I’ve been wanting to join a writers group for a long time, craving the chance to both be critiqued by others (particularly those not emotionally invested in myself and my work) and to improve my own critiquing skills. Both time and fear have been holding me back.
The fear was the smaller of the two problems. I’m not an introvert so talking to strangers isn’t a daunting task. What worried me was that the group would not work for me. I worried that either I would dislike them (too harsh with their critiques and/or taking joy in that or too nice and pandering, not allowing themselves to say things that needed to be said) or they would dislike me for the similar reasons to why I might have not liked them.
The group I joined was a delight. We all noticed different things from the same pieces and while opinions occasionally differed it didn’t create any animosity between the opposed individuals. I was also glad to find out I wasn’t awful at critiquing – which was another fear I had since I’ve never critiqued anything and then been able to listen to the author’s reply, unless you count myself… which would be weird.
While the whole group writes in the speculative fiction genre we all seem to write slightly different sub-genres, giving us all a chance to enjoy the widely varied worlds and styles. It was a fun day with some very cool people. I’m looking forward to our next meeting and a little disappointed it’s a whole month away!
