Group Therapy

Brain food or subtext?

As much as we think of writers as solitary creatures, writers need people. (And no, not just to buy the books!) Getting considered and constructive feedback can be a challenge at any point in a manuscript's life, but especially when you you're working through the early stages of a story, establishing the plot, the main characters and the major conflicts. The framework that you put together - much like a skeleton - will shape and constrain much of the later writing.

Who you gonna call? Other writers!

The right writers' group can transform your understanding of your own book, enabling you to gain valuable and objective insights about your work.

Some of the benefits

- You can set ground rules, so that the feedback is structured in a particular way.

- Other writers understand what it takes to write a novel, and what it takes out of you.

- Other writers, generally, are well read and may relate your aspirations to other novels and novelists. This can help you appreciate whether a proposed plot line is as original as you think.

- A good writers' group is supportive, and invests time and attention in your work, which boosts your confidence.

- You can learn from the experiences of other writers.

- A good writers' group will not tolerate sloppy writing, but instead will inspire you to raise the standard of your work.

Some of the challenges

- If writers have different levels of experience they may also require different levels of input. 

- Not everyone's skin is the same thickness.

- Members may not feel knowledgeable about a genre they've never read or written for.

- There can be an element of competition (which, I suggest, is also a good thing). That can lead to tensions if some members are making good progress in their writing goals, while others are not.

Some suggestions for the perfect writers' group

- Small is beautiful. No more than five people is ideal for a group

-  Plan the session so you know when the breaks will be and how the group will spend on each person’s work.

-  Let each person determine what level of feedback they need.

-  Have a timekeeper – it makes everything so much easier.

- Allow for time and space for general chatting – it’s not just a series of presentations and feedback. Writing is also about process, challenges, and ideas; plus, there is life outside writing too!

- If it’s possible, bring along printed copies of the text so that everyone can follow it as it’s being read aloud.

- Everyone reads and everyone feeds back. The word ‘nice’ is banned.

- A light lunch (if it’s a long session) or snacks make it much more enjoyable. Everyone can bring something, although that can result in a lot of chocolate.

- Consider having someone other than the author read their work out. In my regular group we read our own work out, but in the ‘Famous Five’ group we read one another’s. It can help the author appreciate the rhythms and sentences from the reader’s perspective. It can also be funny when someone has written dialect speech, tha knows!

- Try to keep to the schedule as much as possible, so that everyone has their turn and you finish on time.

 

It’s surprising what a fresh pair of eyes, or a fresh mind can come up with. Two examples spring to mind: Susie came up with the name for Miranda’s bar in my thriller, Standpoint, while Warren’s input helped me to decide on the final scene for my comedy drama, Scars & Stripes.

There’s another side to it as well, which I alluded to in my title. A supportive and constructive writers’ group encourages all participants to thrive, wherever they are with their writing. It becomes a community of kindred spirits, who share in successes and failures, on and off the page. If writing is a kind of madness, a good writers’ group can help keep you sane.

Here’s to you: Warren, Susie, Sue, Randle, Martin, Kath, Elizabeth, David, Christine and Cathy.

Standpoint (or part one, as I like to think of it)...

Thomas Bladen keeps secrets - mostly from those closest to him - but all that is about to change. He's a civil service photographer, based in London, but the Surveillance Support Unit also assists other government departments. It's staffed by ex-forces personnel, careerists and Thomas. With an eye for details and a talent for finding trouble, leading a double-life was never going to be easy.

During a routine assignment with Customs & Excise, he unwittingly exposes a thread of a conspiracy that bleeds into his private life. When the cards are stacked against him and the only woman he has ever loved is in their sights, can one good man hold the line without crossing it?

Amazon UK

http://www.amazon.co.uk/STANDPOINT-gripping-thriller-full-suspense-ebook/dp/B00UVQBVVU/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1426799134&sr=1-25&keywords=spy+thriller

Amazon US

http://www.amazon.com/STANDPOINT-gripping-thriller-full-suspense-ebook/dp/B00UVQBVVU/ref=sr_1_25?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1426799134&sr=1-25&keywords=spy+thriller

About the author

I'm a diverse writer of fiction, non-fiction and comedy material. Standpoint is the first in a series of contemporary British thrillers that combine action, intrigue and dark humour.

Come visit my blog: http://www.alongthewritelines.blogspot.co.uk

Follow me on Twitter - @DerekWriteLines

All for One - the power of community

Writing is a solitary business. You exist for long periods of time in your own imagination, agonise over the details of your creation, edit to within an inch of your page margins, and then...well, generally, you're on your own.

However, being part of a writing community, whether it's in cyberspace or in a face-to-face group, offers many benefits. These can include:
- A space to share experiences and support. Pretty much anything that has ever happened to a writer has already happened to another one. 
- An opportunity to give and receive constructive feedback. 
- A forum to exchange golden nuggets of opportunity (competition deadlines, useful resources, submission windows, etc.).
- A chance to showcase your work. Think: 'scared face in a safe place'.

Of course, one must choose wisely. As the late, great comedian and free-thinker, Bill Hicks, once said, "There are some serious pickets of humanity out there."

A Word with You Press - based in Moscow, Idaho (better read than dead) - combines a physical location with an online presence and an international reach. I've been part of their universe since 2011, following a trail of words until I became one of the team.

Led by author, raconteur and editor-in-chief, Thornton Sully, AWwYP has diversified and developed to run online writing competitions (which they insist on calling contests), running workshops in-situ, publishing books, offering editorial and publication services, and offering a sales portal for books. Because you can never buy too many books, right? 

The A Word with You Press avowed mission statement is:

Putting Gravitas on a Lo-Carb Diet.

If you visit the site, you'll see what I mean. And now a word from our sponsors...with US grammar...

A Word with You Press is always looking for ways to have fun on the internet and to meet and inspire new writers.  We do this with regular contests with unusual prompts and sometimes even more unusual prizes. (although our last contest prize was a straight and simple $500).

We have come up with a great contest for Valentine's Day. Jerry Rubin once wrote that the word "love" had lost all value because "Cars love Shell." Help us give the word's true meaning and passion once more. Write a love story between four and five hundred words, or a poem of up to 300 words, and somewhere in your story use the phrase: "but it was only a rumor."

Prizes for the winner and runner-ups.

It's a great chance for writers in your group to hone their skills, write to a deadline within certain parameters, get their work published online, and get valuable feedback not just from the editorial staff but from other writers who regularly enter our contests. And maybe even get bragging rights as a winner!

Here is a link to our current contest:

http://www.awordwithyoupress.com/2014/01/15/roses-and-chocolates-and-thorns-oh-my-our-first-contest-of-2014/

Will you help our on-line community grow by passing this email and link along to those in your own writing group?

Please do pass this on, and share it with all manner of social media.

And a happy Valentine's Day to you!

A Scribble of Writers

Writing Groups in my neck of the woods are very few and even more far between. In fact I think the only one I’ve heard about has been running for over 35 years in a local hostelry of dubious custom which I had the courage to telephone decades ago when I felt hungry for validation and that conversation scared the bejeesus out of me (though easily done). I felt like I was being interviewed by a cross between Laurence Olivier and Margaret Thatcher.  After said phone call I decided I didn’t have the requisite credentials and became a ‘no-show’ on their register.  I probably stayed in and watched Eastenders instead – only slightly less scary than getting my prose out in front of complete strangers at the back of a pub.

So it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I agreed to ‘join’ the writing group that the receptionist at my Osteopath’s office told me about.  In fact ‘trepidation’ kind of went off the scale a bit when she mentioned she’d been ‘watching me closely’ to see if I was the kind of person they wanted to be let into their Writerly circle as they were ‘a bit choosy’.

Have you ever felt wary and yet thrilled?  Thrary? Warilled?  I nodded a lot and kept my smile from morphing into anything too maniacal and asked her a bit about it; bearing in mind the fact I already knew she wrote and once  even asked her if she knew of any writing groups in the area and she’d said no, she hadn’t.  So not just selective but secretive.

They met, she said, every three or so weeks at the back of a well-known local bookshop and the other member of the group (I know, member singular) was the bookshop owner.  ‘So it’s more a duo than a group then?’ I smirked.  ‘Trio if you’re in,’ she smirked back.

She went on to tell me that they’d both written a book or two and that they’d had nice rejection letters from several agents whose names I recognised because I’d also had the same.  Along with discussing writing, she said, they also took it in turns to buy fresh Danish pastries and cappuccinos from across the road and occasionally they got ‘flashed’ at by a naked man in an upstairs window opposite.  Invariably, she went on, discussions about writing tended to end up as dissections of the local neighbourhood ‘characters’ from which they’d sometimes drawn their own.

When I left with the date of their next meeting scribbled onto my frontal cortex, I couldn’t help thinking that the whole setup sounded far too mad and far too within my own realms of fantastic imagination for it to really be true.  Maybe I’d made it all up. Perhaps this was how tortured I’d finally become and now it would be better for everyone if I just signed on the dotted line and took myself off to “HappyFields” for the duration.

When I got home, enthusiastically I Facebooked my news and was met with comments of concern and caution.  Was I not worried about the ‘watching you closely’ bit?  Um… no, not until you mentioned it, actually.  I was warned about meeting strangers in places I hadn’t been before and reminded of the security measures involving public areas etc.  Now… now I was a little bit worried.

But it didn’t put me off. In fact I couldn’t have been more excited if it had had a blue ribbon tied round its neck and was covered in caramel coating.

At the first meeting I felt as nervous as any first day at a new job and declined a Danish for fear that it would crumble all over me and I’d end up looking like a flaky fool in front of them.  But I needn’t have worried.  They are just lovely.  Both as writers and as people.  They are dedicated to their craft, have produced books worthy of immediate publication and I’m delighted to be in their acquaintance.   

There is something very rare that sits in a room with writers and that is the spirit of Understanding; of Knowing and of Getting It that just doesn’t happen anywhere else.   And as if I even need icing on this particular cake, we sit surrounded by thousands of beautiful books spilling from the shelves on the walls and covering the floor … a place where it feels like home.

And one of us has just signed a contract with an Agent so this year is beginning to feel very special indeed. Oh, and the crazy characters and the naked man in the window?  All true!

Team sports

I love doing readings or Q&As at writing groups and libraries. They're my absolutely best gigs.

Worst, in case you're wondering, are book signings in book shops...Lord, how bloody dreadful they are. No one buys a book or speaks to you. Hours go by, until the staff take pity and start making you cuppas.

Anyways, as I say, I love a good writer's group. I'm not sure how good for business they are in the long run, but yapping about writing with other writers is the most fun you can have outside a hotel room.

Yes, the same stuff comes up again and again. But I don't mind that because there's always something new to challenge and inspire. I rarely leave without my mind working over time.

The last one I did was no exception. I'd been invited in the Winter, when book three came out. But it snowed, then the kids got ill, then the volcanic blinking ash cloud kept me in Bangkok. So I finally got there this week.

They were a great bunch. Lively and incredibly creative. One of the members read out a short story that was feckin' brilliant.

What really surprised me on this occasion, though, was when the subject of literary agents raised its ugly head. This is a regular feature of course, and generally takes the form of an interogation into how I secured mine. And some pushy bugger will sometimes ask if I can recommend his WIP.

This time, though, things took a different turn.

After the initial question of whether I have an agent, I was then asked, point blank, why I bothered.

Why couldn't I just sub my work directly to a publisher? Why would I pay someone 15% to do a job I could do myself. Writers are, I was told, the best champions of their own work.

Before I had a chance to catch my breath another writer asked me why any artist would want to impair their creative freedoms by having an agent? They insisted on revisions didn't they? And what gave them the right? Who set them up as the gatekeepers of fiction?

The discussion went on until the end of the session and then continued in the pub.

And I've been thinking about it ever since. Trying to settle my own views. I mean, I don't jump with joy when I see my agent's cut from my advances and royalties so why pay it?

Being honest here, the main reason is of course, that my agent has been successful. He has sold all my books to date. I don't have anything unpublished under my bed and I'm contracted for another three. He did all that. I wouldn't have known where to start.

I guess, I could have looked up the various publishers, and sent my subs in, but I won't fool myself into thinking that this would have opened as many doors as a simple phone call from someone who has been in the biz for years. It's all about contacts.

Wrong? Maybe. But I'd rather deal with the reality of any situation and turn it to my advantage than try to fight it.

In this respect, I am, I'm afraid, not my best advocate. Perhaps I'm just too British. Either way, the thought of going out and flogging gives me the shivers.

As for foreign deals. Well, come on, I have A level French. How could I possibly?

Telly rights? C'mon. This is me, not Richard Curtis. I'm just some northern bird who needs her roots doing. I'd be laughed out of court.

So ultimately, I have an agent because he can sell...maybe other writers could do this. But not me.

But it's more than that, even.

When things go wrong, and they do, he is my bad cop. Horrid covers? Arguments over edits? Disagreements over money? He da man.

I like a warm, trusting relationship with my editor, and most certainly do not want to end up bickering over my next title. Let my agent do all that. Behind the scenes.

Again, I'm sure there are more forthright types than me who can battle it out. I'm a wimp. Guilty as charged.

Anything else? Defintely.

Writing can be a funny old business. The worry worm can hit at any time. Or even a full blown attack from The Fear. Then there are the rejections, the bum reviews, the poor sales. But with an agent, you're never alone. He's on my side. He cheers me on. We're a team.

I've often heard it said, that diamonds are a girl's best friend. But I'm sticking with an agent.

Should others? Well that's a personal choice. But it's one that should, I feel, be taken in full knowledge of what it is they actually do.

A matter of trust

Receiving feedback is a vital but uncomfortable part of the writing process. It can also be mighty confusing. Someone asks why you've hardly described the hero's looks, while someone else enjoys being left to imagine him. One person raves about your gift for description, while another turns their nose up at your purple prose. Someone adores the hilarious way your ditzy heroine keeps tripping over cake trolleys – but someone else cringes at her vacuousness, making you panic and scribble in a paragraph about her love of Renaissance literature.

When it's informal feedback – from friends, an online forum or a face-to-face writers' group – there might also be issues with the individual commenter's perspective. Is it a family member who just knows everything you do will be brilliant? Is it a kind person who wants to help but worries about hurting your feelings? Is it someone employing Machiavellian tactics to climb the chart on a competitive writing website? Is it an arrogant or insecure writer who feeds their ego by belittling others? Then there are those who have interesting views on your work but can't express them – they might say 'It was great!' or 'This bit doesn't read very well,' but that's the extent of their analysis.

What you want are sensible, polite, honest and thoughtful responders who can explain the reasons behind their views. But even they can end up being unhelpful. They know you want detailed comments and that you won't fall for being told you're the next Milton, so they will find something – anything – to show they are taking the task seriously. They might point out a 'mistake' – but if the same thing were in a published book, they'd see it as a clever literary device. People trust a published author to have a good reason for doing something, but they don't necessarily trust you in the same way.

For all these reasons, I'm wary about rushing in to make changes on the strength of one person's opinion. After a few days, once the sting of criticism or the joy of praise has worn off, maybe it will turn out that the person was right. Maybe a few people have made the same comment, or maybe I knew deep down that part of the story didn't work but I just kind of hoped no one would notice. Maybe they have raised an issue that never would have occurred to me otherwise, and that makes sense of everything. But it's also possible they have their own agenda or that they've completely got the wrong end of the stick.

It's great to have trusted readers who can enlighten you about how to improve your work – but if you've carefully considered feedback in cold blood and concluded that you don't agree, I think it's equally important to trust yourself.

The Ideal Reader - Guest post by Andrew Sharp

Andrew Sharp's wonderful debut novel, The Ghosts of Eden, a story of medicine, love and redemption set in East Africa, was published by Picnic earlier this year. Andrew trained as a surgeon and now practises as a GP in Leicester.His website is www.theghostsofeden.com.

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I have a notion that Wordsworth’s line, I wandered lonely as a cloud, has nothing to do with walking the Cumbrian hills but is a metaphor for the poet’s mental state when he wrote. Writers mooch lonely in their thoughts whilst under the tips of their fingers the novel forms and grows as they tap at the keys. Sometimes they think they have created fields of daffodils but even the prettiest words that appear on the screen have no guarantee of making it into the finished piece; at any moment they could be dragged and dropped, substituted or deleted, leaving not a trace.

But there comes a day when the writer has to say (like Pontius Pilate when asked to change what he’d written on Christ’s cross): ‘What I have written, I have written.’ No more revisions. The last pre-submission draft is printed out, is packaged up as if it's the stone on which is scoured the Ten Commandments, and sent to the publisher or agent.

Whilst the writer might have kidded themselves early on that they didn’t care if anyone else read their work, the truth is that a writer who doesn’t want to be read is like a composer who never dreams of having the Berliner Philharmoniker playing their work: they have a limited vision. However very few writers are happy to go in one step from a manuscript for their-eyes-only to a book open to the world. At some point in the late draft stage a writer starts thinking about their readers and - in Stephen King’s words from his entertaining book On Writing - wants someone around who’ll tell them, before they go out in public, that their fly’s unzipped.

What the writer would give their index finger for is an Ideal Reader. Someone who embodies the collective opinion of all the readers and reviewers of the world; someone who offers an unfailingly constructive and critical eye, pointing out what works and what should be deleted. For many writers, this is their agent, but it is ironic that when a writer most needs that Ideal Reader - for their first submitted manuscript – the agent is not available. How important this mythic figure can be is illustrated by the story of literary agent Charles Monteith who took a manuscript described as an ‘absurd & uninteresting fantasy …’ by a less visionary publisher's reader and provided William Golding with the editorial input that culminated in the finished novel: Lord of the Flies. (No pun intended with the close of the previous paragraph).

Inviting friends and family to comment might do wonders for a writer’s ego. They will make flattering remarks to avoid a lifelong rift (and because they are astonished to actually know someone who has written a book, however bad it is), but it’s hardly objective. The first reader feedback I received came in the form of, ‘Wow, Dad!’ as my youngest daughter ran her fingers across the top of the four hundred page high manuscript still hot from the laser printer. I guessed a publisher might be harder to impress.

There are critiquing services that will write a report for the writer in exchange for cash. Some will major on commenting on the marketability of your novel (let me save you the money: almost always the answer will be ‘unmarketable’ – gloom is programmed into the industry) and others will dissect, with surgical precision, the anatomy of the story itself but the truth is that even the most professional critiquing outfit can only afford to have one reader on the job and reading a novel is a highly subjective experience. After reporting competently on writing technique, plot credibility, characterisation etc the subjective element kicks in: what is Man Booker prize material for one reviewer will be shredder material for another. Several opinions that concur (as we say in medicine) are valuable, but would be prohibitively expensive if done through the critiquing service route.

Another route to pre-submission feedback is the writers’ group, either online or meeting face to face. Many writers find these disastrous. They're subjected to comments such as, ‘It’s kind of meaningful, I mean, I get the feeling that this is really heartfelt.' Some groups are let down by mutual back slapping or pseudo-intellectual point scoring. I’ve been fortunate. My group, the Leicester Writers’ Club, is as good as these get, although I nearly slunk out the back door on my first attendance.

I found myself sitting in a rather imposing hall gripping, unnecessarily tightly, four A4 sheets of paper. On the pages were a couple of thousand words from my recently completed debut novel. There were four rows of heads between myself and a wooden lectern which stood on its own at the front, the focal point of everyone’s gaze. By the lectern was an oversized microphone. It looked grand enough for an inauguration address. The chairperson was seated at a table, a little off to the side, looking extraordinarily intelligent and insightful. I could tell she’d be scornful of drivel. I convinced myself that the people sitting in front of me were all professors of English Literature or had written one of those books you see with titles like ‘the 1001 most common mistakes in fiction writing’. I hugely regretted putting my name down to read. I glanced down at my piece and convinced myself that the first paragraph was laughable.

The chair asked for announcements and acceptances. My perception that I was a tadpole in a pond of pikes was confirmed when someone announced that they had sold the German rights to their fourth novel. Then I heard, ‘We have a new member this evening ... who’s going to read for us.’ I found myself subconsciously screwing my pages into a tight ball. Why open myself to public humiliation?

After surviving the occasion it struck me that I had not been looking out on the literary equivalent of Dragon’s Den but was looking at a bunch of listeners/readers. Thirty willing, captive, readers. Where else could you find that for your draft manuscript? But it’s even better than that. The members of a good writers’ club are a very special type of reader. Because they’re writers, as well as readers, they’re well-versed in the techniques of the craft, and so are able to see why your favourite scene hasn’t worked and then suggest ways to make it work.

Even a good writers’ group has its limitations. In a meeting format where manuscripts are read out it’s only possible to get comment on a limited part of the novel and it’s difficult for the group to get a feel for the entire plot. There are, however, other benefits: it’s an environment to share knowledge of the writing and publishing world with fellow sufferers, to commiserate, encourage and to share in the joys of success. The group may not embody to perfection that elusive Ideal Reader but it’s good to feel that there is no need to do so much wandering lonely as a cloud.

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The Ghosts of Eden is available from Amazon.

A guide to writing course dwellers

As a connoisseur of courses, here’s a directory of the type of people you will meet if you sign up for a series of evenings, or an inspirational weekend.


The Bookwife
She writes now the children are at school, or ideally have buggered off to university. She fits writing between school runs, food shopping, house cleaning, cooking, and dutiful love-making. Her one aim is to validate her life by achieving something. She is galled at her husband’s expense account lifestyle and important sounding lunches, and longs for something to show what she’s worth. That means one thing – publication. Bookwife wants to learn as much about the craft of writing as she can, as quickly as possible, and then churn out something publishable.

Output: she’s on her third unpublished novel.

Spends most of the course: frowning, and the breaks phoning in to check that the kids are alright.


The Lit-chick
She’s a girl on the town complete with glossy shoes and glossy hair. Writing is what she always wanted to do; it’s why she read Eng Lit (at Oxford, of course). She’s doing a job that she calls “dullsville” as an assistant to some big knob in advertising. The job's not important, just a way to earn a little pocket money, but somehow that, and keeping up with hundreds of friends, leaves little time to write. The party last weekend was such a hoot, she could hardly miss it. Her output of text messages betters the word count of most authors.

Output: she hasn’t a novel on the go and might never finish one, but if she does it will be an instant best seller.

Spends most of the course: giggling with the other Lit-chick sitting next to her.


The Bookfly
Each day he wears the same pair of scuffed leather jeans and the black tee shirt. To acknowledge his late arrival on the second morning, he grunts in the direction of the course tutor and then explains how he drank a whole bottle of whisky last night in some dodgy club in Brixton. When he learns that you don’t worship Bukowski, he sneers. Whenever one of the other writers reads their work aloud for criticism you can see him scratching his stubble and raising his eyebrows in feedback. His own idea, still in concept form, is for a novel about an altered political state based on a cult of violent sex.

Output: he’s got too much of a hangover to write today.

Spends most of the course: eyeing the Lit-chick.


Gramps
He’s been writing, on and off, for sixty years. Now retired from his job as an Educational Realignment Counsellor and Coordinator with Brent Council, he’s free to do so full time. He generously offers willing advice based on his vast experience to all, including the course tutor. He also shares from his life experience without reserve, in detailed anecdotes for the benefit of the whole class.

Output: Over three hundred “poems”, some published in the Brent libraries annual. Collection upon collection of short stories including a volume he had printed himself in 1967 which he’d love you to take a look at, if it's not too much of an imposition. A novel he’s been working on for five years, set against the background of the Boer wars, now standing at two hundred thousand words.

Spends most of the course: comparing his own narrative style to the great English diarists.


The Exotic
Her parents escaped from some war-torn hell-hole ten years ago. She reads from her work with a bowed head in a voice barely audible. Her words seep onto the walls and are splattered on the ceiling in a way that changes the whole atmosphere in the room. When she finishes, silence grips every throat as we absorb the horrors that have just been related. Finally, the tutor calls for a break. In the break, Gramps and The Bookfly can be heard agreeing that she can’t write.

Output: the book is nearly finished and she has an offer from a publisher.

Spends most of the course: taking feverish notes, staring at the page, avoiding eye contact.


The Gossamer Strand (can be male or female, or some combination of the two).
As thin as a sheet of paper. When Gossamer reads there is silence too: an awed appreciation of the poetic nature of the work. There’s a wispy translucent quality to the prose as she reads in a stumbling voice. In the breaks, when Lit-chick or Bookwife try to befriend him, he shies away, says he'll stay in the room, finish the exercise the tutor set. He doesn’t turn up on the last day of the course.

Output: carries a binder stuffed with manuscript pages, but it’s nothing worth mentioning, ‘Just an early draft’.

Spends most of the course: saying that she’s no good.



All of the above characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to members of my writing circle is entirely accidental.

The More the Merrier

The other day I took the Black offspring to their athletics club and watched them hare around the track. Their ability and determination never cease to amaze me.
I should point out for the sake of transparency that I am possibly the least sporty person I have ever met. Pouring myself another glass of wine is more than enough to exhaust me for the day.
I blame my Mother of course. She locked me in our house from the age of six and didn't allow me out until I had an offer from a Russell Group University safely under my belt. To be fair, we lived on a sink estate where every third teenager had an aerosol can up their sleeve and our next door neighbour left his upstairs window open so he could escape from the police with balletic ease.
My kids however, live such ludicrously middle class lifestyles that they are more likely to meet their doom at the bumper of a badly driven Rangerover. Thus they, unlike their Rapunzle like mater, are allowed out into the world and have consequently built enough muscle density to run.
And run they do. Like Greyhounds. Only cuter.

So I watched them doing their laps and it struck me that although running is essentially a solo sport, how much more they enjoyed themselves and how much more they improve from being part of their club. Obviously there's nothing stopping anyone training alone but there's nothing like a bit of encouragement to make those legs work harder.

And then, because with me all roads lead back to writing, it struck me that this is exactly why I love being part of a writing group.

Clearly most of my writing takes place alone ( fortunate considering I generally wear old trackie bottoms and a Luton pineapple). Hours and hours spent tapping away with only radio four for company. But what is indisputable is that when I release my work into the wild ie to my writing group it improves hugely.
Not only do my fellow writers provide insightful and helpful comments, steering me where I need to go and telling me in no uncertain terms when things are not working, they have, right from the start cheered me on. Unfailingly, they have supported me and pushed me forward.
I have acknowledged them in all my books so far and cannot see any reason why I would stop.
From the first session when they informed me that indeed I could write, to the night we cracked the bubbly when I got my first publishing deal I wouldn't be without them.

So for any aspiring writers I would urge you to find this priceless tool for your kit. Join a group or a club. Meet regularly and encourage one another. If there's nothing nearby go online and join a writers' community.

Cos there is nothing like safety in numbers.