What if you threw a writer’s group and no one came? Is it still a writer’s group if nothing happens between the writers?

Last night was the regular meeting of a writer’s group I have facilitated for several years. I really didn’t want to go. It had been a long day, I was tired, and to be brutally honest, the meetings lately seem stagnant. Don’t get me wrong; I really like the people who come, and have grown to think of them as friends. But here’s the thing. I think they (well, we) have become too safe.

The group was started after an upsetting event at a huge writer’s conference. I decided writers needed a place to meet that was safe and non-threatening, more like a support group than a critique group. Many of the people who attend, and have attended, have gone on to be published. We have poets, screen writers, non-fiction writers, fiction…and yet it manages to stay a small, safe place to be.

Over the years I have tried to stir members up. We’ve tried exercises, guest speakers, contests, adding time for critiques, etc. I even tried to get members to rotate facilitating. These things appear as a brief candle flame flare and then burn out. We end up back where it’s safe, with members talking about writing.

When I bring up that I worry no one is getting anything out of the group anymore, that we are all talking about the same things we talked about last year, and the year before, everyone jumps right in to tell me I’m wrong. They insist they leave the group wanting to write, that they get support and they learn.

Well then, maybe it’s just me. Which brings me back to last night. I went strictly out of obligation and responsibility.  They’d manage without me, and have, and I could have skipped it but didn’t. And only one other member showed up. So there we sat, me drained emotionally, listening to familiar words, feeling like I had nothing new to add either. And then in comes a stranger. A young man who’d heard about the group, who is making documentaries and writing screenplays.

We had good discussions but it was hard for many reasons. I kept thinking, he’s not going to get anything out of this group. We’re all asleep. I don’t know that he’ll come back. I’m not sure I feel he should. I don’t think we’ll be any help to him.

So tell me. How do you wake people up, shake them up, move them out of ruts, challenge their thinking, make them quit speaking the same words, make them write? I include myself in those questions. How do I challenge myself as a writer? I no longer want to sit in the group and speak variations of the same themes over and over and over throughout the years.

I want my friends to soar as writers, but I don’t know how to help them, or me, find the needed wings.

In other words, I’m my own worst enemy, as the cliché goes, and struggle daily to change.

Yesterday, at my son’s doctor appointment, the doctor mentioned that his niece’s young adult book had just been picked up by a major publisher, and that Sherman Alexei (someone I greatly admire) was one of the people who had written a cover blurb for her. Trying to be brave, I mentioned that I, too, had a book out. I asked him to give my compliments to his niece, and we had a nice conversation.

But inside? The whole time I was thinking, wow, his niece is a real writer. Followed by instant fear that he would ask me who published my book, to which I’d have to admit, ‘me’. Or, I figured I could say, ‘it’s an Indie publishing’ hoping he didn’t know that meant ‘me’. I felt embarrassed and even a tiny bit ashamed. My inner writer immediately cowered in her dark, dank, closet, cringing, while the voice that sounds like my mom shouted outside the door, ‘YOU’RE NOT A REAL WRITER! YOU’RE NOT EVEN VERY GOOD!’

Come on, really? At this time of my life, I still cower before that inner critic? How absolutely stupid. And yet, being very honest here, I do.

So what is a real writer? I know the answer to that question. Anyone who writes. What is an author? To me, anyone who is published. I have friends who have published their own books and are very successful at it. Susan Schreyer comes immediately to mind. Multiple books out, always busy marketing in a very professional manner. She’s a real author.

Okay, I just had a lightbulb moment. I don’t feel like an author because I only have one book out, I’m not wild about the cover (which was a mistake), I’m not doing a huge amount of marketing because I don’t think marketing kicks in until you have more than one book out, and I always feel my writing comes up short. So success to me, is multiple books, a marketing plan, and most importantly, the confidence to say, I’m in charge of my writing and publishing. I don’t need a big name publisher behind me to feel like an author.

In spite of feeling like a failure as an author, and feeling like a not very good writer, I honestly love my story. I’m having fun working on the sequel. I think it will be a good story, too. I know I do a good job with setting because that soars for me. I like my characters; some even make me laugh. So why isn’t that good enough?

I guess because I am from that generation that wrote during the time when publishing meant being accepted by someone else. My brain knows that is no longer important in this day and age, and that publishers and agents are struggling. But my writing soul still assumes the mantle of inadequacy.

I know, it’s stupid. But it’s honest, and I haven’t figured out how to change.  And I know exactly what is going to happen now. My friends are going to send me emails bawling me out and telling me I’m a good writer. And I’ll thank them, and inside I’ll think, ‘of course you have to say that, you’re a friend’. Continuing the self-defeating role.

For now anyway. I’ll get this figured out. I’m actually a stronger person than that writer cowering in the closet.

A friend of mine, Ré, posted a poem on her blog https://sparksinshadow.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/drunken-poem-free-drink-event-vodka/ and I liked it so much I asked her if I could post it here to share. If you go to her blog you’ll see the story behind the post, but for now, please take a moment to go to the sidebar under ‘Poem or Quote’ and read her words.

I hope the poem will resonate with you as it did with me, especially the last lines.

I know the link is long but I can’t get the ‘insert link’ button to work. Sorry!