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Exactly one year ago tonight I started writing this thing that I decided
to call "Living Groups". The idea was to write a series of stories taken
from my life dealing with the issues which were foremost in my mind. They
would be under a thin guise of fiction, making use of characters whose names
would have several meanings to reflect their most defining characteristics.
By telling myself that I was writing fiction, I hoped to avoid the hang-ups
that I might have otherwise had about writing about the intimate details of
my life.
I wasn't really sure that it would last for very long, I figured that I'd
write a few chapters and that then this odd compulsion towards openning myself
up to whoever chanced across the pages would burn itself out.
Obviously, it didn't. Brutal honesty was both addictive to me and
alluring to others. Slowly, I began to get email from people who read LG.
Some of them liked it, a few felt that I so captured what they were felling
that it was like I was writing about them, and a few seemed to hate it
venomously. I've recieved two marriage proposals from strangers who chanced
upon LG, three threats of legal action, and many replies covering the spectrum
between. Sometimes I've wished that I had never started writing LG, a few
times I've decided to take all of it down, but every time I've found myself
unable to stop, unable to walk away from it; and every time I get an email
from someone thanking me for posting "Living Groups", I remember why.
A few people have told me that I have no right to write about the
intimate details of other people's lives. These are usually the people who,
only a little while before, were hinting at how badly they wanted to be in
LG. As far as I'm concerned, I write about myself and my life; other people
are brought in only as they impact my life. It sounds selfish, I know, but
I'm not trying to be a biographer.
In honor of the one year anniversary of "Living Groups", I'm posting both
a story that is similar to, but precluded, LG and the One Hundreth Chapter.
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