Do You Feel Undervalued or Ignored in Your Writing Group?

When I started writing for a living in 2011, I loved the work but felt I needed to improve my social life to make up for being on my own all day. Writing can be a lonely occupation!

So, in the new year I decided to join my local writers’ group to meet new people, explore new opportunities in publishing, and perhaps to further my writing career.

The website assured me of a friendly welcome and the first meeting lived up to my expectations with polite smiles and introductions to other members of the group. But within a few months I was having trouble getting beyond that polite ‘hello’. They’d usually rush off to speak to someone else. I guess I wasn’t that interesting!

By April I’d received a book contract and was really excited. I was bursting to tell people, but the cliquey atmosphere prevailed, and I left the April meeting without having told a single soul! I was starting to wonder why I bothered with the group at all.

By this time, I’d established that the meetings were not usually that inspiring, I was already more successful than most members, and attending the meetings was unlikely to help me further my writing career.

But I was a bit lonely. So, in a last ditch attempt to make friends, I decided to offer my services to the committee, suggesting I could work on the newsletter and deliver a talk on my new book. However the chair wasn’t interested. He turned me down flat, saying that the members were only interested in fiction. That was pretty disappointing. Thanks mate.

I was on the verge of giving up, having had only had one meaningful conversation with anyone in the group all year!

However, I decided to give it another chance and joined for a further year. I was glad I did because things started to turn around. I volunteered to read an extract of my work at a manuscript evening. Then, when people heard a little about what I was doing, they started to show interest. Other new members started talking to me, and I was even asked to do that talk! They loved it!

I continued to attend the group but opted out of the committee after a year. No one was interested in anything I had to say when the committee decisions to make, so it felt like a waste of time and energy. And it was frustrating to go along and have my thoughts dismissed.

But saying that, putting myself out there, and then taking a step back again did give me a little more insight, and I made a few worthwhile connections. One of the ladies on the committee showed an interest in my work and later bought two of my books!

I continued to attend the group and I tried to contribute. A few people said hello. I didn’t make best friends, but it got me out of the house once a month. I stopped going in 2020 when everything shut down because of covid. I haven’t been back. Instead, I find my friends and acquaintances online now.

But the moral of the story is if you’re having trouble making connections at a writing group, things can improve if you persevere. Perhaps if your writing group is cliquey, they just need time to get to know you. Or perhaps you’ll have to accept that you’ll never make great friendships there.

It might help if you try to get involved with what’s going on, offer to help, enter competitions, join in manuscript evenings, and reach out to other new members if you can identify them. As for the committee, I just decided that committees aren’t really for me!

What’s your writers’ group like? Has it helped to further your writing ambitions? Are the other members welcoming and friendly? Or is it all a bit of a disappointment!