The Writing Group that Meets: A Personal Experience On Improving My Craft

Writing groups are featured often in my writing because they are so dear to me. What better way to improve upon the time honored craft of novelists and freelancers than get a second opinion? It could be a third and fourth opinion or larger if you're in a writing group that has a high number of members.

Perhaps the oldest way for writers to get together and share writings is the writing group. It's been used throughout history, not always as a means to get published, but to meet people with similar interests. A lot can be said for an online writing group, and how it might be superior, but I learned just as much about the basics of writing in the groups that met as the ones that were online.

Foremost in the person-to-person writing group is you can make buddies with the other writers easier, not to mention the fact many might be published. My first writing group was part of "Artist's Way" a successful book by Julia Cameron that had writers and artists of all kinds meet together. I wasn't used to sharing my writing experiences with others, as I had few, but the groups continued even when I left them. When I finally stayed I thought it more a social event-which was what I needed-than a sharing of writing ideas. Members would state how many pages they had written that week, what sort of art activities they had participated in, and perhaps their dreams of publication.

This "Artist's Way" group led to another writing group with a few of the same people. There were four of us, and instead of focusing on creativity, we made a decision to share actual writings with each other in the hopes of getting published.

There was only one person who had been published in a major magazine-for the tidy sum of $80-when we met.

The problem was, even then I would be afraid of sharing my writing with others. I wasn't the most social person, and rarely had much to say on other member's writing; this improved. I finally started to write what I thought were some quality short stories. I even shared one with the group and, to my surprise, they liked it, thought I had found the jackpot.

It led me into taking writing as a serious profession; one I could succeed in. The group wasn't all cute-and-nice either: I shared this same story with online writing groups later and most of the people thought I had something working in it.

More importantly, this first real writing group led me to write more than I ever had. Since then I've written a novel, dozens of short stories, comic scripts, over a hundred articles, and currently have the job as an editor for my college newspaper. This original writing group allowed me to dream, to think of new avenues in writing, and, more importantly, that I truly had something interesting to say.

It's been years since I've been in a person-to-person writing group. I now participate in many online writing groups, but it isn't the same. In the writing profession, one needs guidance and mentors in developing their voice. It's safe to say that, if you haven't been in a writing group, you might be surprised how much of a help it can be.