So Kay and I had a writing group, but we weren't doing the Artist's Way, at least not together. I had given a copy of the book to Toni when she left Boise Weekly and she called me up a couple of years after when she was working at The Idaho Statesman and told me that she had met a woman who had a copy of the book too, but neither she nor the woman, Abby, had done any of the chapters. She thought we should start an Artist's Way group. I had always been more of a loner, but the writing group had made me more open to trying the group thing. So I said yes. We set up a meeting. Of course, Toni never showed up for the meeting. So there I was with a woman I had never met before, and both of us sort of miffed at Toni for bailing on us. We called her and she apologized, but she never, ever made it to a meeting. Abby and I got to know each other and decided to go on without her. We started out and signed the contract. It turned out to be fun, and we didn't worry about doing each chapter perfectly, we just did the best we could and we followed the rule of completing a chapter and meeting each week. It also turned out that Abby had lost 100 pounds doing the Atkins diet, and I had previously lost 60 pounds and at Christmas time had gone off the diet plan and had gained back 25 pounds, so I went back on the diet and we came up with some creative ways to make it more interesting. We would get together and each cook three or four dishes and then we'd portion them out so that we each had a few days of meals with more variety than if we'd just cooked for ourselves. It made it easier to stay on the plan if we had meals planned out and ready. So that was an added bonus for the meetings, two goals with one group.
On the Artist's Way we would sometimes meet more than once a week and we went out and had prime rib or steak a lot. That got expensive, but it was fun. Every once in a while we'd postpone the finishing of a chapter for a week, but mostly we stuck to the program. We even had what we called a rolling retreat when we finished the twelve week program. We drove the loop on Labor Day weekend from Boise to Stanely and then to Sun Valley and back to Boise. I even had a great spirtual moment in Stanley.
Next a friend of Abby's from the Statesman either was given "The Artist's Way" by Abby or Abby talked her into getting the book. Anyway, they wanted to do the book again. In the meantime, I had given a friend of mine, Carey, the book. So we decided to start a new group and do the book again. There was a brief argument over how to proceed, but I think that stemmed from the fact that it was the first time I had disagreed with Abby and she thought that my disagreeing meant I was in a bad mood and angry, but I wasn't angry, I just disagreed. However, her interpretation of my disagreement as being angry in turn actually did make me angry. But we got over it. It's amazing to me that people don't deal with disagreement well. They take it personally, not realizing that if that were indeed true that all disagreement was a personal attack, then no one would be able to disagree without hurting someone's feelings. No one could voice their own opinion. Since I hadn't disagreed with her before somehow she assumed that I would always agree. Doesn't make sense to me either, but as I said, we got over it and are still friends to this day.
What I was learning was that joining a group that had some goal(s) in common with what I myself wanted to achieve was a good way to accomplish things. It made me more accountable. For some reason I'm more accountable to other people than just to myself. Although I don't think that's unusual either. A lot of advice about setting goals tells you to make your goals public- let everyone know. It also made me more flexible. I got over trying to do the book perfectly and then quitting when I couldn't. Flexibility is a double-edged sword, though as I will eventually talk about when I come to the group I'm presently in. But learning that a group could make goal achieving reality and also had the added benefit of socializing which is good for us loners, made me more open to trying it again in other situations.
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