Library Writing Group Part I: The Encouragers

All authors need feedback. The more feedback you get as an author, the better an author you can be. You can take accredited college writing courses to help improve your writing through feedback, but the highest degree available for creative writing at this time is a masters. Eventually, you are going to run out of classes, but you will still need feedback.

You can get feedback in a variety of ways. Some people use beta readers, others pay professional editors. Then, there are library writing groups that can frequently be helpful.

Now, some people need a how to write/ how to get published type of writing group. I didn't really need one of those. Some people need an encouragement to keep writing publishing group - I don't need one of those either. What I needed was a feedback group that is going to tell me what is awful about my writing. So, I headed to my favorite local library and joined the writing group.

Unfortunately, it was an encouragement to keep writing type group. Every month you are expected to bring something in to read to the others that you have been working on.

You can find these writing groups online too - for example at Harlequin in the community area of their webpage. Look for writing support groups (they also have submission support groups). These groups are good for writers who don't have motivation to finish working. However, if you have this problem, you should probably look into publishing and not freelance writing - freelance writing requires you to be extremely motivated and finish things every day.

However, they did at least refer me to the right kind of writing group - at a different library that was still nearby.

(I am really luck that I live within 10 minutes of five libraries and this group was at one of them).