Is Your Writing Group Too Nice?

I've been part of a writing group for over a year now with a terrific bunch of writers and it's been a great asset to my writing life. We share our work, talk about the publishing business, books we're reading, chat about our lives and laugh. We offer suggestions and encouragement. Our group is a safe, comfortable place to explore our work. We know that when we share a piece of writing, it will be treated with fairness and respect. We give each other slack. We are each other's biggest fans.

Our writing group is a vastly different experience than what you'll find in most college workshops, where a collection of not-necessarily like-minded souls are thrown together. Sure, you'll find a few kind people here and there, but also a few sticklers, a curmudgeon, that one person who 'doesn't get' your work, and a competitive type or two who are more interested in their own talent than anyone else's. Even with careful ground rules in place, workshops can be a little intimidating--and that's actually a good thing. If you know your work is going to be met with a critical eye, you're more likely to try harder. A tough workshop is excellent preparation for the larger, even more critical world you'll face when you're published.

I was thinking about the difference between my cozy little writing group and a true workshop after receiving e-mails from two of our group members who were apologizing for not having anything to share for our upcoming meeting. At first, we'd all been great about keeping to our deadlines, but little by little our collective discipline was starting to erode. All it took was one person saying they weren't going to be able to make deadline and suddenly we all relaxed. I was probably the worst offender of all, not submitting work for months because I was editing my novel. It occurred to me that the reason why we all joined the group was to write more and to be held accountable for it. Instead, we were enabling a lack of discipline. We were being too nice to each other. I decided it was time for us to buckle down and I was going to be the meanie to say something.

I was a little nervous about sharing my thoughts. By bringing this problem to the fore I, too, would no longer have a free pass. But it had to be done. Overall, the other group members seemed to take it well and everyone agreed that we needed to buckle down.

To soften the blow, we changed our rules a bit. Instead of submitting our work every other month we changed our deadlines to every three months--giving us all a little built-in leeway. If we were unable to generate something new or didn't have a re-write to share, then we had to write a piece using a prompt. One of our members distributed a list of some interesting prompts she found on the internet.

It was settled. No excuses. No more missed deadlines.

If you're in a self-run writing group, I recommend an annual assessment of how the group is functioning and then making adjustments accordingly. Don't be afraid to set goals for your group. On a whim I threw out a challenge to everyone--by the end of the year, we all had to submit a piece of writing to a journal or a magazine. The piece doesn't have to be perfect--we just have to get over our initial anxieties about trying to get published and start getting into the habit of regularly submitting our work.

What challenges does your writing group face? How do you overcome those challenges?

Getting Into the Groove

I just received a really nice note from a Goodreads friend named Alex who has the itch to write but doesn't know how to start.

We've all been there, haven't we? Think about all the skills you've learned over your lifetime--reading, riding a bike, cooking a pot of pasta, driving a car--and what it felt like at first. The word that comes to my mind is overwhelming. I remember, vividly, my first driving lesson: hands on the wheel trying to steer, foot on the gas (or brake, more often), eyes bouncing from the road to the mirrors to the dashboard, my brain on overload. It seemed impossible that I would ever be able to drive with ease. But eventually I did--and I never would have if I hadn't gotten behind the wheel in the first place.

And so it is with writing. You'll learn by doing. The trouble is that learning to write, or learning to create any kind of art, feels different than other skills because our thoughts and feelings are so exposed. Emotionally, there's more at stake. We're afraid of appearing idiotic or dull to others--or, even worse--to ourselves. Spoiler alert: No matter who you are, at one time or another both are going to happen. But you will also experience moments of joy when you turn out work that surpasses your expectations. If ups and downs are a given for all of us, why not stop fretting and just get to work?

Whether you're picking up a pen for the first time or returning after a long hiatus, here are a few baby steps to help you get into the groove. 


Step 1.  Buy yourself a beautiful notebook and a bunch of your favorite pens. 

Even if you think you'd rather work on a computer, I urge you not to skip this step. For the first several months it's best to stick with paper and pen. Nothing is more discouraging than a blinking cursor, or more distracting than knowing the Internet is just a tab-click away. Lovely paper and a smooth-writing pen are a pleasure to use. By purchasing good writing materials, you are making a commitment to taking yourself seriously as a writer.


Step 2.  Schedule your writing time.

No matter how busy you are, I guarantee you can find ten minutes a day to write. You can either block out the same time every day or you can choose to be flexible--as long as your ten minutes are done by bedtime. No excuses. For the first month, I recommend sticking to ten minutes only. Even if you're on a roll and could write for an hour, shut it down after ten minutes. It's always best to stop when you're hot--it makes it a lot easier to sit down and write the next day. In fact, it will make you look forward to writing the next day. Getting the motivation to sit down and write is half the battle.

After the first month or so, up your time to fifteen minutes. Then twenty. Settle into a block of time that is comfortable for you. Most writers I know only write for a maximum of about four hours a day. How long you write for is less important than keeping a consistent schedule. Some writers insist that you must write every day. Personally, I take weekends off. If your schedule allows you to only write on weekends, do that.


Step 3.  Give yourself permission to be bad. 

Oh, the hours I wasted, staring at a blank screen, afraid to write a single bad sentence! It would have been so much better to just give myself permission to write the worst possible sentence and then fix it later. You can't edit what isn't there. Every writer writes junky first drafts. The real art, the real skill is in the editing. You have to write garbage--a lot of it--to get to the good stuff. To learn how to write, you'll need to be a garbage-producing machine. In my college oeuvre of junk-writing I produced a schmaltzy story entitled "Pink Soap and Lilacs", that still makes me want to gag whenever I think about it. I will not be sharing the awful details of this particular story with you, which brings me to the next step:


Step 4.  Don't share with anyone--yet.

As you begin to churn out your requisite pile of word-sludge you may suddenly strike gold. You might suddenly hit upon an idea for a nail-biting thriller or you may turn out an exquisite sentence that makes you proud. Your instinct will be to share it with someone, but I urge you to keep it to yourself. As I've said over and over again, you will rarely get the ecstatic reaction you are hoping for and early on your writer's ego will be too fragile to handle it. When you find a golden nugget in your junk pile, hoard it. Keep this treasure for yourself. Keep hoarding your literary gold until you have enough of it to feel confident in your ability. If it pleases you, that's all that matters.


Step 5.  Read, read, read. 

When I got my first ghost-writing job, I still wasn't quite sure how to intersperse dialogue with action.   I wasn't even sure how to properly punctuate dialogue. To learn how, all I did was open a book and see how it was done. Every book is an instruction manual. Unsure how to open a story? Or create suspense at the end of a chapter? What about using page breaks? Everything you need to know is sitting on your bookshelf. Take down a few of your favorite books and see how it's done. I still do this all the time.

You should also be constantly reading for pleasure. Read what you like, not what you think you're supposed to read. Fill your head with words and they will be accessible to you when you need them.


Moving Forward

Once you've practiced enough to produce a rough draft of a short story or several chapters of a novel, then you might want to consider finding a writers' group in your area. Don't rush this step, but when you're ready writers' groups can be an invaluable resource for every skill level. For more info on choosing (or starting) the right group for you, see my post about writing groups.

Do you have a question about writing or publishing? Leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer it in a future post. 

Happy writing!

Back to the Drawing Board...Maybe

As you know, Dear Blog Readers, I am an optimist by nature and tend to use this platform as a place of encouragement and support. While my view of the publishing industry may seem overly sunny at times, it's because my six years of working in NYC exposed me to many of the smart, well-intentioned, passionate people who work in the industry. Everyone I've ever met who works in publishing is crazy about books and getting good manuscripts into the hands of readers. I like to mention this as often as I can because it pains me to hear these people being repeatedly maligned by those who have little understanding of what really goes on in Big Publishing.

That being said, things can and do go wrong--and I would be remiss to gloss over the bad times. If I'm here to share my experience of the writing life, then I have to be honest when things get tough. Since we writers can be competitive and a little bit protective of our reputations, I think there's a tendency for us to avoid talking about failure. Maybe we don't want to appear vulnerable. Still, we do each other a disservice when pretend we everything is rosy all the time.

As I wrote in a previous post ("The Summer of Crazy"), last May I turned in my first draft of a novel I've been working on in fits and starts since my twins were born ten years ago. At the time, it felt terrific to finally complete something after being out of the publishing world for so long. I was sure it was my strongest work to date and was thrilled to finally show it to my agent. Unfortunately, my agent didn't share my enthusiasm. I cried for two days.

When we discussed the story at length, he raved about the writing but thought the plot needed some work. His comments were insightful and on the money. I felt better--energized and ready to get back to work. I did a round of revisions, pretty sure that I fixed all his points of concern.

I was wrong.

We had another discussion and this time I felt a little fuzzier about what I was supposed to aim for. I did a second round of revisions. I took an ax to the manuscript. It still fell short.

Third round of revisions. This time I felt like I was completely in the dark. I was losing confidence and interest. I was beginning to go against my own instincts. We both knew this was bad news. In the end, my agent's verdict was the same: it wasn't coming together the way he would like. Time to put it aside. Did I have any other stories to develop?

This was really tough news to hear. How could I possibly toss away something I've spent so much time and effort on, especially when I felt this was my best work and that maybe, just maybe he was wrong? I cried--though much less than the first time around--thinking about all the time I'd lost and how the manuscript wasn't any closer to publication. I went to war with myself, considering my options:

Should I....

1) Throw in the towel? Every author has a book or two in their closet that had to be scrapped. This will be mine.

But I can't imagine giving up on this story. This is some of the best stuff I've ever written. My gut tells me that one way or another, something from this manuscript will be published.



2) Cannibalize the story? I could chop the novel up into separate short stories or use a character for something new so it wouldn't feel like a complete waste of time.

This is a realistic solution, but something I'd like to avoid having to do. 



3) Step away from it for a while? Maybe if I put it aside for at least six months I could gain a little clarity and figure out on my own what needed to be fixed.

Aside from losing more time, this is a good plan. 



4) Get a second opinion? Share it with a few trusted readers to get their take on it. If they feel the same way my agent does, then I'll have to really do some soul-searching.

Yes! Other opinions are exactly what I need right now. It can help me make an informed decision about what to do next.



5) Get a new agent? Maybe it's time to find someone else who can better articulate what the story needs or whose vision is closer to mine.

Something to consider, but not something I'm inclined to do. Aside from this hiccup, we have a good relationship and I trust him. Plus, he's a top agent. Trying to find another agent is a big risk on many levels. 


So, after thinking it over a bit, my plan was to set it aside for a while and come back to it in six months with fresh eyes. 

Then, an interesting thing happened: I met with my writing group. I had been giving them a few scenes at a time to get their opinions and the response was overwhelmingly positive. They seemed to love the characters and were very invested in the story. They couldn't wait to read the rest and wanted me to send all of it at once instead of in dribs and drabs. I couldn't believe it....and I was more confused than ever.

Suddenly, I found myself unable to put the story aside. I contacted a friend of mine who is a novelist and he offered to take a look. I'll be interested in hearing his point of view. I have a feeling he'll be a 'tiebreaker' of sorts and his feedback will give me a better sense of how to proceed.

In the meantime, I'm polishing an old short story I've been wanting to finish and hope to send it around in a few weeks. It will be nice to have something else to think about for a while.

Have you encountered a big setback in your writing career? How did you move forward?

Living the Dream: Patrick Robbins Part III

[Update: I've now included a link to the video of Pat's Reading here.]
As some of you might recall, I did a few blog posts back in 2008 following my friend Patrick Robbins as he cloistered himself in an Airstream trailer to write his first novel. While the manuscript came together very quickly, it took six years before the book was published. Read my follow-up interview to find out how Charles Schulz, Greg Brady, and an old friend eventually helped to make Pat's dream come true.   


How does it feel to be a published author?

Oy! (To coin a phrase.) This is something I've wanted for years, decades even, and now that it's here... it's just as good as I always imagined it. Picture a combination of the satisfaction in a long-term job well done and the delirium of an oil well finally coming in. I would compare the whole thing to a sports team winning a championship - on the one hand, "Mission accomplished, gentlemen." On the other hand, "WE WON!!! WE WON!!!"

I mentioned in a previous post that your first book signing felt a little like a graduation party--it's one of those few events in life when you are surrounded by so much love and support from your friends and family. How do you remember that day?

Photo by Alina Pauksis

Sheer unadulterated joy. It was so much fun seeing people from throughout my past - grade school, high school, college, various jobs - mingling with my family, all of them in couldn't-be-happier mode. The event was originally just going to be a signing, but people were clamoring for a reading as well; major, major kudos to Stacy Shea, the Barnes & Noble community relations manager, who whipped up 30 chairs in nothing flat. I hadn't read aloud from my work in years, but I wasn't nervous in the slightest - who can be nervous about having their dream come true? The whole thing went great; people wanted to buy it after hearing it, and one of my coworkers was so overcome she couldn't speak, which was something to see. One friend took pictures and video of the whole event, so I've got a permanent scrapbook. And my dad said he never knew I could carry a tune (part of my reading included the singing of "Amazing Grace"). The expected snowstorm didn't even show up. It was just a perfect day.

Your road to publication was a little bit unusual. Tell us how it came about.

I started sending letters of inquiry to agencies and got between forty and fifty rejections. After a while, you start to believe these people really know what they're talking about. One [agent] said it was clear I had real talent, but my book didn't seize the reader by the throat within the first five pages and that's what was selling these days.

Looking for another way to skin a cat, I got in touch with a friend of mine who's a branding strategist. At the time, he maintained the Facebook page of Barry Williams, a.k.a. Greg Brady on The Brady Bunch; he said he'd have Barry talk about my manuscript  [on Facebook] and ask for help getting it out there. Ninety-eight percent of the responses were "Get it self-published!" or "Can't help, but it sounds great!" But one man said, "I think I can help your friend" and left his contact info. I called, we talked for a few hours, and he said to send the manuscript to his agency, with his recommendation. "But don't you want to read it first?" I asked. He said that it was his experience that when you do good, good comes back to you. I'll never forget him for that act of kindness to a guy he'd never met.

I sent in the manuscript and, mirabile dictu, they were interested and wanted to represent it. I took it through three more drafts per their request. After the third one, they wrote to say that it still hadn't come together the way they wanted, and they were going to step away from it. That was pretty devastating - so close and yet so far. On the other hand, it was three drafts better than it had been.

At this point, enter Thom Hayes. He was my boss [when I worked at] Barnes & Noble. He read a draft or two of the book and told me not to give up on it. But I had. When the world reaches a consensus, it's very, very hard to go against the world. I chalked it up to bad luck, consoled myself with the fact that I'd actually written a novel, and got on with my life.

Then, maybe a year and a half ago, Thom  said he was going to be starting a publishing company, 3 Wide Press, that was going to focus on sports titles. He asked if I'd let him publish my book once he got the company going, even if it was outside the company's mission statement. Hey, sure, I said, it's good to plan ahead. Then I promptly forgot about it.

Last December, Thom wrote and said, "Are you still cool with me publishing TMOH?"  By the end of February, I was holding my book in my hands. One with a bar code and everything. The whole trip took six and a half years; if it had taken half that long, the book would not have been as good as it became. My dad, who taught high school English for over 30 years and still reads two or three books a week, told me after he'd read his copy, "The first draft was the work of an adolescent; this is the work of an adult." I grew up with To Make Others Happy, and it introduced me to a lot of true heroes. I'm truly grateful that the road to publication was as long and winding as it turned out to be.

Publicity and marketing for a first-time author can be a real eye-opener. What has surprised you the most?

The biggest surprise was that I didn't get responses to emails that I sent stores. I crafted a hell of a cover letter, emphasizing my/my book's connection to the various towns these stores were in, and got no responses. I would've guessed that emails were how many of their author contacts were born, but apparently not. So I've switched to actually driving out to the stores, letting them hold the book, making eye contact as I make my pitch. It's worked a lot better. It's also nice to see their faces light up when I tell them the book has a national distributor.

Have you used social media to get the word out?

I've created a Facebook page and have taken initial steps on my author page for both Goodreads and Amazon. I'm also a regular contributor to two blogs - I'm features editor for Cover Me, a blog about cover songs, and I'm "Grandpop Culture" on Acts of Geek - and I spread the word there. I don't Tweet, but frankly, some might consider that a blessing.

You've said that TO MAKE OTHERS HAPPY is inspired by Charles Schulz. What's the connection?

A series of Peanuts comic strips from 1961. Lucy asks Charlie Brown why he thinks we're put here on Earth, and he immediately responds, "To make others happy." Instead of saying "You blockhead!", as is her wont, Lucy dwells on this response over the course of three strips. [TMOH] is divided into three parts, and each part begins with the dialogue from those strips (thanks so much to the Schulz estate for granting permission). An even closer look will reveal that each part of TMOH is a sort of mirror to the Peanuts dialogue - but where I take a hundred pages to tell that segment of the story, Schulz only needed four panels. He was a genius. He had punchlines like "There's no heavier burden than a great potential" and "This world is filled with people who are anxious to function in an advisory capacity."

In many ways, the relationships at the center of the story reminded me of THE GREAT GATSBY. 

Very much so - of all the Books You Have To Read In High School, it's probably my favorite. I like books where the first person narrator isn't the center of his own story (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is another good example of that); you're as close to the hero as you can be without being in his head, and as the hero affects the narrator, so he affects us. Also, in TMOH, Ned and Nadine are second cousins, while in Gatsby, Nick and Daisy are second cousins once removed. And Tedd Long, Nadine's unpleasant partner, is a sort of Tom Buchanan. I didn't set out to write a Gatsby Jr., but as I wrote, I recognized that there were distinct echoes; I figured the best thing to do would be to not look at Gatsby at all during the writing and rewriting, for fear of being too influenced. But I couldn't resist one good tip of the cap; Nadine, talking about a restaurant says, "The place is full of money," which is a mini-tribute to Gatsby saying of Daisy, "Her voice is full of money."

At my last writing group meeting, we all lamented the fact that what we write is often so vastly different from what we love to read. For example, a friend of mine loves literary fiction with a gothic or fantasy element but is finding that her latest work is a straight-up genre piece. Do you find this disparity in your own work? 

To be honest, no, I don't. My work is grounded in old-school storytelling, in no small part because that's the kind of stuff I like to read the most. I'm talking William Goldman, Elmore Leonard, Richard Stark, Stephen King, the short stories of Irwin Shaw, that kind of thing. But I also love the lyrical flourishes of Fitzgerald, Amy Hempel, Kyril Bonfiglioli, Mark Kram, and more. So if the writer is keeping the story moving, but also taking the time to have fun with the language, the field they're writing in doesn't matter so much to me. I see the genre as the clothing and the storytelling style and craft as the body. Keep the body in shape and you can dress it any way you want.

I met you when we were both undergrads at Colby, where we both studied with Jennifer Boylan and Richard Russo. You later went on to get your MFA from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. What are your thoughts on the MFA/no MFA debate among writers?

I'm pro-MFA. Quick story: I was in a tavern with several others from the program, and there was a lot of griping going around about office politics, who taught which classes in which rooms, etc. Someone said I must be mad with the program, as I was unable to land a teaching gig and was therefore paying off the whole thing with student loans (I'm currently $49K in the red). I said that I couldn't be mad because I was becoming a better writer, which was exactly why I went there, so anything going on around me that didn't interfere with that was just white noise to me. Kind of brought the discussion to a grinding halt.

Where it helped me the most was with rewriting. Grad school was where I finally learned how satisfying it was to rip out the middle of a story, to arrange a sentence so the most important part came as close to the period as possible, to always look for better verbs, to seek and destroy the passive voice.

If you learned everything you needed to know about writing from a quality undergrad program and from extensive reading and writing, God bless you. Nothing wrong with that at all. Me, I needed that extra fine tuning, and in my MFA program, I got it.

Are you working on anything right now?

I've got two ideas I like - wunza road trip / treasure hunt, wunza story of an actor turned cop. I'm further along on the first idea - I've got the whole thing plotted out on index cards and have written about twenty pages - but I'm taking down good plot points and quotes for the second idea as they come to me. Now that I've quit my job of five and a half years, I'll get to make some real progress on both of them. That's the plan, anyway - if things progress like they did with the first book, we may not see them until 2021 or so. Well, something to look forward to!

Patrick is scheduled to read from and sign copies of To Make Others Happy at Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, NY, on May 9 at 3pm, and at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA, on May 19 at 7pm. Good seats still available.

How to Start a Writing Group

Aside from the creative writing workshops I took in college, I've generally avoided writing groups. My reasons are varied and complicated, but mostly it's because I don't like to share my work with anyone until the rough draft is finished. I find that giving it away too early takes some of the steam out of it for me. I also like to trust my gut without any interference until that first draft is completed.

This past summer, however, taught me that maybe working in a vacuum isn't the best way and that it's time for a fresh approach. When I heard a friend talking about starting up a writing group, I immediately asked if I could join.

Our writing group met for the first time recently and it was great. I think we all felt a little apprehensive at first, maybe a little nervous, even. We started our first meeting by introducing ourselves, giving a brief history of our writing work, and why we wanted to be part of the group.  Then we each read aloud a page or two of a piece we were working on and gave each other positive feedback only for this first time around. We spent the rest of our time lay down the ground rules for how we were going to conduct our meetings. By the time we left I think we were all feeling pretty confident that this was going to be a good experience.

Are you thinking about starting a writing group? If so, the most important step is establishing ground rules before anything else happens. Here are some things to consider:

Keep Your Group Small. Our group is made up of six people and I think this just might be an ideal number.

Pick a Neutral Location. We chose a casual restaurant in a central location. This took the hosting pressure off all of us.

Try to Choose Members with Similar Abilities. After we read our pieces aloud, we all admitted to breathing a sigh of relief that everyone in our group was beyond the "advanced beginner" stage. If your group is made up of writers with vastly different abilities, you're going to find that the writers with more experience will be bored, while the beginners might lose confidence.

Create a Schedule. Our group has chosen to meet once a month. We've divided the group into two sections: Group A and Group B. Group A will turn in work no later than a week before our next meeting in February; Group B will submit work in March, and so forth. Our meetings will be two hours long. The first half hour or so will be for eating, settling in, chatting. We will then devote 30 minutes to discussion of each piece.

Place Word Limits. For now, we have limited each submission to 3,000-5,000 words, to make the process manageable for the readers. This rule will most likely need to be revisited as we go along.

Have a Facilitator. Members of the group that is not submitting work are each assigned a piece to facilitate. For example, since Group A is turning in writing in February, members from Group B have to take turns leading the discussion for one of the pieces. There are many ways to handle group discussion, but the bottom line is that it's important to assign one person to steer the group if they get off topic, to spark discussion if nothing is being said, and to mediate any disagreements that may arise.

What's your problem with the Oxford comma?

Decide on Rules for Providing/Receiving Feedback. This is the most important ground rule of all. Sharing one's writing is an extremely personal, humbling experience. Readers need to be sensitive and tactful. Every discussion should begin with the strengths of the piece. Sometimes it will be hard for readers to find things they like, but it's a great exercise to look for the positive--there will ALWAYS be something you can praise if you look close enough. Criticism should be honest, specific, and delivered with fairness and tact. It should always be framed with the intention of helping the writer. Saying something like, "I thought it was boring" is unhelpful. It's better to say, "The pace was too slow" or "It took to long for the story to get going". This is information the writer can use.

When it comes to receiving criticism, it's often a good idea for the writer not to speak at all during the discussion period unless a reader needs something clarified. This is a very difficult, worthwhile exercise. It forces the writer to really listen, instead of spending his time defending his writing. It's also excellent practice for reading future reviews, when you are forced to face criticism about your work but cannot respond to it. At the end of the discussion period, the writer may be given five minutes to ask questions.  

Be Flexible. Periodically check with writing group members that the ground rules are working. You may find that as time passes, you will need to make adjustments.

Do you have a writing group? What are your tips for running a successful group?