My Ideal Writing Support Group
What do you want a writing support group to do for you? What are you looking for? What are your top priorities for working with a group of writers—getting feedback on your work? having a place to vent? having a place to post what you are working on, what you're learning from other writers?
Here's what I'd like a virtual writing group to be for me:
-- A way to build community of like-minded souls with whom we can share our ideas, enthusiasm, and creative work.
-- A site where we can share rough drafts and work-in-progress.
-- A place where we can gather and give one another constructive feedback on our work.
-- A way to build confidence about getting our words onto the page, and to offer ongoing encouragement in what can be a lonely, frustrating pursuit.
-- A forum for sharing our confusions, lack of confidence, ups-and-downs, all the universally experienced pitfalls in trying to live a writing life.
-- A way to check-in on a regular (weekly?) basis and report progress made on an idea, a project, etc.
-- A place to share techniques and ideas about craft and process.
-- An option for doing writing exercises together as a way to keep our motivation up.
-- A place where we can post comments about reading we have done and what we learned from it that has been or will be helpful in our writing work.
-- An ongoing place to celebrate our successes however we define them—anything from daily journal entries to having a piece accepted for publication.
