Do you? I have three writer pals I talk to, but one is a music playing buddy first. It is a coincidece that we write. I do memoir and novels and he writes plays, songs and short stories. One is 10 years older and has been a mentor to me, even passing on magazine writing assignments back when I did that. The third is also a coincidental writer pal. We used to be crewmen in the same fishing fleet and also tree-planted together. He took up writing later in life, becoming a marine historian after studying archaelogy. We mostly write back and forth and even then, not much. I belong to no writers' groups, either local in-person or broader like Writers' Union or author associations. I just wonder how other people approach the craft. Lone wolf, or with associates? I had volume one of my memoir published by a major Canadian house this year.
Congratulations on being published! It's hard for me to define a friend. For me, it is someone I can share a lot with and trust. Someone I've known for many years. So friends-wise I do not have any writers. But I have associates who write, mostly in Swedish. There's also people here on this site whose interactions I appreciate. I was also a member of a local writer's group in my home town, but they closed shop. I plan on becoming a member in another town as well.
i guess most of the writing friend i have are on this site. Real life its been tough making contact with people.
i've made friends on here who I trust, and we "hangout" virtually. share our successes and setbacks, swap feedback, decompress about real life. I wouldn't mind meeting them in person. in real life, i've hosted in-person writing groups and have met some pretty great local authors. i cant say that we are friends (we've never connected outside of the group, although, I do follow one on Facebook. She just released a new book!). I dont host the group anymore, but 2 others in my area have popped up. I've been debating joining it. I feel like, i already have a writing group (here and the other writing forum).... and i already have close writer friends. What am i really going to get out of this new group other than in-person socialization? I can get that without the group. I suppose it could be local connections and shared resources..... but like i said, im on the fence about it
The only writer I know IRL is my lifelong frined ('Eric' in the Beastseekers) who started me writing in the first place. When we were nine it was his idea to write stories about ourselves as underwater superheroes called The Anchors. I thought it was a dumb name, because anchors drag you down, but he didn't see it that way. I kept getting better by stages, and so did he up to a point, but he stopped there, and then each time I'd improve he'd get all jealous and pissed off about it. He basically kept demanding that I go back to the way I used to write. Eventually I had to stop showing him my writing in order to save the so-called friendship.
Rarely is real life as neatly poignant as fiction, but your friend seems to have managed it, unfortunately.
I belong to a local writers group as well as a statewide organization. One or two other members are casual friends as well, but we don't talk about writing much when we get together. To tell the truth, I hate talking about writing unless I'm teaching a class. I don't mind writing about writing in forums so much, but as a topic for social conversation- yuck.
Real life writers suck ass in my experience. Too melodramatic and self-absorbed. Online writers are awesome! Regular people with shared interests.
While I don't see Real Life Writers as universally melodramatic and self-absorbed, I have very little patience (okay, none) with those who focus on the drama, twisted emotions, and existential struggles of writing. For cripes sake, deal with it in private or hire a therapist. My other pet peeve involves those folks who talk endlessly about how God has led them to write their memoirs. One very nice lady in my local writers group mentions God's guidance every chance she gets, and all I can think while listening to her is, "Don't blame God for this." I may not be a nice person inside my brain, but I am a polite person on the surface. She has no idea I feel this way, nor will she ever have reason to suspect I feel this way, but holy Toledo, when she gets going about being guided by God to write a new chapter, I want to throw my laptop through the window and jump out after it. End of rant.
I can't imagine anyone I'd enjoy hanging out with less in real life than people who self-identify as 'writers'. Maybe I'm being harsh and I'd get on well with them, but I doubt it; I have an MA in English literature, so I've spent a good bit of time with arty types before I took to my life of death-defying stupidity. I have quite a few aspects of my life that are non-mainstream and it must be said that I find quite a lot of the people involved in those to be rather irritating and I fear arty types will be the same. This antipathy puzzled me for a while until I realised that what bothered me was that they were always on, you know? Like, I wear certain small bits and pieces that give away my affiliation with various non-mainstream groups to those in the know, but these people are the kind who'd go out to buy milk wearing a set of antlers or something. Note that I am self aware enough to realise that bitching about one-note personalities makes me a colossal hypocrite, sitting here in a grubby old fire service hoodie and coastguard baseball cap. But yes, self-identified arty types are just so painfully earnest all the time and it's tiring. Chill, guys, you know?
Most people who know me have no idea I'm a writer or artist, and I have been all my life. I don't like to talk about it, because it feels like revealing too much of your inner world. Plus I just don't think most people would care or understand. The few times I've tried it I get mostly uncomprehending stares or weird questions and comments that reveal they see me as some kind of weird alien. Most people have no idea what a creative life is like. In fact even when I was taking drawing and painting courses and surrounded by other people doing the same, it turns out we have little in common. Our ideas and approaches are so different we have little common ground for conversation.
Now that I think about it, the only people I know who identify themselves as "writers" are on this site. I've considered joining a writers' group, but never seriously. Perhaps some in-person contact would help get me moving with my writing. All my life I've been a sort of closet writer, only doing it publicly as a function of my work. Briefly on a weekly paper, then as a sort of PR flack, then as a lawyer and legal clerk, finally at a state Bar association where I wrote some while serving as an editor. Lots of compliments, but never found the fire to write "a big one."
True. Who wants to talk shop when all you're trying to do is relax in a social gathering? Sigh. Why do some real-life writers have to say such stupid shit? Jenna's video (below) is completely on point regarding this: Seriously, writers, stop saying stupid shit. You're just embarrassing yourselves. (Especially point 10, above. TMI, writers. TMI).
Being perfect and universally loved, I know nothing I do irritates the shit out of people, but I try to be patient with the flawed humans around me. The lady in my writer's group genuinely believes God is guiding her hand in writing her memoirs. My peeved reaction to her sharing this conviction is my problem, not hers... even though I wish she'd shut up about it.
There's actually some truth and some deep wisdom in this idea though. I learned recently that writing a memoir, if done right, is deep therapy, and can bring transcendence, which of course some people characterize in a religious sense. It's because narrativizing your life is essentially the point of therapy—it's about finding a better life story that brings meaning and purpose to your life, as opposed to whatever meaningless story is currently attached to it. Narrative is the native language of the mind, and a bad psychology, that leads to a meaningless existence, is just a bad life narrative. Therapists are like our editors in that sense. Here's the PDF where I discovered this: Creative Transcendence: Memoir Writing for Transformation and Empowerment The problem with some poeple, ie the ones who keep telling everyone else about how God is their omnipotent editor and writing partner, is that they missed the bit of wisdom in the Bible saying that prayer and worship should be done in private rather than publicly (the thing about Pharisees and Sadeucees etc, doing it for public glory rather than for deep inner reasons, and therefore being hypocrites). From the abstract of the paper: The findings contribute to the ongoing knowledge of writing as a transpersonal practice. The results illustrate the transformative and empowering dynamics of writing a full-length memoir. The writing experience offered the participants a chance to review their lives, find resolution and redemption, find inner peace, and establish the clarity of mind to move forward in their lives. I did some writing on the subject on my blog a while back: Achieve Transcendence by Writing a Memoir? "I've long thought a person can reach Individuation (another term for transcendence) through writing or an art form, for a number of reasons I might not be able to articulate very well. Partly because working at an artform is a process that requires and causes growth, and partly because I believe re-conceptualizing your story (your life story) is a form of ritual magic, in the psychological sense (they're the same thing of course). Framing our story in narrative is a way of understanding who we are."
Surely that depends on what you believe about God (or the gods, etc.) ... but that opens up a new can of worms, so let's not go into that. (Sorry) *blush* I don't believe I'm guided by anything other than fellow writers (occasionally), the books I read (and there are many of those -- I have three bookshelves full to bursting), and the writer's guides I've read -- e.g. "Save the Cat! Writes a Book", "The Writer's Guide to Emotion", etc. etc. etc. Oh, yeah -- and I'm also guided by my own experience of writing over the past ... *calculates* ... 30 years?! Gosh. I feel old now.
No, I do not hang out with any writers in real life. I have a couple of nephews who are working on novels, but I don't see them often. I did belong to a book club for a few years (Covid interrupted that and I never went back), and there were a couple of writers in the group. And I saw in them the obsession I had for writing when I first starting writing years earlier. Putting everything else by the wayside. Is this a trait of new writers? Do they get obsessed?
Come to think of it, I do have a professional (e.g. full-time and published) writer living up the street, a very difficult person to talk to.
I honestly disagree, but I do understand where coping with writers melodrama can be annoying, Hell, my own characters have annoyed me with their endless dramas. I think what bothers is the sensationalism of emotional or physical pain. As for the therapist part, some people feel more comfortable writing issues they have into fiction. I do it. Sometimes, I am not even aware I am doing it, too. Example, I had a character come out as gay when I was younger and then came to realize I was lesbian about a year later. Like my subconscious tells me things, or something. Also, there are limits to what can be shared in therapy. Sure, maybe as a reader, its not fun to be dumped on. But that's when you put the book down. (Don't like, don't read?)
You misunderstand me, Gravy dear. I wasn't objecting to expressing angst in writing. The topic is "Do you hang out with other writers?" I was referring to hanging out with writers who dramatize themselves by filling their conversations with tales of the angst and loneliness of being a writer.
regarding the TMI part.... in my previous library job, i got the chance to meet/interview some big authors. over the pandemic, i did a virtual "interview" with a longtime romance writer and then did an audience Q&A after. one comment asked the author if she ever got turned on by what she writes. her response was something along the lines of "I write what I think is hot" and left it at that
