Week 24 – Writer’s groups: to join, or not to join…

For a variety of reasons, I haven’t had a lot of time to think about my post this week. However, I didn’t want to miss a week out so decided to write about a subject on my mind – writer’s groups.

I have considered joining a group for a while, but was able to put it off during my writing courses because of the feedback on forums. I have a very helpful writer friend who will always give me feedback that points out strengths and weaknesses and whose opinion I respect, plus another published writer has given me an open offer of support. I have also used on-line groups with people who I have met through my writing courses. All of these methods are fine, but lack both regularity and structure – courses end, people move on, and sometimes it can feel as though you are taking too much of another’s time.

I am cautious about on-line writer’s groups in general because although I know I own the copyright to my work, putting things onto unknown groups does feel risky, especially if they are quite new. I also know that some magazines and competitions won’t accept work that had previously been posted on-line, if they are open sites (eg I cannot post work on this blog if I want to send it to a magazine/competition at some point). So, logically, a physical group makes sense for me.

But how do you find the right group? Well, the National Association of Writer’s Groups is a good starting point (http://www.nawg.co.uk/) – they have a list of groups by area. Leaf Books also has a list (http://leafbooks.co.uk/New/For%20Writers/Writers%27%20Groups.html), I think this is a new endeavour for them as the listings are quite short at the moment, but still worth a try. Fiction Garden also do a list, split by county (http://www.fictiongarden.co.uk/writersgroups.html).  I’m sure there are others, but these are the first I found on a search.

The other way is to go into your preferred search engine and type writer’s groups in @/ near @. This gave me a list of nearly 9 million results when I just put a county, so be as specific as you can!

After that, you need to know if your style of writing will fit with the group – for example, if you write crime novels, but the group is made up of people who write children’s books, you may not get the specific advice you require.  Equally, if the group is predominantly designed for prose, a poet may feel their work is misunderstood.

Finally, you must consider the practicalities.  One group sounded interesting to me, but I would have needed to join 2 groups – one for prose and one for poetry – and it was surprisingly expensive.  Another was advertised in a really positive and welcoming way, but the location and times were awkward and I could imagine rush hour traffic being the bane of my writing group nights.

So where does that leave me?  Well, with a bit more research to do, but a sense that at least I am making some progress.  A group that was recommended to me by a local writer looks promising, so I shall read up a bit more about them and make a decision.  If I can’t make it work any other way, I may just set up my own group!

I would be interested to hear anyone’s experiences of these groups – either for writers, or for musicians or crafters.  Do you think the groups are useful?  What do you think are the most important elements to consider?

If you want to share your thoughts, let me know in the comments.  In the meantime, happy writing,

EJ

🙂