Year of the Novel and Writers Groups

Hello everyone

Next week is our third Year of the Novel session, I am looking forward to it.

It is very useful as we learn so much about the creation of tension through conflict and how to structure this tension etc. I have been so spurred on by simply talking to other writers. I am looking forward to our third meeting, to seeing the same writers again and bonding over our efforts or non efforts since we last talked.

I am also wondering about a writers group. The hardest thing with writing is not having peers, people who can tell you where you are in the scale of things. All of the famous authors and indeed artists of many types had peers and famous ones at that, that were able to tell them where they were and how to improve themselves. So my question is, how do I get into that situation?

Hemmingway was friends with F Scott Fizgerald (I think), Mary Shelley was married to the poet Percy Shelley, Van Gogh hung out with (somewhat famous at the time) impressionist painters like Gaugain and Manet and others. Bob Dylan immersed himself in folk music and lived in Greenwich Village and met the right people. He met his idol, Woodie Guthrie, was given a guitar from Johnny Cash and knew various other people. I realise I am not as talented as these people, especially Hemmingway, I am not comparing myself to any of these artists. However, the concept is there that along with their talent they also were able to build on this and make it even better. But, even having another writer with similar desires would probably be beneficial to my work. Venero, in last time's session said he had a friend who had similar writing goals and they set each other tasks for one year. This kind of spurring on would be great.

I realise I am not in the league of the above artists, but I do want to try and develop as much as possible the skills I have. So anyway, I am seeking out a writers group hoping this can help.

In a way I have answered my own questions, I need to go to more events and eat, sleep and breathe writing. Does anyone else feel this way?

By the way, I saw this website recently that showed you if you have a life span of 80 years how many seconds you have left and the timer was ticking away furiously, counting it down. It disturbed me a little and I got off the website. However, since then I have had this feeling about death and about how we have little time really, to do things with our lives. Nobody really knows how much time we have. It makes me think many things, about my spiritual life and about my writing. So I am trying to move forward every day. To progress in many ways, and writing being one of them, every day.

Good luck with whatever you put your hand to and think a bit more deeply about life today...