Being a writer is often seen as a solo venture. Here we are, on the computer, or with a journal in our hands, by ourselves, getting the ideas from our minds onto the page. Written off Writing is a writing group – you get together with people, and you write. Oh, there are rules, and essentially you’re writing your own story, but you’re doing it alongside people who keep you accountable, and who are also keen to hear your stories.
I’ve discovered I write more with a group around me, my writing group, who are my tribe. There have been benefits for me, and I want to share them with you. I will look at writing solo, as we still do that, but I want to encourage you to find a group, or join the Written Off group.
Let’s look at writing solo first.
Benefits of Writing by Yourself
When you’re writing by yourself, it is your space, your time, your pace. You don’t have that implied pressure of other people watching you or ‘judging’ you. This can give you time for introspection and focus.
This alone time can give you time and space to sort out your thoughts. Why are you writing? What are you writing? The big questions that you can hardly ask when you have friends around you writing as well.
Sometimes writing alone, to your own speed, can help with burnout. That pressure to produce, timelines, deadlines, and the expectations of other people can sometimes be too much. Being able to write at your own pace can be restorative.
It is also flexible and to your timetable. When you feel like writing, you can. I do have opinions about waiting for the epiphany to strike. I believe scheduling time and showing up to write is far more powerful than waiting for the right vibe to hit.
Writing by yourself, in your own space, or in a third space, can leave you finding the joy again, without the pressure of performing for anyone else. You’re not competing against other people.
I mentioned the idea of competing. That said, competition can creep in when you’re writing in a group. How many words can you write in ten minutes? We, as people, can get competitive. Writing alone means you’re only competing with yourself! Let’s keep that theme of competing.
Competing against yourself only means you’re better than the writer you were yesterday or last time. You always want to be getting better at your craft, experimenting with new ways to write things. Remember that, even in writing groups that have sprints with the most words, only try to best yourself, not the person who can type 100+ words per minute.
The Benefits of Writing in a Group
When you join Written Off Writing you join a writing group. You’re writing
together, but one of the rules is cameras off and microphones off, so you can focus on the writing during the timed segments. Plus, I am a loud typist, I bash my mechanical keyboard, and apparently that is distracting.
One of the biggest positives I have found with group writing is the motivation, before, during and after a writing burst.
- Before – you’re excited, talking about writing, getting a prompt from someone and that excitement that builds at the thought of writing.
- During – I enjoy knowing others are writing alongside me. Having no clue what they’re writing makes it even more exciting.
- After – we share what we’ve written, and I get to hear some awesome stories, and get feedback on what I have written.
Writing with others helps to build your confidence in a few ways. If you’ve ever felt like you’re not a good writer, getting together with other writers who aren’t judgmental can show you that everyone starts somewhere, just like you. We’re a supportive and encouraging lot, so we’re going to try and lift you up rather than put you down.
There is both accountability and motivation. Scheduled writing times and cheerleading from your fellow writers. It is encouraging and makes you want to write more, believe me!
There are chances to critique someone’s work, and have your own work critiqued, not by professionals but by fellow writers who are just as passionate. Going through other people’s writing and giving feedback helps you sharpen your craft. You start to spot things that don’t work in your own writing as you’ve seen it in others. But you also start to see how things do work, and how one idea links up to another idea, which you might use later in another story.
You get to know other writers, people with similar interests, such as writing, but also other creative interests. I can tell you that more often than not we’re talking about writing and books and stuff and the clock ticks over to writing time, and we keep writing. Getting to know other writers is good, it is networking, not being creative in a bubble of isolation. Through my writing groups I can randomly ask for someone to write with and I usually get another person or two meeting up online to write with.
In my writing group, I have a very dynamic writer and author who launched a Kickstarter for an ASPEC paranormal anthology, I have a world-renowned scientist, and a nurse who knows the best cuts of a human to feed on, a coffee expert, someone on the spectrum, the variety of people is fascinating and wonderful.
I think the best thing about writing in a group like Written Off is the confidence you get. Having support from people finding their way at the same time as you, is awesome. Reading your work, if you’re up for it, boosts your confidence. Some people were nervous to share when we started, but they’re now the most vocal in both reading and giving great feedback.
One of our members has begun submitting micro fiction and short stories to anthologies and competitions and she has claimed that it is purely Written Off that gave her the courage and skills to do it. Many have started looking at doing more with their work after they discover that, in fact they ARE good at it.
When you have a writing group like Written Off there needs to be some
rules, otherwise it just becomes chaos. Besides the three rules of Written Off:
#1 – You don’t apologise. Don’t be sorry for being late, don’t apologise for not writing. If it doesn’t directly impact on anyone, don’t apologise, you’ve done nothing wrong.
#2 – You’re not allowed to say anything negative about yourself or your writing. Honestly, it is better than you think, and we will honestly tell you that. Plus, there is enough negativity in the world, you don’t have to pile more onto yourself. You’re awesome.
#3. If someone gives you a compliment, even if you don’t believe it, say thank you. We struggle to accept nice words from people, struggle to give a response. Thank you is a nice, simple response, and I find it appropriate.
There are other rules for running a successful group writing session.
- Have one leader. One person runs the group per session. You can change who runs it each time, but this one person is there to herd the cats, set the timer, make any rules, and coordinate prompts. To use another saying- you don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen.
- Establish rules. Before the session starts, establish the rules so no one goes in blind. For example, with our group, when we’re writing, cameras are off, and microphones are off. We also write to a timer, so if you want to know how long before a break, you can run your own timer as well.
- Solo or group? Are you all writing together on the one document as a purely collaborative effort? Or are you writing on your own projects, but in the same place?
- Codes of conduct. What is the expected behaviour of the members in the group, and what happens if someone is behaving badly? You want to ENJOY your writing. If things get heated, you need to nip that bud in the head, or something.
- Review style. Hand in hand with codes of conduct is review style. How harsh are the reviews going to be? Listen to the writer in what they want in a review. If it’s a newbie, don’t come down hard on their inappropriate use of Oxford commas and em-dashes.
- Size. My writing group has now hit 12 people, and that’s where it’s staying. Not everyone turns up each week, which is cool, but there are enough people that there is a real fizz to the dynamic. It might be too many for some. I have run Plot Twists with nearly 30 people before. The dynamic of a plot twist is different to that of a regular writing group.
- Timeliness. How often do you meet, when do you meet and how long does the group go for? We meet once a week on a Wednesday evening and it goes for 2 hours. We often go over time, but when you’re chatting with writers and listening to their stories, it’s worth it. Figure out what works for you. I changed the Plot Twist from 60 minutes to 90 minutes with mixed feelings. I think 60 minutes works well.
You can make some good friends through writing together, get some awesome, positive feedback, collaborations, networking and be inspired and made accountable to possibly submit your work or get yourself published.
I still do both. I will sit and write on my own sometimes, especially when I am not in the mood for people. But I have discovered I prefer to write with someone else there with me. The breaks are better, chatty. I also get the joy of encouraging other people to write as well. I love being a mentor, and encouraging other people to write things and be creative, especially when they think they can’t.
If you’d like to join a writing group that is positive, encouraging and will get you writing even if you don’t know what to write, join us on Patreon from just $8 a month.
