Sharing and Learning

ANDREA MUIR has seen the workings of writing groups from the perspective of both teacher and participant, and shares her thoughts on the salutary experience of sharing your work with like-minded people

WRITING GROUPS?  What is the point of them? Surely writing is about sitting down with pen and paper, or screen and keyboard, and stringing words together in a – hopefully – interesting way.  It’s not about sitting with a bunch of people discussing things.

Writers don’t want other people to see their precious work until it is perfect, do they?  Writers are timid, garret-dwelling creatures who rarely see the light of day, aren’t they?  Writers need solitude, silence, a blessing from their muse and only gallons of coffee or a bottle of malt for company, don’t they?

Well, yes… but not all the time.

I cut my writing teeth when I joined a WEA (Workers’ Educational Association) creative writing class.  I was full of nerves and trepidation, bursting with the need for approval.  I had begun work on ‘The Great Gothic Novel’ and while convinced that I would be laughed at, I also secretly hoped that I would be discovered as the next Kate Atkinson.  Of course, I wasn’t and never will be, but…Now I can say with fervour that joining the group was the best thing I have ever done.

What happens at a writing group? Well, painful though it is to admit, what you do is expose your work to the full glare of the unblinkered vision of others.  There, I’ve said it.  It’s harsh, but it’s the truth. Your creative soul is laid bare for others to see.  Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

You may bleat that you couldn’t possibly read anything you’ve written to the group and this will be accepted with knowing nods. Within minutes though, you’ll be desperate to share your stuff.  At last that long desired approval is within your grasp.  With luck you’ll read your work and people will gasp with delight.  This can happen.

“What you need is the input of other writers. They are the people who understand.”

But it’s also possible to discover (as I did) that the epic you have been working on for the last five years is genuine unmitigated rubbish.  Something about reading aloud, even to a sympathetic audience, suddenly brings into sharp relief the words that are good, the words that are bad and all the words that are not strung together in any coherent way at all!

If you have (like I did) secreted yourself away writing aforesaid unmitigated rubbish for long enough, you may have found yourself convinced that the time has come to get an agent to secure that six-figure advance.

Now, whilst there is something secretly satisfying about mass rebuttal, when the constant slap of rejection letters on the doormat begins to get you down, you may realise (yup, me again) that you really should have read some of your work to other people first.

However, it’s very important to make sure that those are the right people.  Writing groups can provide the ‘right people’.

The wrong people are, firstly, your spouse as:

a) he/she will think you are planning to leave – or
b) he/she will think that you have gone mad – or
c) he/she will think you are actually the thick sod they thought you were – or, worst of all:
d) you will be on the receiving end of muse-crushing, yawning ‘that’s nice dear’ disinterest. 

The second wrong person is your mother. This is a golden rule for writers: DO NOT EVER LET YOUR MOTHER READ YOUR WORK.  She will either:

a) swell with pride at how clever her little one is (even if you are a fully-bearded Commissioning Editor – nope – not me!) – or she will:
b) accuse you of betrayal and never speak to you again – or, worst of all she will:
c) show utter disgusted astonishment that you know words like that and tell you to ‘tone it down’ and say: ‘Why can’t you just write a nice story?  People don’t like reading that sort of thing…’

What you need is the input of other writers. They are the people who understand. Other writers share the same guilty secrets as you: they eavesdrop on other people’s conversations; they go through life narrating the supermarket queue, taking mental notes in the dentist’s waiting room, observing in detail the misery and delights of everyday. They invent lives for people they furtively watch in cafés, in trains, on buses.

“We know what it is like to be alone with a keyboard and struggling to tell a story that means something.”

They also share the same conviction that what they produce is either brilliance encapsulated or twaddle.  (Incidentally, this always applies to the same section of writing and is dependent on the day, month or colour of pants they are wearing at the time.)

From being a WEA student, I am now a WEA tutor and also lead the Ross-shire Writers group.  I love doing this but as a writer I need to feed my own creativity too.  Now I’m part of a small, newly formed group who meet to discuss each others work. This is proving to be enormously beneficial.  This is where we get down to the nitty gritty.  This is where we learn, develop and progress even though writing success is no longer just a dream for some of this group.

I also belong to a virtual writing group.  We met at an Arvon Foundation course last year and continue to blether online daily.  We share work.  We share momentary triumphs.  We share disappointments.  We know what it is like to be alone with a keyboard and struggling to tell a story that means something.

So, if you are serious about writing, I whole-heartedly recommend that, if you can – share your writing.  Those words won’t let you down.

© Andrea Muir, 2004