, I don't think there is any way that I will write this book. I will just have to try and take things one step at a time: submit the sample, hear back, and then IF I get into this group, I will hear how often they meet and how much they write prior to each meeting, etc. Only at that time can I really understand what I am getting myself into and decide whether or not I can handle it.

I am not sure how long they need to read the sample. I know that the leader of the group wanted to distribute it to the group, so I assume they need the time to read it as a group and make a group decision about whether they want to take me in. Geez, I hope they like my genre.

The best I can do now is check my email often. God, I hope this is the door you wanted to open for me, and that I did my best to get invited through it.

Writing a Sample

The critique group for the local writers' guild was expecting a sample of my writing at the beginning of the week, but things came up and I wasn't able to expand on the few pages I'd started out with. Tonight, after taking care of my dog, I will pack up the laptop and go mobile. I think I will go to the library and, if they are closed or closing early, I may just go to a coffee shop and continue. I am just afraid that if I stay at home, I will just surf the Internet and snack or watch TV. I really want to have at least 10 pages to send to these people.

My Blogging Experience

When I first converted my blog from an interactive classroom blog as a student into the documentation of my MA toward my PhD, I thought that this blog would be solely a record of my experiences as a student. More and more, I think of it as writing out my future. Writing is cathartic, and helps me to figure out my priorities as well as keep track of my decision-making process and when and how I come to conclusions.

At some point this year, I really took an objective look at going for the PhD and decided to take that ambition off the table for now. I have so many other goals in life that would be incredibly hampered by taking on such a long, rigorous program--as well as the financial expense of doing so. In short, I have (1) prioritized other life commitments, (2) found the necessity of moving to attend a good program and moving to maximize the possibility of tenure too extreme, (3) and consider it a debilitating financial investment that would have too little (economic) return. These three reasons thread through innumerable other reasons that make up my conclusion to consider going for a PhD a "later in life" experience--say, when my future children are teenaged.

With that said, those of you who follow this blog can make the choice to either stick with me, or drop your readership for other academic blogs. I believe A Series of Sojourns, at this point, is going to take a "creative writing log" sort of turn. In any case, the path of one's future is not set in stone, but as you can see from my most recent post on Thresholds, I have far too many paths to choose from to make a definitive life plan (and this bugs me!).

For me, this blog will retain its basic purpose as a record of my life choices and an aid in documenting the hard work and accomplishments that I forsee for myself. I hope you will still drop in and offer encouragement!