Do you use or know of any good online writing support groups?

I’m watching this question because I’d like to know, also.

Critters Workshop

This looks interesting. I will check it out. Unfortunately, my work right now is not completely in the sci-fi/fan/horror genre. While it’s actually closely connected, it doesn’t actually fit*. I could dust of a few older manuscripts for practice, but I’d like a place to work on this one.

(* I’m working on a story about some sci-fi/comic convention followers, if you must know.)

The Word Cloud or allpoetry
RE your subject have you ever read Zombies of the Gene Pool?

@anartist I’ve heard about that book, but haven’t read it myself. I thought the idea was great. Mine is from a totally different angle/view, (young adult realistic fiction) but I really liked that book summary. I think I heard about it on NPR originally.

The word cloud is looking nice. It sort of reminds me of the NaNo website, but it’s got more year round activity. I will check that out as well.

The simple answer is: “To learn the habit of writing every day, write every day”.

Read Natalie Goldberg’s books Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind, which teach the practice of free writing. The Artist’s Way teaches “daily pages”, which are pretty much the same thing — I prefer Goldberg because she’s well accustomed to teaching writing to writers.

The only thing I learned in high school in the ‘70s that I kept was the practice of free writing. The practice made no sense to me at all, and I argued with our English teacher about it regularly, but I eventually thanked her on the acknowledgements page of my first book. Free writing is hard work, but it does work — writers who practice free writing are never blocked; it’s that effective. But because it is hard work, most people who think they want to be writers won’t do it, and their path to writing is paradoxically made more difficult.

I love Natalie Goldberg’s books. I’ve used her books so many times over the years that I actually had to buy new copies. They wore out or I loanded them out.

I don’t really want a structured group—I just want people to “check in” with. Kind of like a 12 step group or Weight Watchers. I need at least one person who I have to be held accountable to. Otherwise, I just procrastinate forever.

@keobooks You could try a group I belong to on Yahoo! Groups. The name of the group is Sassyscribe2003 (Sassyscribes within the group) and the owner is Barb Rees. The URL is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sassyscribe2003/ Barb lives in Powell River, just north of Vancouver, BC, Canada. All writers of all abilities are welcome. Barb is a great motivator, so you might find her interested in helping you or you might even be a fire to get the group restarted. That might be something worth considering. Remember: the best way to learn something is to teach it. This may translate as: The best way to be motivated is to motivate! Tell her Andreas sent you! I live in Australia.

What about Twitter? If you follow something like #writing, you will often see people giving updates on what they are doing, how many words they have written and the like. It is obvious people know each other and use Twitter to motivate themselves.

Other than that, check out your local library? They often have writing groups and knowing you have to take a piece of work along on Tuesday evening might keep you going. There are online writing groups too. I joined the Sydney Writers’ Centre, even though I am in Brisbane and it helped get me focused plus they have a forum that helps you connect with other people.

I had a student who lived with multiple disabilities and her method of motivating herself was to say “I have to do this for 15 minutes”. I think this works. Once you have started writing, you are usually fairly engrossed and can keep going. I also watch programs like The Book Show on Sky on Foxtel and all different writers have different ways of working. Some write for hours, some write so many words a day and some of them write so many words a week. Find what works for you AND recognise when you are procrastinating (note to self who has just found Fluther!!).