The One Thing That Changed Everything About My Writing

We've all been there at some point as writers: staring in horror at the blinding vastness of a pearly white page, swearing we could hear the ticking taunts of the second hand with every flash of the cursor. The beginning of a story that hadn't yet been written. The adventures that, as of that moment, were mere echoes in your mind and incoherent notes on your phone, your desk, your hand.

Do I actually have what it takes to make this story real? To put it together somehow, in some understandable way, and then share it with the world?

The truth about human existence is that we have the innate ability to do incredible things with seemingly insufficient materials. This has been exemplified again, and again, and again. I'm sure you can think of at least one person in your life whose tenacity and resilience you admire above all else; it's just hard to see that in ourselves.

That's where I was at last October, sitting in front of my computer, staring at another blank page. I'd been working on writing my first novel for over a year, and yet the doubts continued to linger. I felt like my understanding of both my story and how to write a book at all were severely limited—insufficient.

 But then I made a decision that changed everything:

I joined a writing group.

And as someone who has spent the past several years devoting all my academic study to the world of editing and publishing, please believe the weight this carries when I say that nothing has so drastically changed my writing habits as the catapult that is my writing group.

Here are five things that my writing group has introduced me to:

1. The general writing community. I'd subconsciously decided for myself that no one cared what I was writing about; I was wrong! People took an immediate interest in my book. The writing community is full of supportive, creative people who understand the massive undertaking that a book project really is. They also share hilarious memes about writing books that will make you laugh and call you out.

2. Writing sprints. Do you struggle with wanting your first draft to be absolutely perfect? Because I do. Every three sentences, I find myself glancing back at what I already wrote, fearing I'd find the most horrendous grammar errors, plot holes, or factual inaccuracies. But doing weekly timed sprints with my writing group forced me to stop focusing on the quality of the writing and start aiming for quantity. After all, once you have words to edit, improvements become much easier.

3. Celebrating each milestone. I'm definitely one to get overwhelmed with big projects, especially when it's a 100,000-word manuscript goal and I've only got twenty pages written. In the moments that I started focusing too much on this huge mountain looming before me, my writing group reminded me that all I had to do was sit down and write something—the most important part was showing up and chipping away. Even if it's just 20 words. Break down the hesitation barriers.

4. Craft books. And no, I don't mean arts-and-crafts books! Books that actually help you improve your craft and write better by giving you tools and resources to build with. I just received Save the Cat! Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody in the mail this week, and it is already making all the difference for my book.

5. The idea that every first draft is already perfect because its only job is to exist. Yep. That one's also for my perfectionist writing friends; your first draft? Finished? That means your book now exists. It's PERFECT. And now you have the opportunity to make it even more perfect.

All this to say, if you're a new/aspiring author, a lonely author, a doubtful author, a perfectionist author, a bestselling author, or any kind of author at all, you should join a writing group and you'll see your writing change drastically—like a trebuchet hurling your manuscript across the obstacles of publishing, engulfed in the whispering blue flames of glory.

You'll be so glad you did, you might write a blog post about it.

My group is called The Writing Team and is managed by Cynthia Merrill (Editor/Writing Coach; @cynthiamerrillediting), Rebecca Cazanave (MFA in Fiction, Romance Novelist; @rebeccacaz_writes), and Kath Richards (MFA Creative Writing, Editor, Novelist; @kath_richards_writes). It's hosted on a Discord server and we have people from all over the United States tuning in each week! Come chat with us; I'd love to see you there.