Maeve’s Letters

Week 2

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Writers’ Groups

Writing can be very lonely, and you can get great attacks of self- doubt. So, in a way, it makes sense to bond with a group of like- minded people who have also set out on the same kind of journey. For one thing, it will stop you from thinking that you are the only person in the world mad enough to believe that there’s a book in you, and for another, it means you will meet sympathetic people instead of dealing with those who think you are crazy and should be learning belly dancing or car maintenance, instead. Let me give you some of my own personal views on the advantages and dangers of a writers’ group.

There’s a danger that it could become a talking shop. A place where everyone endures everyone else’s work as a kind of payment for having them listen to yours—like golfers waiting patiently through the tales of other people’s chipping and putting until they can tell their own story.

Then there’s the advantage that you can hear the mistakes others make and learn from them. It’s much easier to see the flaws in someone else’s work than in your own. The man who drones on and on giving endless descriptions of the sunset might bring you back sharp to your own writing and make you examine it more carefully. Or the woman who has a cast of thousands of characters, confusing everybody . . . this could make you rethink a bit, too.

Another danger I see in writers’ groups is that of overpoliteness. I know that I would be guilty of it, because if a fellow member were reading out the greatest load of rubbish with an eager, delighted face I just could not be sufficiently crue...