Do a Writers' Group Right

My most recent writers' group very non-metaphorically fell apart. We started with 6, then had a solid 4 going for a while and were then down to 3. It wasn't pleasant, but it was educational. I've learned some things about what works and what doesn't, at least as far as my ideal writers' group is concerned.

My ideal group is one with 5-7 members, which meets regularly (at least once every 2 to 4 weeks), and which can viably continue this way for years. I'm not interested in the mega-groups with 30 members, where there's a calendar for when it's someone's turn to be critiqued, or where every person gets 30 seconds to talk at each meeting. I'm also not interested in a group that has a revolving door approach to membership. I'm not knocking these group types; I just know they don't work for me. With these criteria in mind, I give you my hard-won wisdom-waxings.

How to Do a Writers' Group Right:

Keep it (at least somewhat) genre-specific.

Don't try to have fantasy and memoir and poetry and science writing all in one group. The conventions of each genre (or category or type) of writing can be very different from each other and it can be difficult to switch gears so dramatically when critiquing. The things needed to make a good memoir aren't the same things needed to make a good article on particle accelerators. 

Writers are often strongest at critiquing the genre in which they themselves write (because they've taken the time to learn its conventions and read a lot of its examples, ideally). The task of jumping from one mindset to another can sometimes be too daunting.

Everyone should have either an existing or a growing BODY of work. 

For a writers' group to be sustainable over a long period of time, to grow into a comfortable haven for creativity and work, its members' must regularly have writing to critique. Each member must have a reason to be in it for the long haul, and that reason will more often than not be that they have pieces (or pieces of pieces) to workshop. This could mean some members have novel-length manuscripts, while others have a number of short stories and are working on more. 

Someone who only has enough work to submit for one or two meetings will likely do one of two things: 1) Keep bringing back the same exact piece(s) for re-critique after re-critique, to the point where the group will genuinely not have any new feedback to give (which helps no one, least of all the writer) or 2) Stop coming to the group after they've exhausted the few pieces they did have. 

Criticism should always be constructive.
"Constructive" means the following: helpful, useful, meaningful, honest. "Constructive" cannot be any of the following: mocking, rude, judgmental, dismissive, mean or personally-attacking. Constructive criticism is also not unadulterated flattery and unwavering praise. Constructive criticism is aimed at building the work and its writer, not tearing it down or keeping it stagnant. Group members must be able to articulate what works and what doesn't in each others' pieces, in a way that is neither offensive nor placating. 

Members should be open to (constructive) criticism.
Writers must come to a critique with the ability to step back from their work and see where/how it can be improved, without getting angry or obstinate that their work is imperfect. They should not be argumentative or dismissive or lash out when receiving criticism ("You just didn't understand it!" or "Well, I didn't mean it that way!"). 

Receiving criticism on something as close to the vest as writing is never easy, unless you're not at all invested (in which case, get out of my hypothetical writing group, please). It always stings a little; it may even elicit a fight-or-flight response. 

What matters is resisting the impulse to interrupt, or argue with, someone who is critiquing your work. What matters is being able to respect the person's critique (even if you disagree, even if you end up not taking their advice, etc.). 

Set goals and ground rules.
Maybe some members want to get their novels publisher-ready in the near future. Others may be building a short story collection. Some may have more specific goals pertaining to some aspect of the craft (write better action sequences, improve dialogue, etc.). It's a good idea to get a sense of what people want, need and will contribute to the group.

It's also important to decide what rules (or guidelines) are needed to help the group run smoothly. Maybe no one speaks while his/her own pieces are being critiqued, only getting to comment when all those critiquing have finished. Maybe there's a strict lateness policy. Maybe you set a time limit for how long each person speaks and really stick to it.

Make sure, though, that you make these decisions democratically. While it may be good to have a facilitator, there should be no overlord in a writers' group.

Deadlines, Plans and the Internet is for Writers

Project V word count: 92,365

Still in the first draft phase, of course. The self-imposed deadline for finishing that is Friday (August 31st). I'm strangely calm, because I do feel I'm more or less first-draft-done (and really, first-draft-exhausted).

Next comes editing/revising. I've already ordered James Scott Bell's Plot & Structure — which a good friend and fellow writer calls indispensable — and it's slated to arrive on the morrow. The plan is to remove myself completely from Project V whilst reading Plot & Structure (and maybe a few other things), and return with fresh eyes. Meanwhile, I'll perhaps focus my energies on submitting some short stories for publication, because I did say I was going to do that this year.

Also, iTunes U has a creative writing course taught by the uber-pros (Updike, Irving, Oates and others). Fo' free. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. You can learn more about it on Lamplight & Ink.

The End is (Sort of) Near...Maybe

I'm close to wrapping up Project V. Somewhere around 87k words. Holla! Ok, I'll stop that.

Annnd...I'm stuck. Stuckity-stuck-stuck like someone dipped my brain in molasses and then threw it at a wall. Ouch.

I can't get to my big climax scene because I keep thinking all the scenes preceding it are wrong and need to be different. But, I refuse to backpedal. I will probably just end up writing different versions of those scenes and then figuring which I like best, fyi. But, I'm trying to slog forward as it were, right now.

I've set myself a deadline of the end of August for this, so maybe I've been slacking because I figure "Oh, 3 more weeks is plenty of time." It's not though, it's really not. Or, maybe, I'm hoping to channel my inner student who procrastinated til the last minute and then just banged it out.

Ok, I'm done wallowing. I'm going to try writing again. Wish me luck.

I'm a Writer

No, I haven't published anything since last I blogged. No, I haven't reached some grand milestone in a WIP. No, I haven't received an exceptional critique or a giant pat on the back/nudge forward. Yes, I did write more yesterday than the 2 previous days combined. But no, that has nothing to do with it.

I'm a writer because I feel like a writer, think like one and behave like one. And react like one. In mind, body and spirit.

This was all spelled out for me tonight, when what was to be a relaxed dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in weeks turned into a friggin' short story/sitcom episode before my very eyes. I mean, this thing had a plot and everything. That's right, y'all...

It was, I'm happy to say, character-driven. There was definitely conflict, both internal and external. Humor. Great dialogue. Tension. Even a little irony. And fate (or chance, whatever you want to call it).

And when it was over...when I'd processed it as a person in the situation...I wrote it down. I wrote it in an email to a friend, as a story, with buildup and intrigue and all that stuff (well, granted, it was the rough draft of what would actually pass for a decently told story. But I'm telling you, the elements were there). Because, no matter how crummy it was to live the story, it's a pretty darn good story. And the part of me that didn't want to wait to tell the story over the phone? The part that knew it was better told in writing, once some perspective had been gained and some alcohol consumed? Writer.

This isn't a big story. It isn't sweeping or harrowing, really. In the grand scheme of things, it amounts to being in the right wrong place at the right wrong time and just accepting that, and going with it.

It's late. I'm sort of tired (and really hot). I'll leave you with this great quote from Woody Allen:

"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television." 

The Write-Over

In life, we seldom get do-overs. No second chance to make a first impression and all that jazz. We say the wrong thing at a job interview, an important occasion, or to a date, and we don't get to take it back. (Let me be clear that I when I use the word "say" I don't just mean "vocalize" I mean in all situations where we're live-broadcasting our thoughts via some sort of communication. Texts, IMs, body language, monosyllabic grunts, whatever.) We miss the 3-point shot in the final seconds and lose the game.

Sometimes we're lucky and the flub is no big deal. Sometimes recovering is easy. Sometimes it's not the final seconds of the game, or the thing we've just said isn't quite so heinous as to make everyone in our vicinity cringe, wince and back away slowly.

Of course, that doesn't stop some of us from agonizing over every single one of these moments and wishing we could brush them away and say/do something more clever, breezy, thoughtful or sensical instead. And that's the problem, isn't it? Because we can't. Whether we've royally screwed ourselves or barely made a ripple in the situation, we can't actually go back and undo what's done. We can try to mend, but sometimes that only makes things worse.

Not so with writing, with WIPs at least. Because there's editing. If we write an awful, terrible, hideous sentence that makes us red-faced to even think about, we can go back to it. We can improve it. Or we can just plain get rid of it. Strike it from the record. No one will ever have to know, except for us, but even we'll forget eventually.

And that, my dear friends, is how writing is sometimes not like life. And why being a writer can, maybe sorta a little bit, make life a wee bit harder. Because that exacting, editing perfectionism? That desire/need to always make it better? That illusion that there's always another chance to get it right (or at least right-er)? All of those do more harm than good when you're doing just about anything other than editing. And of course, that bastard self-doubt — who's just about every writer's least favorite, but  most persistent cover-hogging, bedfellow — makes us even more prone to second-guessing and wishing for magic wands that don't exist.

On a not totally unrelated note...

"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all
And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of thought"
- Hamlet

The Writer's Best Frenemy

I read this article called "Brain Games for Procrastinators" on Beyond The Margins and my neurons started firing like my mind's the O.K. Corral. The author brings up the age-old instant gratification vs. long-term rewards question that's so tied to our (everyone's, but especially writers') penchant for procrastinating, and the role of willpower and metacognition in the equation.

The thing that makes procrastination and instant gratification so darn seductive to me is this: Long-term rewards are not guaranteed an aspiring writer. (Warning: I'm about to say the things you're even not supposed to think. And no, I don't usually think like this, but sometimes, I do.)

I could sit diligently, piously, for hours a day, banging out a novel, only to find that at the end of it all there is no real reward for my efforts. It could be crap. It could be a huge disappointment. Everyone might hate it. I might hate it. It might convince me that I am the worst writer ever to cast her shadow on this earth.

That's the fear talking, yes, that's the insecurity. But, they're real things for many writers. Especially for those of us who haven't had much in the way of grand scale validation (ie: publication, fandom, etc.).

Maybe it's also a little bit of residual immaturity, because we're supposed to get better at being patient, and at planning, the older we get. We're supposed to ween ourselves off our instant gratification addictions — save that money for later, instead of splurging it on a cute top; go for the fruit instead of the cookie because when it's all tallied up, the fruits will do us better — and choose instead the path of powering through toward a better sometime-down-the-line. Easier said.

The problem with writing is rarely knowing at any point before the very end of a WIP whether there will actually be any reward (beyond the satisfaction of finishing it, but more on that soon). It isn't like those diet plans where you're "guaranteed" to lose X pounds a week if you stick to it, no matter how rough the going is. It isn't like saving money you'd otherwise spend on "frivolous" things, where you can actually see the funds accumulating (even if they're only doing so at a snail's pace).

To use the ship-at-sea metaphor from the article: Writing is a lot like being in the middle of the ocean, with a vague idea of how to read the stars and a compass that may or not actually work. There could be land up ahead and you could reach it if you just keep going, but you're not certain of this. And if there is land, you don't know whether it's a) the land you're looking for or b) actually inhabitable. And damn if it isn't hot and damn if you wouldn't rather just sit in the shade drinking rum!

So, I propose the following compromises (to myself and you, whoever you are, reading this):

1. Set some sort of achievable daily goal. I do word counts, because that's easiest. Don't ask me how or why, but I do generally feel a little better when I hit the goal. The instant gratification is in having accomplished something that I can both qualify and quantify. Yes, the reward is small, but I've made a piece of something that wasn't there yesterday. 
2. Make the journey the destination (yeah, cheese alert, I know). Maybe you're not enjoying the act of writing, maybe it's frustrating and really hard. But, maybe that's OK. Maybe there's something to learn from those moments. My yoga teacher (who's also a writer) talks a lot about observing how we feel in our postures, when we're breathing. I think that's an interesting concept for writers, to just observe whether writing one day is easier/harder, better/worse, than the previous day, without chastising ourselves or congratulating ourselves. I guess what I'm saying is: try to get something other than the end product out of doing the writing.  
3. Reward yourself externally, if you must. Hey, some days, you really do need to ply yourself with high quality chocolate and the promise of a good glass of wine in order to git-er-done. 
4. Don't limit yourself to the keyboard. Sometimes I find there's a lot less pressure (and more ease) in hand-writing in my writers' notebook/journal, than typing into a document. And, it means that the writing can get done anywhere, without the need to lug around a laptop. You could write while you sit outside enjoying the sunshine, while you wait for your meal at a restaurant, while on public transit. Bonus to this one: no chance of being distracted by the Internet.

And now, for some legit writing. 

The Randoms

It's been a while. Hey! I'm going to write a list.

• My writing class friend and I started a writers' group. Our second meeting is this Saturday. Works are eclectic in nature, style, subject matter and genre. Members seem like good people. Looking forward to delving, connecting, etc. 

• I've been working and not working on Project V. Word count is somewhere around 50k. I'm aiming for around 80k. Not sure I've got another 30k to say. I know, I know: I should just write it. 
• I'm still on the fence about workshopping early chapters of a WIP. Why? Because then I risk getting stuck on all the things I gotta go back and fix and lose momentum. 
• I've been playing around with other things and not focusing on Project V as much. All along, when things got too stressful/blocked there, I would take a day or two to work on something else (a short story, perhaps) so that I didn't just have V going for me. But, it's been several weeks, probably, since I wrote on V on my computer. I've jotted down things in my journal and even written a few scenes there. But, I've been distracted by other projects.

• I haven't read an entire book in months. A (different) friend pointed this out to me and asked how I'll ever reach my goal of reading 50 books this year, given that I've only read 2 books this year (well, 3, if you count the North Carolina Driver's Handbook...and I plan to). 
• I've started books. I've started about 4 of them. I even made myself promise to finish the latest one I started. 
• Despite how hard I can be on myself, other people's scrutiny still stings a lot sometimes. Especially that of well-meaning friends. Especially when it isn't intended as an indictment. 

And on the topic of outside judges, here's a quote I love, from Katharine Hepburn: 

"Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking." 

Writers' Group Parasite

Project V word count: 35,253

Dictionary.com says a parasite is "a person who receives support, advantage, or the like, from another or others without giving any useful or proper return, as one who lives on the hospitality of others." (See also: Kim Kardashian.) 

Every writers' group I've been in has had a writers' group parasite (WGP). They are infuriating and it's hard to know what to do about them. In case you haven't experienced one of these firsthand, let me explain...

Alas, WGP is not a cute puppy

WGP wants everyone to read his stuff with a fine-toothed comb. WGP wants thoughtful, incisive, helpful critiques. Maybe WGP even regales the group with how much benefit he's getting from everyone's comments. But, much to your chagrin, WGP does NOT return the favor. 

He has no useful feedback for anyone else in the group. He usually leaves no markings on your pages. When he's feeling generous, WGP asks questions or makes comments that indicate he's made no effort to actively read other people's work. Maybe he asks why everyone in the story you've set on the moon is wearing space suits. Or maybe he repeatedly refers to the man your protagonist has a one-night stand with as her "boyfriend". Sometimes he's so bold as to keep calling a female character "he" and vice versa.

His feedback, when present, is vague and useless. Sometimes WGP tries to mask his lack of constructive contribution with puffed-up praise. There's the "There's nothing I would change" and "I just love the language and that's all I have to say" and, my favorite, "This is so different from what I write/read/know, I don't even know how to comment." Well, golly-gee-whiz-wow, I don't write about zombie dinosaurs in love, but somehow I managed to give the chapter from your zombie-dinosaurs-in-love novel due attention and feedback.

WGP loves to talk, especially about himself, whether it's appropriate or not. He talks more than he listens. He talks about everything from the pastrami sandwich he had for lunch to the first time he realized water was wet. He talks about things that have nothing to do with the topic at hand and he makes no attempt to connect what he's saying to the discussion.

WGP is too effing cool to follow the rules of the group or actually listen to directions. There's a 10 — double-spaced, 12-point font — page maximum? WGP sends you 12 single-spaced pages written in 10-point font, with 1/4 inch margins. There's a rule about the writer being quiet while being given feedback? WGP starts arguing with the first thing you say about his piece. It's been decided that people won't be reading their stuff aloud because everyone's already read everyone else's stuff at home? When it's WGP's turn, he starts reading and no one's attempts to stop him work. 

You try to give him the benefit of the doubt. He may be new to the concept of a critique group. He may not know how to navigate the dynamic. So, WGP gets a few more chances. You and everyone else in the group continue critiquing his work to the best of your abilities, in hopes that he'll catch on and do the same in return. But, he doesn't. 

So, you get angry. Why should you waste your precious time on his work, when he doesn't have the decency to give you even a tenth of that in return? Why should you have to indulge his narcissism, when he won't even allow the conversation to be about you when you're the one being critiqued? Who does he think he is? Why shouldn't you just serve him a big slice of pissed-off pie (I don't know!) no ice cream on the side?

But, if you pay attention to WGP long enough, you may find something worthwhile in him after all: comic relief. His self-involvement and obliviousness border on the absurd. He's a writer who doesn't read critically, follow instructions or know how to talk about writing. His efforts at hiding how little he gives a crap about anyone else's work are emperor's-new-clothes transparent. He's like something straight out of Vonnegut. So, finally, maybe you just laugh.

Got any stories about a WGP? 

The Road to Writing Hell

...is paved with missed intentions.

(Project V word count: 34,709)

One of the earliest and hardest lessons of my writing education was that a writer's intentions don't matter once the reader grabs hold of a piece. The writer does not accompany the writing. The writing goes out there, on its own, to be read, dissected, judged, interpreted, understood and misunderstood by the audience it finds.

What you meant doesn't matter, as tough as that ground-up glass is to choke down. What readers read is all that matters. So if an early reader of your work reads something other than what you meant, you as the writer should focus on finding out why that happened, and how you can revise your piece to clearly convey what you really meant. If you get argumentative, the only thing you do is make the other person(s) want to shut down and not bother giving you further feedback. Your reader feels attacked and you don't get to the root of the problem. Nobody wins.

Of course, having a piece wildly misread can be gut-wrenching and you may have to chew through your entire cheek and half your hand to keep yourself from blurting out all the things running through your head. Writing is like that. It's personal. When someone doesn't get what you wrote (or worse, doesn't get it and swears they do), it feels a little like they don't get you. Enter loneliness and insecurity and self-doubt. I'm there. I know it.

But, and I still forget this sometimes, there's a lot of worth in just listening to the comments, processing and internalizing them, then commenting when it's your turn. It's not a debate; there doesn't need to be a rebuttal. At the end, when it's your turn, you can always say "I didn't mean this here, but I see that some people thought I did. Any suggestions on how I can be clearer?" Or somesuch.