Okay, so in the past I have been reluctant to attend any sort of real world writer get-together. Every experience I've ever had with meeting other writers, outside of college, has involved me suddenly realizing that the person is a complete lunatic with delusions of grandeur, and can barely write a coherent paragraph.
I assumed writing groups would be full of these crazy people, all self-publishing and wallowing in their own greatness.
I was wrong.
Really wrong.
I got very depressed about my writing in December, and the whole thing lost its spark so much that for the first time in my life I considered quitting. Giving up. So as a last resort, I went on Craigslist and searched for a writer's group. I found one just joining up. And tonight I went.
It was great. We are all at the same general level, we all write different things, and we all gave and got fantastic critiques.
The best thing was just hearing from real, actual people that they liked the first chapter of my book. Not that you guys are not sufficient, but in some sense you are just words on a page. These were people who looked me in the eye and said that they loved my character, loved my humor, loved this line, loved that line, etc. And of course they gave critiques, which were really good, and I will be taking a lot of suggestions from them.
Suddenly I feel like maybe I'm not a total failure.
Suddenly I feel like writing again.
I assumed writing groups would be full of these crazy people, all self-publishing and wallowing in their own greatness.
I was wrong.
Really wrong.
I got very depressed about my writing in December, and the whole thing lost its spark so much that for the first time in my life I considered quitting. Giving up. So as a last resort, I went on Craigslist and searched for a writer's group. I found one just joining up. And tonight I went.
It was great. We are all at the same general level, we all write different things, and we all gave and got fantastic critiques.
The best thing was just hearing from real, actual people that they liked the first chapter of my book. Not that you guys are not sufficient, but in some sense you are just words on a page. These were people who looked me in the eye and said that they loved my character, loved my humor, loved this line, loved that line, etc. And of course they gave critiques, which were really good, and I will be taking a lot of suggestions from them.
Suddenly I feel like maybe I'm not a total failure.
Suddenly I feel like writing again.