Ever Decreasing Circles
Hi, I’m JL Merrow, and I’m delighted to be here today as part of the Relief Valve blog tour.
Giveaway: I’m offering a free signed paperback copy of 2013 Rainbow Award winning romantic comedy Slam! (I’m happy to ship internationally) to a randomly chosen commenter on the tour, plus a $10 Amazon gift certificate!
I’ll be making the draw around teatime on Monday 7th April, GMT. Good luck! :D
Writers’ circles, or writers’ groups. For the uninitiated, these are organizations where writers can go for mutual support, friendly criticism, and advice.
Well, that’s the theory, anyway. The trouble is, and despite all indications to the contrary, writers are people. Human beings, with their infinite capacity for clique-iness, spite, jealousy and petty bickering.
I was very lucky, when I joined my current writers’ circle, to find a group who really are supportive, broadminded and constructive.
A big part of the activities of a writers’ circle, for the uninitiated, is giving criticism on members’ writing. Some groups do it by handing out printed copies. But there are advantages to having the writer read their work out aloud. For one thing, it makes any impossibly long sentences or unintentional alliteration glaringly obvious. For another, it’s a lot harder to kid yourself that a piece is “good enough” to be submitted to a publisher if you find yourself shying away from taking it along to read out on manuscripts night.
The first time a writer—probably, at this point, not yet published—gets up and reads his or her work in front of a group of expectant strangers can be incredibly nerve-wracking.
Which is why it’s so important to find a group that’s right for you. All circles are not created equal; one writer I know reported having been asked to leave the first writers’ group she tried because her proudly read-out work included swear words!
Phil, in Relief Valve, has one or two preconceptions about writers’ circles:
“just a bunch of old women sitting around drinking tea and writing stories about their cats.”
and
“You don’t go to these things to write. You go there to talk crap about writing.” He smirked. “So like I said, you’ll be a natural.”
“What, at talking crap? Love you too, you bastard.” – Relief Valve
Unfortunately for Tom, when he attends a meeting of the Lea Valley Literati to try to find out if any of them are responsible for poisoning his sister, he finds they’re even worse!
Or as LVL member Hannah puts it:
“sometimes I think we get just a little bit pretentious here.”
She’s not wrong. Fortunately for me, the writers’ circle I attend is nothing at all like the ones described in the book.*
*Well, except the bit about the gavel. That’s totally true! ;)
***
Question: I’ve been lucky with my writers’ group. I wasn’t so lucky with a support group I attended in university that was supposed to help us reduce our stress levels around exam time—with a bunch of highly competitive personalities thrown together, it ended up having the opposite effect to that intended!
Do you have experience of any sort of support group? Were they, in fact, supportive—or totally counterproductive?
***
JL Merrow is that rare beast, an English person who refuses to drink tea. She writes across genres, with a preference for contemporary gay romance, and is frequently accused of humour. Her novel Slam! won the 2013 Rainbow Award for Best LGBT Romantic Comedy.
She is a member of the UK GLBTQ Fiction Meet organising team.
Find JL Merrow online at: http://www.jlmerrow.com, on Twitter as @jlmerrow, and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/jl.merrow
***
If you dig up the past, be prepared to get dirty
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing since plumber Tom Paretski and P.I. Phil Morrison became connected at the heart, if not always at Tom’s dodgy hip. Neither of their families has been shy about voicing their disapproval, which hasn’t helped Tom’s uneasy relationship with his prickly older sister, Cherry.
But when Cherry is poisoned at her own engagement party, the horror of her near death has Tom’s head spinning with possible culprits. Is it her fiancé Gregory, a cathedral canon with an unfortunate manner and an alarming taste for taxidermy? Someone from her old writers’ circle, which she left after a row? Or could the attack be connected to her work as a barrister?
Phil is just as desperate to solve the case before someone ends up dead—and he fears it could be Tom. At least one of their suspects has a dark secret to hide, which makes Tom’s sixth sense for finding things like a target painted on his back…
Warning: Contains a strong, silent, macho PI; a cheeky, chirpy, cat-owning plumber; and a gag gift from beyond the grave that’ll put the cat firmly among the pigeons.
Now available in ebook: Samhain Publishing | Amazon.com |Amazon.co.uk
I enjoy mysteries and look forward to reading the plumber series. Please count me in.
You’re counted! :D
In high school, we had some that didn’t amount to anything, but some students teaching others. We had some in college, but while it was nice to know others were just as stressed, we were still competing. Not really helpful.
Absolutely. I used to come away feeling even more stressed as I tried to keep up with all the de-stressing activities the others claimed to be doing! ;D
I don’t have any experience with support groups, but I have attended discussion groups (re: about a self-improvement book or topic) at work and they were occasionally useful, but often most people had not done the prep.
Thanks for the blog and giveaway!
jen.f {at} mac {dot} com
Heh, with writers’ groups, in my experience “not doing the prep” is rarely a problem – usually we’re falling over each other to read our stuff out to the group and get some crit!
And you’re welcome! :)
I haven’t had an experience with any type of support group. Please count me in for the giveaway…………..thank you
ShirleyAnn@speakman40.freeserve.co.uk
You’re counted, and you’re welcome. :)
Support groups. Most have been good, others not so much. Mostly, my critique groups (and beta-reading circle) offer insightful and constructive criticism that helps my writing improve, but I have also had a group that, while they were all very friendly and nice people, we had such different literary interests that it was hard to find a common ground for giving each other our honest thoughts.
:)
I have the book “Slam” on my tbr shelf for a while now. I’ve only heard such good things! Count me in for the giveaway, please. :)
I’m quite lucky in my writing group in that most of us are writing fiction, although in many different genres. We do have some non-fiction writers and poets, and I find those much harder to give crit on. (Poetry is really not my strong suit. I had to take a crash course in order to write Slam! *g*).
Sounds like great books, can’t wait to read! Thanks for the giveaway
M8231m05@gmail.com
Thank you – and you’re welcome! :D
JL, loved this post on writing circles. I’ve tried them and have had luck with one in the past. We formed the group some years ago from a few students and a writing instructor at Cal Poly in California. Very supportive and sensitive group for new writers. However over the years we’ve drifted apart. Most of my workshop experience since then has been in online critique groups. For some reason I like them better. Of course, the downside, is you don’t get the live feedback on readings that you mentioned, so I always try to read my work aloud to catch the word repetition, clumsy sentence construction, etc. You also don’t get the practice in doing readings. Thanks for this great post. And congrats on your Rainbow win for Slam. Looks like a winner to me. Paul
I’m also a member of an online crit group, and I think the two complement each other. The advantage of online crit, of course, is that you can usually get crit on a much greater percentage of your WIP – I always like to get feedback from people who’ve read ALL of my novel, as they’ll see things that aren’t apparent to people who only see odd scenes. But as you say, live feedback can be invaluable, whether it’s on if the gags fall flat or if an action scene really works – and nothing beats reading out the funny stuff and actually having real people laughing at it! ;)
Thanks for your comments! :D
I’ve always been a little wary of support groups…I tend to do better dealing with people one-on-one!
I know what you mean, Trix. I think it helps that, being writers, we’re all a little bit introverted anyway! ;)
I can’t think of any personal experience of writer’s or other support groups. I have read about hem before, though, in murder mysteries — there’s obviously something about them which makes some people feel violent!
Yep, a dysfunctional support group can be very good at raising your blood pressure – there’s nothing like sitting there thinking “this is supposed to be helping me, and that smug so-and-so is just making things SO MUCH WORSE…” ;)
I’m currently reading Pressure Head & loving it. Would love to read this too.
Thank you! :D
I think how useful writers groups, and other groups like them, are really depend on the people in them. I’ve been in groups that are very cliquey etc so it’s difficult to get anything out of them as a newcomer, but sometimes groups can be great and very helpful. I enjoyed Pressure Head and am looking forward to Relief Valve. Thanks for the giveaway!
*sighs* Yes, I’ve been involved with a group (not a writers’ group) in the past that was very cliquey, and it was incredibly frustrating. You end up wondering why you ever bothered to turn up.
I hope you’ll enjoy Relief Valve! :D
I loved Relief Valve and reviewed it *cough* for another blog :D I adore JL Merrow’s humour and recognise the English eccentricities. I would love a signed ‘tree’ version of ‘Slam!’. I also hope to meet the author in June at UKMeet ;-)
Glad you enjoyed the book – and I’ll look out for you in Bristol! ;D
new to me author…these books sound great
please count me in for the giveaway :)
You’re counted! And if you’d like to give my writing a try, you’ll find some free reads of mine here: http://jlmerrow.com/free-reads/
Haven’t been in any
bn100candg at hotmail dot com
You may have had a narrow escape… ;)
I’ve actually never been a part of a support group. Are group projects considered support groups too? Anyway I just never witnessed or been a group where everyone has been supportive of each other. I’m glad that you have found a wonderful writing group though.
I think anything involving a group of people can go badly wrong, depending on the egos involved! I guess all you can really hope for is for the positive to tip the scales, on balance. :)
I used to go to a parenting support group. It was great! It sounds bad but it was really nice to hear that others had things worse than I did.
Thanks for the giveaway. I’ve already read Relief Valve and really enjoyed it.
Glad you had a good experience with your parenting group! I’ve generally had positive experiences with that sort of thing, and I think I was lucky – living in commuter belt, there tends to be a lot of competitive parenting going on!
Glad you enjoyed Relief Valve! :D
Kim…I have a bipolar son; a severely bipolar teen son. I was so scared to join a parenting group thinking it was going to be a bash session for parents and their lack of discipline, but I did and I am so glad I did! Having someone that totally gets you and to know there are others out there that are going through the same thing. IT was an experience I will hold dear…..Now I need to find a writing one with the same epiphany :)
Thank you for the post (unfourtunately I don’t have any experience on support groups ) and the chance
You’re welcome! :)
Relief Valve and Slam are both on my to read list. I LOVED Pressure Head :)
Aw, thank you! Hope you enjoy them. :D
This was a very good post. A good, helpful support circle is always important, thanks for sharing!
Thank you – and you’re welcome. :)
Love this series :-) And I’m hoping for a third part! Thank you for the chance to win! Unfortunately, I have no support group experiences to share :-(
Thank you – and I can confirm that Heat Trap, Plumber’s Mate #3, is due out from Samhain March 2015. :)
I love this information, thank you so much. I am new to the writer’s world and am very excited to explore this territory. I have a list of books I’m trying to knock out of my kindle library…you’re is next! Can’t wait :) PS…thanks to Novel_approach for sharing the tour information. Like I said newbie here….virgin to the tour world ;) oops can I say that here? LOL
LOL! Welcome, Mary, I’m glad you found me. :)
And P.S., you can absolutely say virgin. We’re all grown ups here. ;-)
YAY! Thank you…..being grown ups is totally overrated sometimes ;)
I so agree! We can be grown up kids, then. ^_^
Typing this on my phone is hard sorry….should say “yours is next”. I need an editor just for my comments lol
Maybe someone can answer this….How would one that is interested in finding these types of supports go about doing that? I’ve found a lot of on line support; do people still do actual sit down ones anymore? Where we could read our work out loud to people.
Mary, I found my writers’ circle through a creative writing evening course, as my tutor happened to be involved with it, but I should think just about any serious writers’ group should have an internet presence these days, so hopefully should be google-able! Or you could try your local further education college, or libraries, for info. There is also (in Britain, so I’m not sure if that’s of use for you) the National Association of Writers’ Groups which may be able to put you in touch with a group near you – if you’re non UK based, try finding something similar where you are. Good luck! :)