Can we talk about shyness for a moment? Shyness is hard. You think, well I’ll grow out of this… hopefully. But you don’t really know how that’s going to happen, especially when in your free time you like to be alone, in your room, typing on a keyboard, creating people and interactions that don’t exist. Life as a writer is seen as introverted weirdness or crippling genius where a glass of alcohol or a cup of coffee must be included in the frame for authenticity.
Well, I’m going to say that life as a writer doesn’t have to be like either of those choices. In fact, in many cases it isn’t. But how is a beginner supposed to know that? How is that aspiring artist supposed to know how this thing called writing is done?
Unlike learning or a musical instrument or a sport, there is no mentor guiding the fresh-faced creators out there. Sure, I had English teachers like anyone else, but writing a novel is not like writing a paper. It feels related sure, you smack the keys in the same fashion, you put each word down, one behind the other, but it’s so much more than that. Even this blog posting feels simple and easy compared to the months or years of work and confusion and doubt that is the novel.
If you want to write, the mentors and experienced people of the world are not going to find you, pick you up by the bootstraps and tell you how to overcome the plot hole you have in chapter eight. No, unfortunately you have to find them.
This is where the shyness comes in. You might say I’m a writer, recall paragraph one if confused by how some of us operate. Room. Alone. Typing. Remember?
I say – shyness is hard.
But so is putting in the time to write. So is creating worlds. So is putting yourself out there and getting rejected (a lot).
So here are some avenues to finding your group:
- Local Writer Groups
Find your group by searching local writer groups out there. If interested and in the Dallas Fort Worth area, I am part of the DFW Writers Workshop and we welcome all.
Website here: http://www.dfwwritersworkshop.org/
- Social Media
There are some great Youtube channels, interviews and blogs that talk about writing and how it’s done. There are Facebook groups designed to find critique partners like Sub It Club Critique Partner Match Up. The Internet is a beautiful thing full of advice and opportunity to ask for beta readers, partners or get questions answered.
- Contests and Literary Journals
Enter a contest. Seek out avenues where other authors are submitting. Writers, I find, are a supportive bunch. The main goal of some contests is to connect fellow writers or writers to agents.
- Take Classes/Go to Conferences
This is the expensive option (I know), but always worth it. My first conference taught me a lot about craft and I made connections, but it also opened a window into how the publishing industry works.
Happy Writing!