How I found my Writer’s Group - It’s not all lattes, Lindt chocolate and laughing out loud

So, I’d graduated from my Creative Writing course, written the first draft of my manuscript during lockdown and now it was time to find a writing group. After all, writers don’t just write. They hang out with other writers who write. 

I scrolled through the Insta feed of crime writers who I ‘liked’ on Instagram. A lot of the published authors were members of writing groups with catchy names and they’d post photos of sunsets gushing: “That’s a wrap on another retreat! Too busy laughing (and writing), so posting this pic instead!” But how to gain an entrée into one? I had no street cred, as I hadn’t published anything (yet)! So, it was with great trepidation that I posted on the Australian Writer’s Centre Creative Writing Graduates Facebook group enquiring whether I could join someone’s writing group.

I returned to my manuscript, checking for split infinitives, when I received a response from a woman called Mary: “We are serious about our writing and using our writing group time productively. Our retreats are our time for brainstorming, workshopping and relaxing together….” The group was very select—four writers max—and had been around for about six years.  If I was interested I had to submit: a synopsis, a sample chapter, what I hoped to gain from the group and a brief description of my journey so far. 

I was gripped with panic. What if they didn’t like my sample chapter? I was transported back to my first interview as a grad lawyer, in my tobacco-brown suit. So, I did the suggested things--in the same way it’s suggested that you pull the ripcord when you jump out of a plane. I wasn’t going to join this group unless I went through the motions. So, I sent off my offering and waited. Looking back now, I marvel that anyone accepted me with the early draft of my first chapter. But ignorance is bliss and as the saying goes: “You don’t know, what you don’t know.” There are many times that my writing buddies have saved me from stuff I didn’t know. 

Our writing group, ‘Friday’s Child,’ meets by Zoom once a month and face-to-face at retreats twice a year. We submit sample chapters which we all critique, share writing tips and traps and generally support each other. The pandemic has recalibrated how we interact with people. As I sat on Moss Vale station waiting to meet Mary for the first time, it was a bit like reconnecting with an old friend, not meeting someone for the first time in person. And Veronica was a lot taller than I thought she’d be. We each bring different genres and strengths to the table:

Mary, contemporary women’s fiction: is the writing craft girl. Also a gun on POV, structure and inconsistencies and saved my bacon when I wanted to send my protagonist back to the scene of his trauma, unsupported.

Veronica, historical fiction: is great on characterisation and relationships. This is what she thought of my male protagonist, Byrne, and his interaction with his daughter when she comes to visit him– 

‘[you] have [Willow now Skye] twirling her ponytail while the crazy killer ogles her in front of her father in a scene that reads like a cliché from ‘Lola’. Then she completely disappears for several chapters. Does Byrne simply leave her to her own devices, in a motel room in a remote country town where she knows no one?’ 

Ouch! I don’t have daughters. See what I mean about them saving me from stuff I don’t know?

Pauline, children’s fiction and contemporary women’s fiction: brings her eagle editor’s eye to a manuscript.

Connie, autofiction: forces me to think of the broader issues, like what promise do I make to the reader in my first novel and how will that impact subsequent ones in the series?

I love these women. I’m looking forward to our next retreat in October. And yes, there’s no shortage of lattes, Lindt balls and laughing out loud.