Writing

I belong to a writing group that really floats my boat. It is all women (not that there is anything wrong with men, but it feels good and safe just the way it is), and we generally meet once a month. We don’t all make it every time, and that’s okay – life continues to happen, and we all do the best we can.

Three of us met last night, and it dawned on me that one of the reasons I think we work so well together is that we are very honest with each other. If there is some kind of critique we are looking for, we say so. If we are working on the beginning of something and haven’t yet gotten to the place where we are comfortable with nit-picking, we say so. And all critiquing is done from a place of kindness.

There doesn’t seem to be any competition in this group. It maybe helps that we are all doing different kinds of writing – on any given night we may hear poetry, a piece of a novel or memoir, blogging, or anything else. We all seem sincere in our desire to get input from other writers to make our own writing better.

It feels very safe in this group. And considering that I am currently doing some very vulnerable writing, that’s important to me.

So it works well, and it helps me to continue my writing projects. Here’s a shout out to the women of North End Writers/Superheroes Support Group.