Writers Groups

I love writers groups. I love them so much that I have two, three if you count Codex--the online writing community that I have the privilege to be a part of. If you want to write, more importantly if your goal of writing is to make it the best you possibly can, there is nothing much better than finding yourself a good writing group.

Each of my groups offers me a unique look at my writing. The first group started out as several of the writers that I attended Orson Scott Card's literary bootcamp. It has changed a bit over the years with a few great additions, but the quality of critiques I get have never changed. There are members of this group who have published their writing, there are members who are line editing pros, there are members who strive to make all my science fiction plausible. It is a great group and I wish our busy schedules allowed us to meet more than once a month.

Since I need more of a push to meet deadlines, I took a chance a little over a year ago when I was invited to joy a stay at home mom writers group. We meet once a week and while the kids run around crazy we talk writing. At first I wasn't so sure about this group (sorry girls). I only knew one member and not well. I wasn't sure how serious they were in their writing. I didn't know how to handle critique feedback because I didn't know the personalities of the other members. But I stuck with it, and over the past year these talented wonderful women have not only become my writing lifeline, they have become my dear friends.

In our short time as a group three of us have completed novels and our resident picture book author has put together three or four great story books. We have talked, laughed, cried, and learned. We have had lunches with published authors including, Dave Wolverton, Dan Wells and E.J. Patton. We have pushed each other, ripped apart whole chapters, and have all become better writers. This group keeps me writing. We meet once a week, and now that all the kids are out of school and getting together weekly with that many young ones is harder, we have been doing an online video chat instead, which has been awesome, with a once a month no kids allowed night planned.

So, if you love to write, and you want to get better, by all means write, go to workshops, read a ton, do what you are doing, and then find yourself a writers group. Hopefully you will find one as amazing as mine are!

Write On!