The Writer's Group: Come and join us!

“The time for listening is over. The buzz word now is ‘engage.’”



But I want to know what happened to “reading.” As someone who has written since I could hold a pen in my sweaty little hand, I am appalled at how few people actually read these days.


Writers sit down every day and go through the agony of spilling their thoughts onto paper (or, more likely today, splashing them on a computer screen) for many reasons. One of those reasons is to have someone actually READ what we have written. (We get cranky when no one reads what we have sweated mightily over.) We believe that we have something to say, something that might resound with a stranger out there who is facing life in ways that we have already experienced. But people are not only NOT reading printed work, they have used all the flashy new technology to take them very quickly through listening to that material and they have moved on to “engaging” with it via their web-enhanced cell phones.



It’s all too much technology for me.



So, I have a proposition for you. I will show up here once a week in this newly-formed Writer’s Group and we can discuss the craft of writing and share some of the things that spill out of us. Much like my writer’s group that meets once a month (yes, we meet face to face and TALK and write….in person, no cell phones involved!), we can challenge ourselves to become better writers and discuss trends in the world of writing and publishing, among other things. We can share information on writer’s conferences, grants available (yes, I have heard they’re out there….somewhere), and anything else that appeals to our literary senses.



If you’d like to post your response to the following prompt during this week, feel free (keep it clean and suitable for on-line posting, and please restrict yourself to THIS topic!):

What about your New Year’s Resolutions? Do you make them? More importantly, do you KEEP them? What have you learned over the years about your resolution-making?



So, start writing, and I’ll be back next week. We can begin the discussion about resolutions and take off from there.