Won Me

A great way to improve your writing and to make friends is to join or form a writing group.

What is a writing group? It is simply a group of people who meet periodically - every week or every month is common - for the purpose of supporting each other’s writing. Some writing groups meet to write - in other words, they spend their time together doing writing exercises and perhaps reading them out loud. Other writing groups meet to discuss each other’s writing. They exchange their pieces in advance, read them before the meeting, and offer their thoughts and suggestions for improvement at the meeting.

One big advantage of a writing group - compared with a writing class - is that a writing group is free. Another advantage is that writing groups often meet over a longer period of time than a writing class. For example, a class might be finished in eight or twelve weeks. Writing groups often go on for years. I have found that, while I was often nervous about sharing my writing in a class, I grew more and more comfortable sharing my work with my writing group.

I first joined a writing group about four years ago, when I was struggling to write short stories. I had a vision of how I wanted each story to “land” with the reader, and I used my writing group to tell me whether the story landed the way I wanted. For a few years, my stories were generally off the mark. But gradually I got better at tailoring what I was doing to cause the reaction I wanted with my readers. At that point, my stories began to be published. I couldn’t have achieved this without my writing group.

If you’d like to find an existing writing group to join, try asking the creative writing teachers at the nearest university, community college, or community arts program if they know of any existing groups. Your local librarian might also be a source of this information.

To form your own group, try asking friends and acquaintances if they know of other writers who might like to join. You can put up flyers locally and/or run a small ad in the newspaper. Your group can be dedicated only to a certain genre (such as nonfiction, or writing for children), or you can leave it open to all kinds of writers.

The members of your writing group don’t need to be experienced writers in order for you to benefit. What you are really looking for are good readers - people who are at least somewhat familiar with the genre of writing you are doing, and who can give you their honest opinion.

Jyotsna “Jo” Sreenivasan is the author of fiction and nonfiction for children and adults, including two novels for children: The Moon Over Crete and Aruna’s Journeys. She also helps individuals and businesses with writing needs: http://members.aol.com/writebook64 For a list of books which help kids break out of gender stereotypes, see her site: Brave Girls and Strong Women Books, http://members.aol.com/brvgirls

I remember mentioning to my former barber that one of my first books was being published.

He asked me the title, and I told him.

And then, something amazing happened.

He took credit for my idea, my book, for the years of experience that it took for me to craft it.

He claimed I got the idea for the book from him!

It was preposterous. He knew nothing about my topic, and I had never discussed it with him. Apart from telling editors what I’m working on, I abide by a policy of never revealing the titles or topics of works in progress.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say he did think of the idea before I did.

So, what?

You can’t copyright or trademark a mere ideaany lawyer will tell you that.

There’s a good policy reason that it is so. Lots of people have ideas, strikingly similar ones, but it is the doers, the ones that bring them to life, that go from a mere thought to a physical manifestation, that are rewarded with intellectual property rights in it.

Edison wasn’t the only person to work on the light bulb, nor the Wright Brothers on flight. Lots of people share the same dreams, especially of invention and glory.

But few come through and do what they dream.

And that makes all the difference.

Who knows? My barber could be sitting on the next bestseller.

But until he lets us see his work, we’ll be consigned to reading the offerings of his inferiors, like me.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC’s Annenberg School, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.