TIME FOR AN UPDATE

Enough good things can not be written about writers groups. I feel very fortunate to have found and been accepted into one. Living where I do, finding one was no small accomplishment. And one should not assume they will automatically accept anyone who asks to join.

First there is the size. The group shouldn't be so large that the work of the individual members gets lost in the shuffle - nor so small that there won't be sufficient variety and skill available for review and critique of your work. And because the groups are made up of people, with personalities and interests, it is important that they get along on a personal basis. Some groups require the members to write the same genre. Others are not so stringent. The group to which I belong has variety.

I write crime mysteries. Police Procedurals actually which are a sub-set of the Mystery genre. There is no one else in my group who writes my genre. However, someone else in the group writes historical novels and they often involve suspenseful moments. Then there is a third member. She writes Memoir. But she loves to read the novels. And she catches inconsistencies all the time. What a gem she is. And she knows that "someone has to die." So she tries to point out where we are setting up a character for that fateful end. It's good to have her around because sometimes we novelists find we need to go back and muddy the clues a bit.

The fourth member of our group also writes memoirs, but she also writes poetry. That's a weak spot for me, but she has written some that I "get" at the very first reading. And I benefit by expanding my knowledge of flow and imagery and representation from her that I can transfer into some of my own writing.

The fifth member is a former newspaper reporter who now writes articles for magazines. Boy is she great on questions of comma usage - when to use and when not. And sometimes she knows things from the topics she has written about in the past which are helpful to someone in the group researching something in that area.

So we all learn and share with each other. But most of all, we expand our writing style and techniques by having our work read, reviewed, critiqued and explored by others who are both supportive and critical in ways friends and family sometimes can not be.

Do we all have the goal of being published? I'm not sure. Certainly two of us do. All of us have been at one time or another in one venue or another. But myself and the other novelist strive in different ways. The peaks are higher maybe - the lows more so for sure. But as a group we share and learn and find friendship. Therein lies the benefit.