The Synergy of Connection – In Support of Writers Groups

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20

Let’s face it writing can be a lonely venture. I mean you’re stuck all alone with your ideas, your characters, these worlds that live within you, and you’re desperately trying to share them all with the world in this derivative fashion through sitting alone and writing. Although the act of writing is actually an act of sharing, it is only done secondarily. Writers go away to get closer. They choose to be alone in order to connect with others. Truly we are a weird and confusing bunch, and I guess that’s the way we like it really! It’s what makes us who we are and allows us to do whatever it is that we do!

Francis Bacon, a contemporary to Shakespeare, wrote a stirring collection of extremely erudite and dense essays. They are simply called The Essays, and they cover a range of topics from Death to Truth to Politics and to Travel. In one of his longer essays entitled “On Friendship” Bacon sagely states the following:

But we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends; without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in the sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity.

As you can see Bacon is a man of powerful and wise words. He is brilliant in being able to state so much wisdom in so few lines. It is truly remarkable. In this quote he is discerning that a man who doesn’t have “true friends” is actually living a savage and inhumane life, while a man who is unable to make friends is likewise more akin to a beast than a man. Those are some pretty bold and yet absolutely accurate and profound statements to make, especially for us writers who are known to gravitate to more of the solitary type.

So it in this vein of friendship and the apparent savagery of pure solitude, that I submit to you the great value and joy of establishing for yourself a writers group. That is to say a small group of writers that you can meet and connect with on a regular basis and share all things writing and perhaps just whatever else may be going on for you in your life at that time. For myself I have been a part of a lovely writers group for over three years now – we’re fast approaching our four year mark now! There are three of us in our writing group, and we each live in different parts of the country. We connect once a week by telephone, and share not just our works, our struggles, and successes with writing, but also what else is going on in our lives together and how all of these things effect our writing and whatever ideas we may be tossing around. I think I can safely speak for all three of us when I say that it is a near religious or holy experience for us to connect and to share together, and we all very much look forward to connecting again each week. Over the years now (years!) we have definitely become more than just writers supporting each other – we have become friends supporting not just our writing but all the various aspects of life and living. And what’s even more fascinating about it all is that we have actually never physically met each other! How amazing is that! I mean honestly it really is a testimony to the power of good people, the way we have all worked and naturally come together so harmoniously, and just how much we all love art and writing and creativity. If the three of us are any indication of all the people across America today (and I frankly suspect we are), then I’d say our nation and world is doing more than just fine. More than just fine indeed.

Interestingly we first created our writing group out of sheer economics. I had signed up for an online writing course through a horrible writing organization that shall remain nameless. Let me just say that if you really want to learn how to write the best thing to do is just write, read, and go onto Youtube and listen to Ray Bradbury and every other author out there (and heck maybe read this blog and others too!). Save your money! And save yourself from what is far too often a horrible, oppressive, boring teacher as well (I’m sorry to say but these online courses can just be awful and not only that but the writing industry seems to be chock full of snake-oil salesmen just trying to eek out a buck and not really helping all that much. So buyer definitely beware!). Okay I’m off my soapbox now! So anyway I had signed up for this online class that was a few weeks long. In the online portal where the “community” met there weren’t really too many people who were commenting in the threads let alone posting very much at all. But there were a few, and the two biggest and most astute commentators that I noticed are the very same people in our writing group! After I was so horribly disappointed in the quality of the workshop I had just paid good money for, I decided that I could do this on my own myself. So I reached out to these two fantastic and active members in the online workshop, and I said “hey – do you guys want to have a little writers group where we talk about writing and supporting each other in getting projects completed?” Thank goodness they both said yes! And from then on I suppose you could say the rest is history.

One really important awareness I realized after connecting with our writing group for a few months was how much more productive I became as a writer. I mean I hadn’t written so much in so little time than when I was back in college. Connecting and reporting to our writing group each week made a noticeable difference in my drive and ability to write. There is something to be said for sharing your goals, your intentions, and of course having the risk of public humiliation loom over you too! Not that we would ever humiliate each other, oh no, but personally it makes me a bit more eager to complete my works and to keep on going and doing good. Writing is a very challenging process, so having all the help I can get makes a big difference for me.

But a writing group is also valuable in other ways as well. For one there does seem to be a strange cyclical nature to writing. It’s something like the cycles of the moon and the powers of creativity. I don’t know for sure, I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but it sure is fascinating to witness when we are discussing the ebbs and flows of our creativity and inspiration with each other only to find that last week the person that was going strong and writing like a madman was now a little bit down on their luck and sitting in a bit of a rut. Likewise the person last week that was dealing with some writers block or what have you, was now ramping up again and popping out some inspiring lines. Just hearing other writers and artists dealing with those ins and out and ups and downs of writing, shifted and freed something in my own consciousness and my own approach to writing. I was somehow able to realize and see that all that goes up must come down and all that is down will eventually go up again. So don’t worry about it! It’s all going to come around again soon enough. Just hang in there buddy! And not only that but when I was down in a rut, it was more than likely that someone else in the group was up in a high swing, so hearing about their successes and wins and listening to some great lines they were writing really helped to lift me out of my own fog and participate in the success of my friend and fellow writer. And likewise later on when I got back into my groove and swing, someone else in the group was likely now feeling a bit down and uninspired, so this allowed me the opportunity to share with them my flowing optimism and creativity and writing that I was experiencing. It really is a magical process to discover how you and your writing group can gel and form and mold together in interesting and supportive ways for everyone involved.

Throughout history writing groups and little secret creative cabals have always been a hallmark of great literary and thought movements. As far back as Socrates and the Platonic Academy where some of the greatest minds the world has ever seen would get together and walk around in flowing tunics (or not!) and discuss with each other and random strangers the deeper meanings of life and universe. The need for thinkers and artists to gather and congregate somehow, someway has always been a driving factor for creativity and innovation. Consider also The Transcendentalists of Concord and Boston Massachusetts to the Stratford-on-Odeon group of modernist writers deemed the “Lost Generation” like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce, and Stein who would all hang out together in Paris at the old Shakespeare and Company bookstore. And then there was the great dynamic duo of Wordsworth and Coleridge, the famous rainy holiday in a castle which sparked Mary Shelly to write Frankenstein on a dare with Percy and Lord Byron, and of course the bustling theater of the English Renaissance where Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Johnson all rose to such great heights, and don’t even get me started on the great Italian Renaissance, the Medici family, and the power of Florence! The truth is everywhere we look we see writers and artists converging together, creating such seismic shock waves in society and art and literature that the world is still reeling from the blasts. Writers are absolutely a strange and wild bunch no question about it. But we are all still human in the end, and we all need that human interaction, that magic of real engagement with others of a like mind and heart. Something synergistic occurs in that creative collision that cannot be replicated any other way.

We need each other, but yes we also need to left alone too. Francis Bacon, again in his essay “On Friendship,” states that the desire to be alone can “proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester man’s self for a higher conversation.” It is that “higher conversation” we all seek both as humans upon this earth, but also especially as writers and artists. And yet that solitary conversing is just not enough. Enlightenment alone does not suffice. We humans are a social creature. We are naturally urged from deep within our core to share, to impart the gifts that we have learned and acquired and to pass them onto others whether they be our children, our co-workers, our friends, or even complete strangers. We must reach out and share all that we have and give all that we are. This is not just an act of selfishness, but in fact biologically it is actually an act of selflessness as it is a way of increasing the greater good of all, to make the human species that much wiser, that much more experienced, and nuanced. We are here learning from each other while we also teach each other, and in so doing we are each broadening the horizons of who we all are, what any single one of us can do, can perceive, can achieve. And in some unbelievable way we are all doing this always together, always apart, always connected. So write on, connect, do it, and just keep sharing!