Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
Copyright 2020 Melanie Spiller. All rights reserved.
Finding a Writers Group
Melanie Spiller and Coloratura Consulting
I was lucky. Someone I knew invited me to an existing group, and I was just exactly ready to ramp
up my efforts on my travel guide. And the group was exactly what I was looking for in terms of
skills and submissions from the others.
I’ve seen ads on Craigslist (and other similar places) and there are organizations you can join, too.
In my area (San Francisco), there are several companies that specialize in monitored writing. They
have a place that you show up at the same time as the usual crowd, like a class. Only instead of
having a teacher or any sharing, everyone sits there and writes for the time period. Some people
are really helped by the community of it, even if there isn’t anyone reading what you’ve written.
Classes are a good place to get feedback. You can take them at the local university or junior
college, and adult education or continuing education often offer things under the heading of
“creative writing.” As I mentioned in the first blog about writers’ groups, you are likely to find
inexperienced writers if you do that, but perhaps that is appropriate for you, and better, you will
connect with people who share your interest and can form your own group.
I have one friend who just wants to exchange chapters. She needs a deadline and some sort of
penalty (embarrassment, I guess) if she doesn’t deliver. She’s interested in feedback, but she’s
more interested in just getting the words on the page and has trouble motivating herself to do that
without a deadline imposed by someone other than herself. She’s not in a position to commit to a
weekday evening every week, so she drops things in my email. I like to read them, but I don’t
always give her feedback. It depends on whether I think it’ll fire her up or grind her to a halt.
I have another friend who posts to her blog (she writes mostly poetry), which is great for getting
feedback from the general public, rather than a set of known contributors. It’s a one-way street,
though. You never know what she does with the feedback.
I know of a group that formed at a coffee shop. Several people would sit in there pounding away
on their keyboards. They seemed to all be on the same schedule, and someone breached the gap
and asked if the others were working on novels. The rest, as they say, is history. I believe that they
still meet in the coffee shop, but now they have a writing session and a feedback session.
Participant Profiles
My group is quite varied in its participants. I would say that there are comparable skills all around
the table, but our interests are very different. Two are writing mysteries, but one novel is creepy
and the other, well, it isn’t exactly cozy, but it’s not a psychological thriller either. One writes about
a certain time period in a certain place, all contemporary. There may be some political or social
statements being made, but we are swept up in the story and may only see these when it’s over.
Another writes about sexual encounters, or near-sexual encounters, but it’s not erotica. It’s just
story lines with a lot of heavy breathing. I’m writing historical fiction and I previously woodshedded
a travel guide with the same group.
We’ve had essayists, travel guides (other than mine), art criticism, self-help books, fantasy novels,
and children’s books. We apparently have some proscription against poetry (although I don’t know
why or where the sentiment came from—it could just be tradition).
The factor that has been much the same among us all is that we are all actively writing, and for
most of us, this is not our first book. A lot is learned by just writing until it’s finished, and whether
you woodshed the drafts or the next revisions or start something completely new, experience is the
common thread.
A couple of us write in our day jobs, although the subject matter is very different, and we often talk
about how we keep fresh for our personal work. Several of us read about publishing, or take
classes on the craft, or attend conferences and workshops. We share what we’ve learned at our
meetings, and occasionally lend a book or set up a class. More than one of us is in more than one
writing group.
We do spend some time commiserating about getting agents, writing cover letters or synopses,
and the minutia of getting published. We do not spend time whining about finding time to write. No
apologies are needed if all you do are the NTEs, and if you’ve just finished something, so long as
you’re still providing feedback, you’re still welcome.
People do bow out when they stop producing and they don’t see a change in their habits coming
soon. Several former members have finished their books and felt burned out, and didn’t want to
feel the monthly pressure to contribute, even though we weren’t the ones supplying it (they
supplied it on their own). A couple of people found it too intense, another had trouble with travel
schedules, and so forth. A couple of people have moved away.
We don’t know what happened to our mythical member who owns the NTE cards.
I hope he writes about his adventures, though.