TEN YEARS ON...

I belong to a writing group, The Lazy River Writers (named after the restaurant/bar we first met not after our work habits!) and this year marks our tenth anniversary.
Tenth I believe is tin- malleable yet with a strength that deceives.
Fitting for the group.

We began as a collection of strangers, brought together via a writing workshop run at Belgrave library. The tutor suggested that since we worked well as a group, we should keep meeting once a month. And so we have.
Members have left, new ones arrived, some have left for a duration then returned.

My husband often asks why a writing group?
The answer is quite complex.

Firstly it's for the support and understanding. All members of the LRW can relate to a month of rejections, even the nice ones. They understand the frustration when the words in our head don't magically appear on the page. They know there are the months when life intrudes and nothing gets written, those months when the best plans are tossed aside, or those prolific months when poetry,short stories,ideas flow unstoppable.

It's for the companionship. Writing is such a solitary lifestyle. Sitting alone at the keyboard, day after day. The cat is very good at ignoring  me (unless I have cat food or piece of string to play with - have I mentioned procrastination?).

It's for the critique - feedback. The LRW are a great group for this. Each member offers up something new. One will be good at grammar, another will pick up tense changes, another will see the larger picture and yet another will ask that question 'what exactly are you trying to say?'

It's for the push to write. I hate to go to a  meeting with the knowledge that I have written nothing, accomplished nothing the past month. This pushes me forward- makes me think 'so what exactly have I been doing? Apart from playing with the cat that ignores me?)

It's for the planning of where I want my writing to head. Each year we begin with a list of Goals, both for the group but also for us as individual writers. The list is then laminated (mine is facing me as I type these words) and the group looks at our goals mid -year and also at the end of the year. These goals are not set in concrete, and it's always interesting to see what we had planned to do for the year and what we actually achieved. Sometimes as mentioned before life intrudes but at other times opportunities we had never expected fall our way.

It's for encouragement, nurture and belief. The encouragement to push myself into avenues I had never thought, and the knowledge that the LRW believe in my abilities. Often as writers we are our own worse critic. It's good (and I feel necessary) to see what others think are our strengths and weaknesses.

And these are just a few reasons why I belong to my group. The fact that they are now some of my best friends isn't surprising.

Each month I am amazed and awed by what the members of my group achieve. Book contracts, books published, books launched, magazines edited, poems winning major prizes, short stories, poems, articles and reviews published, features at poetry readings and literary lunches, workshops run, memoirs written....the list goes on and on.

Here's to another ten years. It will be exciting to see what we will achieve by then.

Vicki