Creating a Writing Group

[Snowman37]

Does anyone have any experience in creating a writing group/club? I want to put one together, I've set aside a notebook for putting everything together, and I've even created the front page for a website. Unfortunately, I only have two realistic participants. One is a best friend I see every week, the other is a friend who lives half an hour away but is genuinely interested. Three seems... a bit small. Suggestions on growth? In the mean time, is three people (including myself) too small to get started?

Thanks for all of the feedback.

[Jassy Melson]

Three isn't too small to get started, but you need to advertise it in some way in order for it to grow. Word of mouth is too slow. A notice in your local newspaper might do it.

[hillwalker]

Local press - libraries - book stores..... anywhere that you might attract fellow-readers and writers. Make it sound as relaxed as possible and people who might otherwise be daunted will come to check it out hopefully.

Best of luck

H

[MessyRoom]

Does anyone have any experience in creating a writing group/club? I want to put one together, I've set aside a notebook for putting everything together, and I've even created the front page for a website. Unfortunately, I only have two realistic participants. One is a best friend I see every week, the other is a friend who lives half an hour away but is genuinely interested. Three seems... a bit small. Suggestions on growth? In the mean time, is three people (including myself) too small to get started?

Thanks for all of the feedback.

I don't have any experience in creating a writing group/club but I'd love to help out. I've written a number of poems but haven't published any of them.

[Jozanny]

Does anyone have any experience in creating a writing group/club? I want to put one together, I've set aside a notebook for putting everything together, and I've even created the front page for a website. Unfortunately, I only have two realistic participants. One is a best friend I see every week, the other is a friend who lives half an hour away but is genuinely interested. Three seems... a bit small. Suggestions on growth? In the mean time, is three people (including myself) too small to get started?

Thanks for all of the feedback.

What are your qualifications, if I may ask, and do you have the goals of the group defined?

[Jassy Melson]

You don't need any qualifications to create a writers' group/club

[Snowman37]

Jassy: Do you really think word of mouth is too slow? I'm not looking to make a massive county-wide club. If there were 10-20 members, I'd be thrilled.

Hillwalker: There is a community college about twenty minutes from my house. I could see if the library would allow me to put up an advertisement for the writing group.

MessyRoom: What do you have in mind?

Jozanny: Qualifications? Well, I am outlining three stories that will be fleshed out into full-length novels. I have an additional forty stories on the back-burner that I am trying to develop. I have also written several poem-like writings. Muse, prose, poem; I'm not sure what to call them. I just write what spills out and read it at a monthly poetry meet I go to. How is that for qualifications? What kind of qualifications would you expect from the leader of a writing group? I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say in this. As a writer, I only have two directions: forward and up.

[Jozanny]

Jozanny: Qualifications? Well, I am outlining three stories that will be fleshed out into full-length novels. I have an additional forty stories on the back-burner that I am trying to develop. I have also written several poem-like writings. Muse, prose, poem; I'm not sure what to call them. I just write what spills out and read it at a monthly poetry meet I go to. How is that for qualifications? What kind of qualifications would you expect from the leader of a writing group? I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say in this. As a writer, I only have two directions: forward and up.

Most workshop facilitators have teaching experience and some sort of specific goals in mind, but given that this forum is what it is, good luck to you. I doubt you will find people who want to improve their writing will be all that interested if you yourself don't know your aims.

Even free work shops I have attended have been led by MFA candidates who have specific exercises, goals per meeting, and some skill in keeping the peace.

[Snowman37]

I'm not looking to assemble a professional writing group just yet. This is mostly experimental. I have no teaching experience, but I can generate stories in seconds. I know what makes a story work and what doesn't. I'm no grammar nor structure expert, but I know how to tell a story, and I know how to find resources. What goals do I have in mind? Well, I figured the group's goal could be to gather and express writing difficulties. The group overall would offer answers, feedback, resources, and more for the afflicted writer. Though I have no college degree to display my intelligence and knowledge, I am fully willing to admit what I don't know and learn so that I may lead and coordinate to my very best. Where as I could be the group leader, we could have a resident grammar expert, a resident poet, a resident critic, and so on. The idea is that each person would have a strong-suit to offer. What I can offer is the means to gather everyone together in one place and then bring peaceful cohesion, something I have a lot of experience with.

I like how you keep bringing up goals. What goals do you think a writing group should have? I'm all ears... or eyes if you will.

[Jozanny]

Right now I really don't have the time. I have no objections to your desire Snow, and maybe an informal group with you and friends is something that would please you, but what you and the other members want from it is also important. You posted you had three, maybe that is not so bad to start; it is intimate; maybe later you could seek an instructor's advice.

One thing: 40 is a big number of stories, and it shows enthusiasm, but clogs the pipes; limit yourself to a smaller idea file when you start. I keep a file, but only work on so many ideas per month. Good luck.

[Snowman37]

That is why I keep a Story Concepts notebook. I write down ideas as they beam into my brain, and then I can forget about them until another idea crops up. Right now, I'm just focusing on three stories.

I like your idea on consulting an instructor.

[Jozanny]

Starting small might also make finding your pace easier. I am exhausted from driving my new, obscenely slow, power chair. If I catch my second wind, I will stop by later and offer you a pointer or two. If you would come be my butler for a few hours then we'd have a quid pro quo...

[hillwalker]

Writers' Groups are mainly about sharing your work with others, gaining feedback and avoiding that feeling many writers have of being adrift and in isolation from their fellow scribes.
There's no need to have 'formal qualifications' or 'aims' for goodness sake unless you are starting a Creative Writing Course. Just relax and enjoy the experience.

H

[Jozanny]

My pointers, Snow, despite the egalitarian lack of either ambition or any form of serious focus in the LNF on writing as a craft, are as follows, concentrating on fiction, since this seems to be your interest:

..If you launch this, you could pick different areas to focus on at different times, maybe after the initial meeting, you could focus on dialogue for one practice session, practice exposition in another, and then character development, plot, and so forth, and or make exercises, like each of you writing a paragraph on "A man in a tux with a green carnation was walking toward us..." then have the group compare what they came up with.

I have been publishing since I was 23 years old, and it has cost me a tremendous amount of personal sacrifice to become the disabled writer I am today. I'm not young anymore. I have no children, not a great deal of money, my career is probably over unless I can carve out a small contract with some media outlet that gives me a lot of wiggle room for my health, and thus, I take my achievements and what I still wish to do seriously. I was like that in high school too, by the way, where I took a minor in journalism and was proud to stir a controversy with the district superintendent when I interviewed him over the driving school program, which had nothing to offer people like me. Fun is drinking at a party. Writing is my life, and if that offends the light-hearted youth, or those of you who want pleasant critiques, then so be it. I'm hard because my life is hard, even when I couldn't get a date for my senior prom, and sat in my kitchen in my manual chair with tears in my eyes. I'm harder still about my work.

Ignore me if it bothers you so much.

Edit: I used to post with a poet named Louise. She had the husband, kids, home, things that I might have hoped were possible but are now out of my reach. She countered one evening that, "writing isn't my life," and I suppose most of you would agree with that assertion. However, to publish good work takes hard work, whether you primarily "write for fun" or not.

SE Hinton was 16 when she conquered the young adult market with her novel The Outsiders, and she did not become an overnight sensation by not taking her fiction seriously.

[Jassy Melson]

Just try to start it and forget about any qualifications or how much someone has been published. The important thing is to get an associatin going.