If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here.
Surrounded by people, I dreamed of loneliness.
I was not lonely during the week I spent in Pau, France, at Clos Mirabel, a semi-isolated small B&B/atelier dedicated to creative retreats like the one I was there to co-lead with Allison K Williams. In fact anything but. I spent most every waking hour with the eight authors in attendance, Allison, and her spouse at the intimate writers’ retreat—for daily instruction, every meal, editing sessions, one-on-one consultations, even outings.
Are you cringing, authors? Are you imagining all that PEOPLING for an entire week?
I was too, before I went. My first question when Allison invited me was whether I would have a room and bathroom of my own; I couldn’t even consider such a socially intense environment unless I knew I’d have my own space and a door to shut everyone out of it. I’m an adaptive extrovert, but I need time to recharge the batteries when I’ve heavily tapped those muscles.
But almost immediately I was plunged into the middle of our group, starting with sharing a ride from Pau’s petit airport, and from that moment I had very little time not socializing with others.
I’ve been happily self-employed for decades—in fact almost all of my working life. During my usual workdays I thrive in solitude and silence. Friends in traditional workplaces have told me of the constant interruptions as coworkers and workplace distractions interrupt their focus and I’ve shuddered at the idea.
And yet…early in the retreat, when I had a rare chunk of free time, I took my computer into the atelier that was open for us to write in and worked alongside some of the other writers for hours—the first time I’d ever engaged in that kind of collective creative time, parallel play for writers—and I loved it. We worked in silence broken only by the ordinary incidental noises of humanity: the shifting of a chair, the clacking of keyboards, the breathing of other people. Yet it felt focused, something warm and comforting and supportive about all of us sitting in that room, lost in our separate creative worlds…together.
I began to seek out even deeper human interaction—not just with the members of our group, but striking up conversations with the owners of the hotel, with the ingenious staff in the kitchen who prepared our extraordinary meals from ingredients plucked that morning from Clos Mirabel’s garden and with those who served them. I wanted to know more about everyone, hear their stories.
To my surprise, I found that rather than all that “people time” draining my personal and creative batteries, it seemed to energize them. Our little community the group of us created felt wonderfully communal and collegial and warm.
And then one night, amid all that constant togetherness, I woke from successive dreams of loneliness: a big family I wasn’t part of, a group of swimmers I longed to join from my own lonely lane as they splashed and laughed together alongside me.
Why Writers Need a Writing Community
There is something extraordinary about working together with a common goal that unites people quickly and powerfully across even vast differences in background and beliefs, like the famous Heineken “Worlds Apart” ad that showed unlikely connections developing between people from opposing ideologies while working together on a shared project.
Those of us in attendance at Clos Mirabel wrote fantasy and memoir, YA and upmarket and historical, essays and nonfiction. We were doctors and psychiatrists and circus performers and TV producers and teachers and insurance executives and grocery store clerks. We had young children, grown ones, none. We were married, divorced, widowed, single; in our twenties, our forties, our fifties and sixties and seventies. We came from Austin and San Diego and New Hampshire, Germany and Scotland and England and Portugal.
Yet each day at the writers’ retreat we spent the entire day in pursuit of our shared love of writing. We learned together, worked together, wrote together, talked about our work and the challenges and rewards of it together.
Spending so much concentrated, isolated time with one another, working on such an intimate art form as writing—where the goal is to strip away the careful guards most of us humans have spent our lifetimes constructing and release our most authentic selves—you bond quickly.
Your inner life comes closer to the surface and is shared. You talk about your past but live deeply in the present. You tell each other of your lives outside the retreat, but you create one together while you are at it. An unusual intimacy and openness develops, the emotions we so often tuck away burbling more easily to the surface.
You realize you are with people who understand the unique vagaries and challenges of the creative process, the vulnerability and exhilaration of sharing your work, the trials and frustrations and satisfactions of building an artistic career in a subjective, complex, fiercely competitive industry.
In a world and a field that can so often drain creators of confidence, of resilience, of the joy that sparked their writing in the first place, community and connection are powerful things.
Surrounded by people who have traveled great distances and taken a chunk of time from their lives to dedicate themselves fully to this vexing, mercurial, sublime calling of writing, to immerse themselves in it, to struggle and grow and work at their creative efforts just as you are, you begin to take yourself and your work more seriously. You honor your art, and yourself as an artist.
In a world and a field that can so often drain creators of confidence, of resilience, of the joy that sparked their writing in the first place, that collective, connected environment is a powerful thing.
So I kept trying to decipher why, in the middle of all that camaraderie, I dreamed of feeling lonely, and finally I lit on this: As rich as I feel my personal and social connections are, in the years since I lost my immediate writing circle (to death, child rearing, and career change) I had forgotten the value and power of what intimacy and intensity can do for your creativity.
Plunged into that environment in Pau, my subconscious was telling me how much I craved that community and company.
Create Your Writing Community
I wasn’t alone in relishing that communion that grew among us; the other authors there commented on it too, and many asked the question that was on most of our minds: How can we hold on to more of this? How can we find this kind of support and connection among other authors when we returned to “real life,” especially when—as some of us do—we may live in a place with more limited opportunities for it?
I hear this question often from authors, in fact, who hear that they should find a writing community, but have no idea how.
And the answer is the same one Allison and I offered to the group of writers at Clos Mirabel: You make one.
It’s rare to find a ready-made writing community to slip into that’s a good fit, and Allison and I both had stories to share of creating our own from proactively reaching out to writers we felt we connected with: from within larger writing groups, from conferences and writing organizations, online.
I formed my writing critique group with three other people who were also members of a much larger writers’ group in Austin, and the four of us met regularly for many years—through the writing and publication of most of my six novels, in fact (as Phoebe Fox), and at least that many more between the other three.
Ours was an in-person group, since we all lived in Austin, but if that’s not feasible for you then create a virtual one that gives that sense of intimacy and connection: Have regular Zoom meetings or write-ins where you show up, in person, and focus on the work. Schedule calls, create an email thread or What’s App group or Slack channel so you can easily communicate.
Set the structure that works for each of you: the schedule and the format. Meet weekly, monthly, daily for silent writing sessions together where you simply connect on Zoom, check in, then write, cameras on or off, for a prescribed time. It may sound odd, but it creates that sense of solidarity and inspiration.
Meet solely for accountability and support, if that’s what serves you best: I finally finished my first full-length manuscript that eventually became my first novel primarily because I had a weekly page exchange with a close writer friend—no feedback offered or asked for, just the accountability of knowing a certain number of pages were due.
Or give each other feedback—chapter by chapter as you write, or waiting until you have a finished draft if that works better for you. My group did a mix of both, whatever worked for each person. Ask for what feedback you need: big-picture, specific areas, granular. Customize your group to give you what you want.
Find what works for you. Make it work for you.
Building your writing community may not come naturally. It may be intimidating. But creating any kind of community requires effort, a fact I’ve learned from moving around a lot. In each place I’ve lived I treat creating a community like a job, with intention. I go to places where I might meet like-minded souls. If I meet someone I think I might connect with, I offer to exchange numbers. I call and make plans, set up gatherings. Do whatever you’re comfortable with, even if that’s just one other person you gently propose a single writing event with.
You may find these connections yield benefits even well beyond that community you create. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi created a community of two as writing partners that eventually grew into their Emotion Thesaurus/Writers Helping Writers juggernaut. Alison Hammer and Bradeigh Godfrey turned theirs into six books and counting that they wrote and published together. One of our attendees, Lisa Steinke, created a successful writing career with her writing partner, Liz Fenton, with nine books together.
But the endgame isn’t the point; the process is: the day-to-day, week-by-week safety and support net you weave for yourself; the inspiration and accountability you offer one another; the communion, in a career and a world that can sometimes feel isolating and lonely as hell, with people who get it, who get you, and who can help build you up and stand strong.
How about you, authors—do you have a dedicated regular writing community? How often do you meet, and how, and what does it consist of? Or have you wanted one but not been sure where to start? Where and who might you reach out to so you can start forging connections with people you vibe with?
Continue reading:
- “The Ingredients of a Successful Writing Career”
- “Don’t Build Your Network”
- “What Makes a Successful Creative Life?”
- “The Successful Accidental Career of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi”
- “How Writers Survive: Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke”
- “Ali Brady and Playing the Long Game”
If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here.
FoxPrint Editorial helps writers strengthen their manuscripts through developmental editing, education, and practical writing guidance. Explore more articles on revision, storytelling, and the publishing process.
14 Comments. Leave new
My dear writing community is at a point of dissolution. Nothing dire happened other than life. One of us is moving out of the country. One of us has adolescent children looking for colleges. One is knee-deep in querying. It is a bittersweet time, but creative community is always evolving. I will miss the magic intimacy and have already joined a new community just coming together. Sometimes I believe that I write just to be a part of collaborative creation. Thank you for this ode to that joy.
Ours drifted away similarly, Karen–as you say, that’s just life. I’m trying to come to terms in general with impermanence. 🙂 I think the trick, as you’ve already executed, is to keep moving forward–I hope your new writers’ community brings you as much satisfaction and joy as the first! Thanks for the comment.
Lovely post! Thank you for sharing and was great to hear about your experiences – no matter how SOCIALLY INTENSE 🙂
Ha–much less than I expected! Or at least, in a wonderful way. Thanks, Syl.
It took two years to find five writers that wanted to be part of a writing group. I am the facilitator but it’s not “my” group. The guidelines and structure have been by consensus. Our writers live in Florida, Cape Cod, Alaska, Arizona and two in Indiana. We meet every other Wednesday on zoom and two writers submit the Wednesday before the zoom on a rotation. The submissions are up to 6000 words. Shorter is fine. We use the shit sandwhich critique format (start and end with the positive, keep the “needs some work” stuff in the middle). Also we critique specifics-something the writer can use, no generalities. We’ve got one thriller writer, two general fiction, one short story/memoir writer, one romance-ish and one middle grade writer. So far we are three years and going strong and even started our own writers retreat last year. I feel very fortunate to have found these writers and feel like they have, at times, been the only reason I haven’t thrown in the towel (or keyboard).
I love that you have such clear structure, mutually agreed upon–and how enduring the group has been. There’s nothing like it.
I often note how often groups of artists–actors, writers–who are friends or in one another’s support network tend to all succeed together. I don’t think that’s an accident–that support and connection is so important in any creative business. Thanks for sharing this, Lori–a good template for other authors who might want to create their own group.
I always avoided writing groups thinking I barely have time for my own writing let alone to read others’ writing but I love this idea to just meet and write together in silence. I’ll definitely write if a have writing date. Merci Tiffany!
I happen to know you have an opportunity on offer…. 😉
Thank you so much for sharing your intimate thoughts on this experience. That takes courage and self-awareness many of us don’t have. Of course, your observations are so true and helpful. Also, in a larger sense, your experiences, including your dreams, reflect what I believe to be a tragic loss of community in our daily lives. Maybe technology can be partially at fault, the transportation, communication and resulting loss of a sense of “home.” But this affects nearly every aspect of our lives, not just our writing lives. I’m so glad you found that sense of community and told us about it.
For the past few years, I have been a part of The Writers Café, a group of writers who meet every Wednesday evening, virtually on Zoom, and read 700 to 900 words aloud to the group of 10 to 15 people in two rooms. The author then gets feedback to help improve their work. Most everything I’ve written for these past many months has gone through this reading aloud and critique. It is foundational for getting a pre-beta understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of my latest work. I believe it is indispensable for poetry which must be read aloud to be fully appreciated. Over the many weeks we develop a keen awareness of each other. New members join, some leave for a while, but it is a strong and diverse community of writers at all levels of experience and expertise. The Writers Café, which is part of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, is now a vital part of my writing experience and is my go-to writing community.
I think you’re right about a dwindling sense of community, Jeff–and the longing for it. I’ve read recently about younger people dedicating themselves to hobbies that send them to classes and groups IRL; a town in Italy that is working to have their tradition of “front stoop chats” commemorated as a cultural heritage; neighbors who gather to play sports together. The world feels like it isolates us more and more, and that’s counter to human nature–we’re tribal creatures, and we crave that connection. I hope things keep moving in that direction.
I love the idea of the Writers’ Cafe! (And I remember how cohesive and supportive the Lehigh Valley Writers Group felt as a whole when I was there.) It’s wonderful to have something like that right there in your community. Thanks for sharing this!
I am part of several different writing communities, some of which overlap.
I meet with an early bird group of women online every morning at 5:00AM. The camaraderie is definitely what gets my butt out of bed. We check in and chat for a few minutes, and then turn our cameras off and get to work for an hour. The number of people in attendance fluctuates from perhaps 10 or 12 on a good day to the occasional much smaller group on holidays, but someone is there, holding the space, 365 days a year. It’s an eternal flame kind of situation.
Similarly, the Women’s Fiction Writers Association offers multiple online 90-minute write-ins every day; I try to make at least one daily. The friends I’ve made in those two groups are generous, supportive, funny, and brilliant. Collectively, they know everything there is to know about writing and publishing, and they also support each other outside of writing, with everything from hurricane relief to cancer support and even a donated kidney. There’s also a Historical Fiction subgroup which meets online once a week, for presentations on topics specific to histfic and member readings.
Once I’ve actually gotten something written, I turn to my critique group, which formed out of a beta reader matchup from The Shit No One Tells You About Writing podcast. Almost three years in, the four of us are still swapping 3000 words every month, then meeting online to talk about them. We got to celebrate the debut novel of one of our members this spring, with more to follow, I’m sure.
I also belong to a local Business of Writing group, with around 8-10 members, which meets in person once a month for member-created programming; this month we’re workshopping our press kits. We also make it a point to attend each other’s in-person launches and talks, so there’s always a built-in friendly audience.
I’m not the most social person in the world, but I find having the support of other writers absolutely essential, both to my development as a writer and to my mental health. I’ve also learned so much by offering support, in the form of beta reading, reading query letters, etc. I like to balance the peace and quiet of my solo writing time with the creative ferment of being around others engaged in similar pursuits.
Damn, Heather, that’s a lot of support network! I love your regular writing group–I never really understood the appeal until my silent writing time at the retreat with the other authors, and as you say, that creates such good motivation and accountability (I always say it’s why I pay a trainer–to make sure I get my ass to the gym on a regular basis). The fact that you do that every day, plus a daily WFWA write-in, means you’re getting two and a half hours of writing time every day, it sounds like–what a great way to create structure and support for that habit.
I agree with you that a writing community–not just for the writing itself, but for education, collaboration, and support in every aspect of building a creative career–is crucial. None of us succeeds in a vacuum. Thanks for sharing this.
I participated in a writing group of 5 women who had attended the Erma Bombeck Writing Workshop in 2016; we met twice/month for nearly 8 years. Two people submitted up to 8 pages of our work in progress a week before each meeting and we workshopped the pages in our in-person sessions. We disbanded due to illness, deaths of spouses, and job changes. The sharing and opportunities for growth and feedback were priceless, and the friendships that emerged are deep.
After 2 years without a group, I met an acquaintance in March at the Bombeck Workshop. Since then, she and I have met one-to-one several times, and I’ve started attending a writing group she formed. It meets in-person weekly and I’m choosing to go twice/month. One member is a career author who has published nearly 100 books, the facilitator will publish her first book in November, and I hope to publish my first novel within the next year (I already self-published a memoir).
The format is flexible: sometimes people submit pages in advance or read pages aloud. Sometimes we discuss craft questions, marketing, or traditional publishing issues. Recently we visited an independent book store, went out to eat, then to a karaoke bar! I feel extremely fortunate to have found another in-person writing group with enthusiastic, bright, generous members who have unique talents and expertise to share!
There really is something deep and intimate that forms when you’re sharing your creative process and product, isn’t there? I always felt it on film and theater sets too–you become a tight-knit family so fast because it’s such a raw, intensive environment, one a bit isolated from “real life.”
Erma Bombeck sounds like fertile ground for you to find colleagues and comrades for your writing. Having been there myself and experienced the extraordinary environment, I can see why–it has that “on-the-set” feel too where you connect quickly and deeply over shared creative intentions. That kind of camaraderie makes an often lonely field so much less lonely. 🙂 I love that you customize your groups to serve the needs of their members–another benefit of forming a community for ourselves, rather than looking to join in with one ready-made. Thanks for sharing your experience!