A Solitary Task Becomes a Community Endeavor

They say that writing is a solitary task, which can sometimes be detrimental to both the writer and his work. One solution to this problem is becoming more popular in recent times: writing in community.

I receive newsletters from a lot of writing coaches and others connected with the publishing industry. One of them invited me one day to join her writing group which met weekly. I took up the opportunity and was glad I did. At the time, I was working on one of my novels and had gotten stuck. I wasn’t quite sure what should come next in the story. When I met with the group online, we all touched on our current work in progress, then we muted our computers and wrote. Just having others accompanying me as I wrote made it much easier to tackle the problem and resolve the issue I had with my novel. And the accountability of having to say what you accomplished at the end of the writing period didn’t hurt either.

Since then, I have joined two other writing groups. One meets daily Monday through Friday, and you can participate as much as you are able. Some weeks, I can make it there all five days, some weeks only two days. But I know they are always there. We discuss everything: what we’re working on, what we’re stuck on, what we’re planning, new ideas for marketing. Everything. And because this is a faith-based group, we also get to share our faith at times. Not only does it help my writing, but the relationships help me grow as a person.

The third group I joined does not having writing “sprints” as they call them. This group instead meets monthly to support writers in whatever stage they are at in their writing, and to learn more about the craft, and publishing. This is also a faith-based group which is called Scribblers, and the concept of the group is to imitate the pattern of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group at the University of Oxford in the 1930s and 40s. This group might sound familiar to you because of some of their more famous members: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Scribblers group has a slogan: “We all have a story to tell, to the glory of God.” They also have a website where they promote all the books of the individuals who are members of the group. The books are available for purchase directly from the site. So, if you want to support a Christian group, and you want to find some good faith-based reading, this would be good place to start looking. The website is www.scribblersweb.com, and you can order hardback copies of my books directly from them at https://www.scribblersweb.com/store/c54/Paul_D._McDonald.html.