How NOT to behave in a writing group

When I first thought of writing about writing groups and workshops, I was going to gush about how well the current group is going and how much great feedback I've gotten from it. I've been sharing my latest novel with the group since January and have gotten invaluble assistance and insights.

Then I recalled my other in-person writing group experiences. My first was very positive, and I made some lasting friends. Well, at least one. However, I was seeking a deeper level of criticism than this group could provide to help me grow as a writer.

So, I ditched the group I was in at the time and searched for a *gasp * new one. And I found (drumroll, please) the writing group from the underworld.

Critiquing someone else's work isn't about burning them.

Since it's more fun to dish about something than dote on it, I decided to write about that fated writing workshop. Four years later, it still gives me the shudders today.

There are lessons to be learned from my experience. Like a caring parent, I will share them with you, so you have the chance to avoid them. Like an impudent child, you will most likely disregard them. But I'll tell you about them anyway because it's my writing blog.

How NOT to behave

Don't tell another writer that her protagonist is a twit. I like flawed characters. It gives them room to grow throughout the story. Just like on the playground, no name-calling is allowed. You can say, "I couldn't relate to your character. I'm not sure I understood the choices she made. What are you trying to achieve?" or something like that. One week after I received her scathing critique, the same chapter won a First Chapter Contest at Billboard.Net. Oh, and I got representation, too, from an agent who loved my "twit."

Don't take every scene in another writer's story and judge it based on all your emotional baggage. If you are in a writing group, endeavor to separate yourself from your critique just as writers attempt to separate themselves from the characters they create. If the character cuddles her four-year-old nephew because she loves him and doesn't have children of her own, don't write a tome about how you were molested as a child in your critique, and that her scene is sick and perverted. It's not about you.

Don't, as a fallback position, remind everyone at every opportunity during workshop that you've attended the Bread Loaf Writing Conference, and that gives you license to trash everyone else's work. When you have a conventionally published book to your credit, then you may have a prayer of a chance of winning our respect. I'm sure Bread Loaf is a wonderful program and has a roster of prestigious attendees to its credit. However, your having attended it doesn't make you better than everyone else.

There are other heinous things you could do as a writing workshop participant or facilitator. Facilitators who don't take charge and rein in the nastiness shouldn't be surprised when the group falls apart.

How about you? Any workshop horror stories to relate? Success stories are welcome, too.

A writing booster shot: Meeting with my writing cohort

Just like adults need that infrequent tetanus booster, adult writers can benefit from "writing booster shots," too.

I got mine today in tiny Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, when five colleagues from my cohort in Wilkes University's Master of Arts in Creative Writing program met, primarily to share our current writing projects.

After getting the juicy gossip out of the way some healthy bonding, we used the next several hours to do a few things:

• Each of us provided status updates on our capstone projects. Some were being revised. Some were being shopped. Some were being shopped and revised as the result of being shopped.
• We shared our writing plans, mostly for the short term.
• Each writer read about ten minutes worth from whatever project they were working on now.
• Then we all responded verbally to each piece-- a personal response to the overall writing as well as a broader give-and-take.

I was fascinating to learn how everyone else's projects were evolving since we were last together in June of 2010. And by voicing our writing plans, we actually made it easier on ourselves to stick to our stated goals. After all, if we failed to fulfill them, we'd be letting more than ourselves down.

As for me, I was looking for a third-party gut check on a new novel called RACE CARD. Though the group was not aware of this, I was a bit gun-shy about sharing the work with them or anyone for that matter. Once very excited about it, I encountered what the late, great Dorothea Brande calls a "tooth and fang" reviewer in an online writing group who had totally shaken my confidence in the project. Thanks to my discerning group, I'm happy to report that after today's reading, my confidence has been restored. The group's encouragement recharged my batteries, giving me all the wherewithal I could ever hope to gain to continue writing the book and press toward finishing it.

According to The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, even informal meetings among writers who trust one another can be productive:

Sometimes encouragement and the knowledge that others are interested in and committed to your work and your progress as a writer can be just as helpful as [formal] feedback.

Writing is a lonely pursuit. For natural extroverts like me, it can be disarmingly quiet living in your own head, which is what you have to do during the writing process. Sharing my ambitions for my capstone, vetting my WIP in front of writing colleagues I trust was just the shot in the arm I needed to press on, in spite of the setbacks and rejections every writer working to be published encounters.