Hello fellow writers! This is the first post in a new series about how to make your own writing group. With each post, we will give you tips and suggestions on finding members, picking a name, finding a time to meet, and how to organize your meetings, as well as how we started our group last year. I hope you enjoy what we have to say, and start your own group using the advice.
I love to write. It's something I couldn't imagine not doing. Growing up, I read soooo many books that I couldn't have avoided inspiration, and sure enough, it came pounding into my head. Also, having a grandmother that is a writer really helped. When I found out that my three cousins shared this love of writing, we started having reading and writing hour every night at our cottage. After several years of this, I came up with the idea of creating a writing group. When I shared this idea with my cousins, they all loved it.
The first thing we did was pick a meeting place and a name, the name being one of the most fun experiences in creating our group. We chose to meet in a small room in the basement of our cottage, away from the noise of a house buzzing with the sounds of our family. When you are choosing a place to meet with your group, here are some factors to consider:
1. Enough room for all your group members.
2. Away from noise and distractions
3. Out of the way of your family.
4. A place that appeals to your creative mind.
Next, the name, the motto or slogan, and other fun things...
As you know, the name that we chose for our group is The Quill, Pen and Keyboard Society, but before we found this name, we went through many others. To decide on names, we split into two groups of two, and went off on our own for a little while to brainstorm. Then, we reconvened and presented our ideas. It came down to two names, the one we have now, and The Literettes (literacy, all girls). After much deliberation, our name was chosen, because Literettes sounded more like a group based around reading, and The Quill, Pen and Keyboard Society, suggested writing.
Next, we split up again and tried to come up with our motto and our slogan. We finally found ones that we liked:
Motto: Peace, Love, Write. (as shown on our home page).
Slogan: Ideas today, bestsellers tomorrow (because ideas were what we had and we aspire to publish our writing).
For these, think of things that you want your group to truly represent. If you are religious, you might want to include that. If you write a certain genre of fiction, put that in your slogan or motto.
Last, we created a group pledge. I'll post this sometime, but I don't have it written down near me right now. Each group member had to hold a pencil, and say the pledge (a little cheesey, I know, but it was fun). We also named our dictionary at this time. We added a bonus rule to our pledge for him:
Respect Reggie.
I don't know how we came up with Reggie as the name for our dictionary. It might have been based on the Archie comics. Having a name for our dictionary was humorous of course, but it also reminded us to look in the dictionary for words, and value the power of language. 'Respect Reggie' doesn't just mean 'Respect the Dictionary', it means respect language, and realize how powerful it is.
I hope you enjoyed the post, and are inspired to start your own group.
The next post in the series will be on meetings and organizing them, and the jobs of each member.
Happy writing,
-M
I love to write. It's something I couldn't imagine not doing. Growing up, I read soooo many books that I couldn't have avoided inspiration, and sure enough, it came pounding into my head. Also, having a grandmother that is a writer really helped. When I found out that my three cousins shared this love of writing, we started having reading and writing hour every night at our cottage. After several years of this, I came up with the idea of creating a writing group. When I shared this idea with my cousins, they all loved it.
The first thing we did was pick a meeting place and a name, the name being one of the most fun experiences in creating our group. We chose to meet in a small room in the basement of our cottage, away from the noise of a house buzzing with the sounds of our family. When you are choosing a place to meet with your group, here are some factors to consider:
1. Enough room for all your group members.
2. Away from noise and distractions
3. Out of the way of your family.
4. A place that appeals to your creative mind.
Next, the name, the motto or slogan, and other fun things...
As you know, the name that we chose for our group is The Quill, Pen and Keyboard Society, but before we found this name, we went through many others. To decide on names, we split into two groups of two, and went off on our own for a little while to brainstorm. Then, we reconvened and presented our ideas. It came down to two names, the one we have now, and The Literettes (literacy, all girls). After much deliberation, our name was chosen, because Literettes sounded more like a group based around reading, and The Quill, Pen and Keyboard Society, suggested writing.
Next, we split up again and tried to come up with our motto and our slogan. We finally found ones that we liked:
Motto: Peace, Love, Write. (as shown on our home page).
Slogan: Ideas today, bestsellers tomorrow (because ideas were what we had and we aspire to publish our writing).
For these, think of things that you want your group to truly represent. If you are religious, you might want to include that. If you write a certain genre of fiction, put that in your slogan or motto.
Last, we created a group pledge. I'll post this sometime, but I don't have it written down near me right now. Each group member had to hold a pencil, and say the pledge (a little cheesey, I know, but it was fun). We also named our dictionary at this time. We added a bonus rule to our pledge for him:
Respect Reggie.
I don't know how we came up with Reggie as the name for our dictionary. It might have been based on the Archie comics. Having a name for our dictionary was humorous of course, but it also reminded us to look in the dictionary for words, and value the power of language. 'Respect Reggie' doesn't just mean 'Respect the Dictionary', it means respect language, and realize how powerful it is.
I hope you enjoyed the post, and are inspired to start your own group.
The next post in the series will be on meetings and organizing them, and the jobs of each member.
Happy writing,
-M
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