Writing Workshops

We can't do this alone.

The lone writer, closing out the world and living in isolation, is just as much a damaging myth as "write drunk, edit sober."

We need each other.

Going to school is expensive. Residencies are exclusive. Rejection is crushing. So many things hold us back from learning, growing, and gaining confidence as writers. But the number one thing that has helped me become a better writer is other writers.

Reading them. Talking to them. Getting recommendations from them. Letting them read my work. Letting them critique my work. Building a community with them.

That's why, when school was out, when I felt like that isolated writer I knew I didn't want to be, I started my own workshops.

It wasn't a huge group, about four or five of us any given week. But it was consistent, free, and the most powerful motivation to write I've ever had.

We organized it collaboratively, all agreeing that weekly meetings would be a hard but necessary commitment. So we met on Sundays. Two people would have their work critiqued each meeting. Did it matter how long it was? No, not really. Did it matter if we'd read it before? Not if it had been worked on. Did it matter how messy it was? Absolutely not. The only thing that mattered was that if it was your week to be critiqued, you had a piece in by Friday so the other members could have enough time to read it over and give feedback.

We all came from different literary preferences, different reading to writing journeys, different styles, different influences. We kept our pool varied so we could better understand what a piece meant for bigger audiences.

We talked about the things we didn't like, the things we did like. We suggested changes. We gave book recommendations. We gossiped, and laughed, and tried new things.

The math added up to about one piece of writing every two weeks. That's two pieces of writing every month. That's twenty-four pieces of writing a year.

That's a lot of writing. And that's exactly why we did it. Because having a community kept us going, kept us working, kept us learning and growing.

My first writing workshop has since dissolved. But forming it and sticking to it was one of the best writing projects I've ever done. It is such a relief to know I'm not alone.