1.    Talking to other writers won’t make you a writer.  Let’s face it – generating ideas, buying the tools of the trade, and hob-knobbing with people in your desired field are always the fun parts.  Doing the work and sticking with it is the hard part.  Your online writing community should spur you on, but not distract you.

2.    Not all writers are cut from the same cloth.  Before you settle in and buy an extra toothbrush, notice what genre your new online friends are writing in.  As writers there will always be things to share about how to get book published and how to find writers agents. But before you invest a lot of time, you might get more mileage out of friendships with the same kinds of writers. A Christian romance novelist is a different breed from a comic book writer.

3.    Feedback has a proper time and place.  It is good to get clear with yourself about when feedback is actually useful to you.  People can’t access your imagination.  That’s why we have to create it before they “get it”.  The new energy we get when we have a new idea makes it a real temptation to share right away, but it can be very deflating to have people who don’t catch your vision start poking holes in it, or even respond with less than enthusiasm.  That burning need to let your creating take form is a precious gift that can be fizzled out by sharing too soon.  Some writers prefer not to share their work until they are completely done with a manuscript. Writing is an intensely personal process.  You have to catch your own groove to really be inspiring.  We all need editors and they make our work better. But if you start writing to please other people too soon in the process, you risk loosing your unique spark.

An online writing community is a wonderful thing.  And self-knowledge makes all good things great. Finding your own balance between community with solitude may be one of the golden keys to success as a writer.

In my experimentation, I grew a lot depending on the individual group and who was teaching it. I also tried out forming my own groups with my friends so we didn’t have to pay anything.

One of my first experiences with this was when I was in college and I attended a writers group that was an off branch of my course of study. I was a freshman and in my first ‘program’ as they called a particular educational course at my college. I saw that the teacher was great at leading but she also used a book a lot to get the exercises she used. When the group finished I continued using the book by myself and found that my writing continued to grow.

I graduated from college and moved to a city. I wanted to continue being in a writers group, but I wasn’t making much money at the time, so I decided maybe I should do it myself.

I made a list of people to ask and let them know I was forming a free group we would lead ourselves. I planned on having us meet  at a café around the corner from my apartment, one time a week. I chose books we could pick exercises from and we were ready to go.

A few of us enjoyed this group for a year and a few months. We started out with many more people, but only three of us liked it so well we continued. Giving up an evening a week can seem like a lot, but to me it was very educational. I appreciated and learned from the feedback I was given by these women who became my close friends over time.

I had a great time every week. I started out just wanting feedback on my writing, but ended up with several close friends, plus a lot of growth in my comfort level with many types of writing.

I started several other self run groups later on, and it was from this first group that I saw how enjoyable and educational it could be to do something like this on your own. Plus it was free, and I ended up with several closer friends with similar interests to mine.