How Joining a Writer's Group Will Improve Your Motivation to Write

Do you want to be a writer, but are having trouble with your motivation? Do you feel like you're out of touch with the writing world? Joining a writer's group in your area can help combat these and other roadblocks on your way to becoming a writer.

First off, I know that personally, as a writer, I have trouble with motivation. Unless you are able to devote yourself to writing full-time, you are probably experiencing the same things. We all have jobs, or children, or other obligations happening during the times that we may have been writing.

A few months ago, I joined a writer's group. The experience for me has been wonderful, and has greatly improved my writing, especially my motivation to write.

Remember in college, when we seemed to be juggling many commitments at once, and managed to get them all done? (Sometimes we even did well at all of them, too!) We were able to get everything done because of a little thing called time-management. When you are part of a writer's group, you will be expected to share your work with the group on a regular basis. This means you will have a deadline for your work to be finished and distributed to your group members, and you will have to find time to do it. For me, having a deadline and being required to fit in the work has helped me to remember to take time to write.

A benefit of making time to write means that you will be writing more often and more regularly. When you write on a regular basis, you will find that your ideas flow more freely, and you are less susceptible (although not immune!) to writer's block. I have found this an immense help-most of the time, the biggest hurdle in writing is that initial step, where you have to begin writing.

The casual atmosphere of the group will help to open up your writing. When we write, most of us try to make our words come out as close to perfect as possible; or edit our work furiously as it comes out. While these are grand and honorable notions, they inhibit our writing. Sometimes we just need to get words out on screen or paper, and deal with them after they are out. When you're trying to make your deadline for a writing group, getting content out is just as important, if not more important, than making sure it is perfect.

After all, the main purpose of a writing group is to have a group of people willing to critique your work and offer helpful suggestions. Sometimes having imperfect work is better than having your work as cut and dry as you would have liked, because great ideas can spring from flaws. At our last writing group meeting, for example, a fellow writer had written a scene with much description of the scene's particular location. When members of our group read it, we pointed this out to the writer, and not only did it help him to revise the scene, but our suggestions for the location also gave him a great ideas for plot later on in the piece.

As your writing begins to open up, you will find that it is more enjoyable to write, and the time-management associated with writing will become less stressful. Joining a writing group will make you want to write more, because you will remember how much fun it is to write!