Rhody Writing Group’s Fifth Anniversary
Writing in a vacuum can be very boring. For most you either need to sit at a desk or library or if you’re like me you have a 3 days worth of movie soundtracks to listen to get you into the mood. The downside to writing in a vacuum is no feedback or moral support feels like you’re building a sand castle at the beach and no one is there to admire it.
I started writing by adapting the Transformers pilot episode onto my dad’s TSR-80 laptop and continued through Junior High and High School writing at the time what was fan fiction Robotech novels.
During college, I met up with Paul Chabot and in a year or two we’re semi-yearly self publishing a black and white comic book called Totems.
In 2004, I found NaNoWrimo and got back into the universe I create in College and updated it so the Robotech trappings were gone.
Rhode Island is small state so traveling to write ins and finding coffee houses that can hold a burgeoning amount of people who’re just going to sit there and tap away on their laptops sounds easier than it should be but it’s not when your favorite place on Fox Point up and closes and you now have to seek another watering hole.
In December of 2010, sitting at the TGIO (Thank God It’s Over) party for NaNoWrimo over at Brewed Awakenings in Johnston, there were great deal of people sitting around and I asked them if I started a writing group would they be interested in joining and they said yes.
Thankfully, Warwick Public Library had rooms available to reserve and in February (after a mis-step in January with snow in the forecast that never appeared) our motley group got together and reviewed several pieces including the first chapter of Weaver which has since been filed under: Nothing happens in fifteen pages it’s being revised.
It has been a fun five years. I’ve attempted to switch gears from hobby writing to writing professionally and even finished the first draft of Weaver to find I put too much into it.
It’s been a delight to see other authors hone their craft until they have a voice and knowing when you read their piece it’s going to be interesting.
If you’re writing and haven’t found a writing group I suggest checking Meetup. You’d be surprised to see how many writing groups there are.
A writing group is great resource to have because:
- No one at the table is a blood relation to you.
- You’ll get free feedback on your work from people who may not even be writing in your genre.
We’ve had people come and go, the core group had clicked and even started meeting once a month to write in Newport.
We’ve even had a few people self publish a book or two, like Matt Keefer, Janet Parkinson and more.
So, when Bennett North sold her first short story to Fantasy and Science Fiction it was happy day since she had submitted to the group.
It was even a more happier day when it appeared in the January/February 2016 Edition of the magazine.
And here are some of those reviews from Tangent and SFRevu of the issue.