Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Writer's Groups, Dice and Leprechauns

If you're a writer, I highly encourage you to join some kind of writer's group.

Maybe it's a critique group, maybe it's a support group, maybe it's a practice group, maybe it's just a group of people who like to write who go and see movies together every second tuesday.

Whatever they do, they're your community and nowhere else will you find people who are able to truly understand the solitary, frustrating, but intensely passionate life of a writer.

The Writer's Group that I've been a part of has gone through many evolutions over the years. The current incarnation really is almost nothing like what we started out as... but hey, now we actually write!

I managed to get to a gathering last night. We met at a library (which is a very writerly place to meet, I highly recommend libraries) and because half the group was late, those of us who arrived early decided to critique each other's work. (I will send you those notes tonight Katie, I promise!)

When the other part of the group arrived, they produced a pack of Rory's Story Cubes and divided up the dice, with each of us getting two symbols to jumpstart our writing for the next five minutes. Then we passed our page to the next person, took another person's story, rolled the dice again, and moved their story along with the help of the new symbols.

The point of the exercise wasn't to produce award winning stories, but rather to get us in a writing mode. And you know what? It actually worked. Furthermore a couple of the stories actually were fairly decent. I'd really like to know more about the fountain that could tell the future, the turtle who sued an airline because they wouldn't let him fly, and the Leprechaun Defense Division.

Plus, I now am psyched up about playing with words and want to get back to work on one or the other of my novels...

2 comments:

Mary said...

Excellent idea! I have been wanting to write more.... maybe this will give me some motivation. :P

Tom Badguy said...

Hi. I followed the link from the Shadow Bear blog. Your blog looks great.

...So, this is just one of those friendly comments! lol

- Tom Badguy
http://geekjuicemedia.blogspot.com