The Importance of Community to Your Writing

The Writing Gym’s former personal trainer helps me lay down some very important details about our writing community, Write to Publish.

Andi mentions a saying that goes, “It takes a village.” This pairs well with writing communities. It’s not only important to have a village, but more importantly, a village where people support you through difficult times and on something you have worked hard on creating.

What makes Write to Publish special is the way that we interact is based on science, on the way that our brain learns and creates the best.

This means that the way that we’re talking with each other and supporting each other is very different from what you might have seen in other writing groups.

Write to Publish is unlike other groups where people just say, “Hey, buy my $0.99 book” or “What should the title of my book be?” to which someone states a silly response. In Write to Publish, people are engaging in meaningful conversations about the writing and publishing process. They’re supporting each other, working to be helpful to one another, and trying to understand where a person is coming from as they participate in active listening rather than judgement.

It’s a really powerful community.

It’s good to see us as a community center where people come to learn and benefit from other writer’s experiences and knowledge, especially in our Writing Gym programs. If you have questions or if you’re unsure about something, you can simply ask. You can experience new and interesting things about your writing through other writers.

There are some negative impacts on a person and on a community when people try to take away from the group; for instance, when they get outside messages or they take their conversation within the community elsewhere. At the Writing Gym programs, we work hard to get writers into a creative mindset to boost workflow to finish their books. When people try to take away from this, there is a mindset change; there is unrest.

One errant comment from someone unqualified can break down weeks of writing and training that a writer has done through our training sessions.

We make sure people are keeping the conversation in the group to continue those quality conversations about writing, and to engage one another within the context of the group as they have been doing, because that’s where the real power is. That’s where the neuroscience is really engaged.

What we cultivate in Write to Publish and the Writing Gym programs is an inclusive and respectful community that only gives good, constructive feedback to advance your writing, not undermine it.

Join our Facebook page Write to PUBLISH and SELL YOUR NOVEL for writing tips and for the support of a writer community that we have been talking about.

To find out where you are, where you’d like to go, and how you can get there put yourself on my calendar through this link.