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[fiona]

This article interested me, because I've never been in a writing group that lasted long. I know it's all my fault, for being too impatient and critical about other people's writings.

How do other writing groups handle conflict? Or disparate skills and knowledge? Or anything?

The Fiona

http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2009/04/2009042301c.htm

[bibliothecula]

I just wish I HAD a writing group.

[dellaroux]

1) I organized one, quite awhile ago.

Everyone else got their stuff done; the original organizational stuff took up a fair bit of my writing time and after each person finished their current project and left, I was the only one in the group still working, so we stopped.

Obviously, I'd do it differently if I did it again....farm out the responsibilities, etc. But it was interesting to hear what others are up to.

2) I also know (distantly, having read two books whose authors thank its members) of an ongoing local group with a few outside invited members.

It has served as a birthing grounds for several well-written books and was the catalyst (I think, if I'm reading between the lines correctly--so to speak) for one writer to make a TT move to a stronger school setting from a less-well-fitting school for them.

My guess would be that the latter group is a no-holds-barred group as re: critique, but that it's very respectful and collegial.

3) Maybe the issue is that you have to get members with equally tough skins who want their work to be world-class and don't put their egos in the way of their listening to qualified others' input.

But I'd want a group like that, and not a "tea-and-crumpets" group, anyway, myself. It's kind of intimate, and at the same time wants brutal honesty to be any good.

4) This just occurred to me: Could you find people online to do a virtual group? That might work...

[secretweapon]

I'm posting to get updates because I'm thinking of joining a very small writing group.  We're all being very cautious about it, which I think is a good sign.  They've made it clear that they want someone who's in it for the long haul - or at least, who isn't going to leave as soon as they get the feedback they need on their own work. 

[juanb]

I've never been in a writing group, and honestly the concept seems foreign to me, but during my involvement with photography, I participated in a "photography club" or two.  It didn't work out.  I was way too intense for these groups, who from my perspective just wanted to get together and pat each other on the back or show of their latest totally lackluster work without any real desire to make changes.  Most were classic hobbyists.

On that note, I'd like to contrast the tone of the photography ("art") community with that of my current obsessive time waster (i.e. "hobby"), namely radio control scale aircraft building.  The photography community was ego, ego, ego, with everyone playing the "under-appreciated artist."   There was an ever present bitterness of the success of others.  The RC community is completely difference.  In fact, it's the most supportive group of people I've ever experienced.  Certainly far more supportive than any academic community I've worked with.  People at the very top of the field are open and helpful to those just getting started.  Everyone is humble.  Especially the stars.  Everyone works to improve and offers support and suggestions, which are gleefully accepted.   

I don't know, maybe it's an extension of the sort of camaraderie that pilots (and particularly combat pilots) are said to share.  Maybe it's the fact that even "the pros" regularly fly their works of art into the ground.  Maybe it's that many of the people in the RC hobby come from a "working class" background.  I don't know.  But I do know that academia could learn a few things from the RC community.

[fiona]

I think Dellaroux's pegged the issues really well.

In my experience, most people want a support group rather than a critique group. That's fine if all agree. But I want the toughness rather than the hugs.

A lot of people really don't like to write, and how or why they get into academia is a puzzle to me. Like law, it's a field (at least in humanities and social sciences) where writing is what one is expected to do.

The Fiona 

[secretweapon]

I think Dellaroux's pegged the issues really well.

In my experience, most people want a support group rather than a critique group. That's fine if all agree. But I want the toughness rather than the hugs.

A lot of people really don't like to write, and how or why they get into academia is a puzzle to me. Like law, it's a field (at least in humanities and social sciences) where writing is what one is expected to do.

The Fiona 

I didn't realise that you were referring to an academics-only group.  Having you tried forming a writing group that includes non-academics?  The people I am thinking of joining are not academics and so they have formed the group because they need deadlines and toughness, not support and the motivation to do something that is part of their day jobs. 

[fiona]

I think Dellaroux's pegged the issues really well.

In my experience, most people want a support group rather than a critique group. That's fine if all agree. But I want the toughness rather than the hugs.

A lot of people really don't like to write, and how or why they get into academia is a puzzle to me. Like law, it's a field (at least in humanities and social sciences) where writing is what one is expected to do.

The Fiona 

I didn't realise that you were referring to an academics-only group.  Having you tried forming a writing group that includes non-academics?  The people I am thinking of joining are not academics and so they have formed the group because they need deadlines and toughness, not support and the motivation to do something that is part of their day jobs. 

I've been in academic and non-academic writing groups, and mixtures of the two. What I've found in all is a desire for support rather than critique. Most people do have fragile writing egos, and I've found that non-academics are more fragile than academics, maybe because their only motivation has to be intrinsic.

The Fiona

[terpsichore]

I've never been in a writing group, but in grad school I had a writing partner. We were in the same department but different sub-disciplines. We read everything the other wrote and were honest, even blunt, in our critiques. We also pushed each other to get papers done. It was great help with productivity, and we became good friends. But it worked only because we both wanted the same thing: direct, honest criticism that would help each of us improve our writing. It was support, just not the warm and fuzzy kind.

We've each moved on to good careers, and we both miss that interaction. I'd like to have a writing group of this sort. But I don't know how to start one in mid-career.

[sibyl]

I was part of such a group in graduate school.  The best thing about it was that it gave us structure during an unstructured time; nobody wanted to let down the group, so if we all agreed that we would finish our first draft of our proposal on October 1, we would all have something ready by then; it pushed us to get things done.

It fell apart because the people in the group started moving at different rates.  Some people got research grants and went off to do that work; some people started writing faster than others; some people took teaching gigs and stopped writing.  I think that if I were trying to set up such a group now I'd have a hard time finding a bunch of people at a similar stage of their work, or people who would be willing to commit to the group even if they themselves didn't immediately benefit from it.