I joined a local writers' club in January, in order to give myself a kick in the rear. If I had to meet folks on a regular basis, look them square in the eye and say, "I only wrote 500 words in two weeks," I thought I'd write more and frequently. The subtle push of peer pressure would be an improvement over letting the moody, irregular muse dictate when I wrote.
It worked; I've written a lot more and with greater frequency. Inside the last two weeks I've written in excess of 20,000 words.
Unfortunately, most of it was not related to my targeted novel—the one I want to complete within weeks for editing.
The muse had other plans for the motivation generated by club membership.
~ sigh ~
The club has been extremely helpful, though. There is a preponderance of men, and they bring a different perspective as beta readers. If I can't answer their questions as I write, I know I could be losing part of my potential audience.
And the club also throws around a lot of other material which has been extremely helpful in terms of jogging creativity and encouraging research. What was once a single book now has the potential to be four inter-related books due to the amount of research new avenues of thought have opened for me to consider. It's highly motivational to think I've got all that work out in front of me now—the book I've nearly finished, and another three books after that.
What about you? Do you belong to a writers' club or group? Does this work for you or no? Tell me in comments.
[photo: penmanila via Flickr]
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