📚 lisa writes stuff issue #35 📖 Too many fecking writer’s groups
Why am I a member of so many!?
Dear Internet,
First, Ms. Scarlet is posting weekly on Mondays to her blog. You are not obligated to subscribe but if you like her on FB, I would be forever grateful! (And you can turn off notifications, so you never have to see her again in your feed!)
With Lisa Writes Stuff and Ms. Scarlet’s blog, which will concentrate mainly on her work, you’d probably think au contraire Ms. Lisa, what will you ever write about covering near same topics over two newsletters? Have ye little faith in me?
Second, I’m kick starting my project from last summer, 51 Stories in 51 Weeks except! It’s now 52 Stories in 52 weeks! I’m 17 weeks ahead so expect the first post to roll around in October and run until we hit 52 weeks. It’ll post on Tuesdays. Starting on Tuesdays in June, I’ll am going to post the existing stories over on Ms Scarlet’s IG.
Thirdly, on Monday I posted in Issue #184.5 of AMUN that I’ve divvied up each newsletter topic (regular Sunday, Dispatch Blotter (every other Thursday), Lisa Writes Stuff (every other Wednesday), and in October, 52 Stories in 52 Weeks (every Tuesday)) into separate sections. This allows you to pick and choose which section you want to subscribe to. Love Dispatch Blotter but not a fan of Lisa Writes Stuff? No problem! Unsubscribe from Lisa Writes Stuff. I won’t be mad, I promise.
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In this issue, I want to talk about writer’s groups because goddamn, am I a member of many.
I’m a paying member of the following: RWA, Sisters in Crime, Hearts Through History, Contemporary Romance Writers, Kiss of Death, Great Lakes Fiction Writers, Women’s Fiction Writer’s Association, and Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal.
In addition to that, I kick started a virtual group that meets on Tuesdays via Google Meets and also, every week on Tuesday, directly after the virtual meeting, I attend an in-person writer’s group at the coffee house down the street. The local lit scene also has their own monthly writer’s group which I signed up for, but I won’t be able to attend until this late fall. And then! I have the local to Traverse City writers group (we hang out on Discord and meet in person about once a month), and then there is The Writer’s Troupe, which is a FB group that I joined based on the recommendation. Now they have a meeting of some kind every day of the week from craft chat to writing sprints and accountability meetings. They have so many fucking meetings on all sorts of topics that I had to create my own Google calendar for them on the ones I’m interested in because their Google Calendar ate into my personal calendar fucking up my work-related available times.
When I was building Ms. Scarlet’s website, and I saw the list of paid memberships I pay into, I was near literal floored because honestly? Out of the eight paying memberships, maybe three were active. Maybe. The three that are active do the following things:
Meetings for members on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly, whatever)
Active mailing lists
Opportunities for the members to interact with the board
A board
Some kind of activity such as a yearly conference or anthology
RWA, GLFW, FF & P, and to some extent, SinC follow all of this. The others? Not so much.
(To be fair, the RWA subgroups (KoD, FF & P, and HTH) offer monthly asynchronous workshops that are cheap. These are great for bringing in passive income for the group. I’ve signed up for a few over the years but learning via this method is not my jam.)
For me, joining a group is because I want the community and support for that particular thing and I’m willing to pay dues to get that. Since I’m paying dues, I expect some kind of return. A regular mailing list would even suffice. Yet, for the other four groups, I get a random email about an upcoming workshop and that’s it. (SinC is beyond super active on their mailing lists and classes but they are on the chopping block because their email lists are out of fucking control! I’m talking dozens and dozens of posts a day.)
GLFW, FF & P, and The Writer’s Troupe are all active and I do feel like I’m in a community and I’m getting something out of them.  I attend GLFW’s monthly events, I may possibly do social media for them, and I’m writing a story to add to their upcoming anthology. For FF & P, I do the blog/social media, and attend member and board meetings. I use TWT’s FB group to build my own community; my Tuesday virtual writer’s group is formed from people from TWT. I have also attended a few TWT Sunday craft chats and plan on utilizing their weekly accountability meetings.
 Know what? This is enough. I’m getting what I need to grow as a writer.
I’ll not renew my membership for the groups not mentioned (except for RWA which is the mothership of many of these groups and I can’t be a member of those groups unless I’m a member of good standing in RWA).
The other thing I’m going to do is wean myself off of other writers’ FB groups. It’s just too much noise and also honestly? Most of what is asked I can find in the groups I’m active in.
Getting support is great and building a community is even greater because writing is such a solitary job. But, I think many of us fall into traps of getting into everything (regardless of what the topic is) and we get overwhelmed, and don’t attend. I know I don’t.
(I keep hearing Best Kate in my head about being overwhelmed. She and Mr. Lisa are my conscious.)
In short, today we learn that throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks can be a good way to find things that interest you, but you have to clean up that shit that doesn’t stick to remain sane.
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lisa x