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In college, I took classes in imaginative and fiction writing, both of which offered the following advice: Join a writing group.
Seriously, my instructors said, join one—or two or three if you can. There is no better place to get support and constructive critiques or to take part in good brainstorming sessions.
With that in mind, I spent time Monday looking for groups near me. I know where they are; I know when they meet. Now, I just need to go. But that's not as easy as it sounds.
The thought of joining a group stirs memories from the fiction class I took. It was modeled after writing workshops, requiring the entire class to read and critique each other’s work. That was nerve-wracking.
My confidence in my writing skills decreased that semester. While my classmates turned in short stories spanning a thousand words or more, mine would barely reach 500. Some wrote about foreign lands or fantasy. I drew from real-life incidents from high school. Just based on my work, I felt like I didn’t belong in the class.
And then there were the critiques. No one had much to say about what I wrote. Was that because it was so awful they didn’t know where to begin? That's how I felt.
The worst part was when the professor called on me to comment on my classmates’ stories. Two instances stand out: One where I stammered over my words because I was nervous, and another when I managed to get out my critique, but then the author snapped at me because he didn’t like what I had to say.
Add to those memories the idea of joining a group in which I will know no one, and my social anxiety gets turned up to eleven.
But I’ve put joining a writing group on my to-do list. I’m not as shy as I was back in college, so perhaps participating won’t be as difficult. And I want the feedback. I want to know. Is fiction really a good fit for me? I think an active writing group can help me answer the question.
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