This weekend I’m at a writing retreat with my writing group. We decided to rent an Airbnb at the foot of our mountains and sequester ourselves in it for three days. This is the second full day we’ve been up here and it’s been good. I’m getting a lot done interspersed with fun talk of writing, books, and life.
I joined this writing group in 2020. We were meeting on Zoom at the time and then it stuck so this was the first time I was meeting most of them in person. I’ve heard other writers wonder how to find a good writing group and in the past I struggled to find one myself. I was invited to be a part of this writing group by a colleague at my new job (February of 2020, two weeks before we were all sent home for the pandemic). I didn’t know my new colleague very well and I’m still impressed that she was able to pin me as a good personality match after knowing me so briefly.
My writing group has a variety of experience levels where some members have published multiple books, some have published a few, and there are a couple of us that haven’t published yet at all. We each bring something different and we encourage each other wherever we are in the writing journey, while aiming for the same goal of publishing enough to make this our full-time job.
My colleague who originally invited me to be a part of this writing group has several series out, she edits anthologies, and she runs her own small press. One of her books is currently in the finals for an award. She has been particularly inspiring to me for a variety of reasons. She has been through a lot of the life challenges that I’m currently experiencing and it’s incredible to see that she was able to continue writing through all of it, even if life slowed the writing progress down sometimes.
I’ve tried other writing groups in the past—writing groups that were formed as a result of a class, retreat, or conference. None of my other writing groups were as much of a success as this one has been and I wish I had some good advice to find one but I feel like I fell into this one by a mix of good luck and the work I kept putting into my dream of being a writer.
Our Airbnb for the weekend has a park nearby and a hot tub off the back porch. So in addition to having our heads down writing, we’ve also spent time relaxing. Later today I think I’ll go for a walk to help my mind process everything I’ve been writing and what my next goals should be.
If you’re looking for a writing group, keep looking. I bet there’s one out there that would be a good fit for your process, personality, and writing goals.