It helps me to help you.

One of the reasons Karen, Tana, and I started our group was because we wanted a way to hold ourselves accountable for getting the job done, words on the page. What has happened is that we have become so much more. First and foremost, we do hold each other accountable. We meet every day via Facetime to write. We set a timer and write for the allotted time on our individual projects. When the timer is up, we share what we’ve written and talk out any issues with each other. Sometimes I know I’m having an issue somewhere, and I ask them to listen for that specifically. Other times, Karen or Tana will notice something that I didn’t and ask about it. Always we maintain a kind and constructive attitude. Our only purpose is to support each other in writing the best stories that we can. We all write romance, so it helps that we’re in the same genre. We know the parameters and the expectations.

We’re not here to one up each other. Support is our only goal. Writing every day and spending so much time together, we’ve really gotten to know one another—our strengths, areas where we need help, our personalities. We all work differently, but we want the same thing. Stories that we can get published in some fashion, whether traditionally or independently. We want to write the best stories we can possibly write. To that end one person can never know that they’ve gotten it right. I can’t fix what I don’t know is wrong. Their experience and expertise is different than mine. I learn from them, just as they learn from me. If you have a job interview and then don’t get the job, you can’t possibly know why you didn’t get hired unless someone provides you with feedback. So, we provide each other with feedback, both positive and negative. When we were all at the Yale Writer’s Workshop together, our critiques were formatted that each person in the room said two positive things about the writing and two things that didn’t quite work so well. That’s a great way to start a writing group.

In the beginning Karen and I just started writing for 45 minutes in the morning. As we grew more comfortable with each other and my writing confidence grew, we increased that time. Since Tana has joined us, we write for an hour and a half each morning and two hours in the afternoon. Sometimes we talk a lot before or after or both. We rarely talk during the writing unless it’s to ask a question about something grammatical or a word choice. We attend to the task at hand. Our butts are in the chair and our fingers on the keyboard. We’re all at different stages of writing. Karen can multi-task writing different stories in the morning and afternoon. Tana is working on edits and revisions. I have finished one story and have started on the second one. We’re all working on trying to get published or in Karen’s case increase her readership and market share. We have varying levels of expertise in each of these different areas. We offer whatever help we can to one another and share different places where we have gone to get information to help up along the way.

The other day Karen and I were talking about the writing, and I was thanking her yet again for the help she provides to me. Her response was “It helps me to help you.” She gets ideas and focus from what we discuss just as I do. I help her with her writing as much as she and Tana help me. We are growing, learning, and getting better together. That’s the power of this writing sisterhood.

We don’t have to do it alone. While the writing itself is solitary, we don’t have to sit in a room by ourselves and struggle with being alone and doing this job. It is comforting and empowering to have someone sitting on the other side of the screen working on their own stuff but ready to engage at a moment’s notice if we need it. As I have previously mentioned in other posts, the power of the writing group is that we help each other. In helping each other we also help ourselves grow and learn.