Massage Heresy

Riding my cross-country mountain bike down the hill to the former mill that’s now a co-working space. No hands on the bars, contemplating if the front suspension is doing anything. A car behind me lays on the horn. I’m unphased. They pass. They’re fat. So it goes.

I’m in the office on a Zoom call for a co-writing cohort class. The organizer says, “focused, structural, tactical plan and vision for what you’re going to be writing about.”

I leave the call. 

This cost $400. It’s yet to prove itself. The value, for me, is not in the how-to instruction, nor in listening to the others complain or boast, or share what city they live in, the value is in the feedback from those who read, contemplate and criticize my work. 

I should print my work before it’s gone. No internet would mean 99% of my writing disappears. An anonymous decision-maker at Google, perhaps a pure silicon algorithm, could zero out years of thinking. Or the data center could be bombed, flooded or unplugged, and it’s all gone. It…