The Writing Group

We had our first organizational meeting last night and I feel so good about the group. Only four of us could make it, and we are levelling off at six to begin with. Everyone is working on different kinds of things, including short stories, personal essays and memoir, and plays. We'd all like to see our work in print, but recognize the challenges of literary markets. We bring a range of life experiences and writing experience. One member has had a successful career freelancing in the magazine market -- of course I am full of admiration for her. (She decided she wanted to freelance so that she could stay home with her newborn daughter nine years ago, spent four months reading about markets, and then went to it. She said she new she'd made it when she got $1000 for a half an hour of work.) We're all committed to being helpful and constructive as we workshop our work-in-progress. One member brought a two-page hand-out that she recently received at an editing workshop, and it is full of great questions to ask yourself, as a writer, to see whether your story is working. It's equally good to apply the same questions to others' work (maybe even easier, since it is quite a overwhelming list to apply to your own work!).

Here's what we decided last night:

• We'll meet every other week on Tuesday evening from 7-9 p.m.
  
• For now, we're going to meet in public space, possibly a study room at the public library. Once we are all comfortable with one another, we'll change venue and start rotating hosting the meetings at homes. We feel that a small group lends itself to that.
• Each week, we'll look at two members' work.
• We're hoping to have a secure website where we can post our manuscripts rather than circulating them by e-mail.
• Ideally, manuscripts will be circulated two weeks ahead of time, but for now we're settling for one week.
• We're not looking for new members right now.
• Next meeting: February 6, 2007.

I'm excited about having a local writing community to call my own!