Sometimes I forget that writing takes time.

In the second week of November, I had ALL of the meetings. You’d think the world would have run out of meetings by now, but no: apparently, there will be more next week. And I still had that cold that will not leave and has me hacking morning and night. My daughter texted to say that I’d forgot to send her money for university this month, which reminded me OH RIGHT, PAY THE BILLS. I had multiple events in the evenings and on top of that, I discovered Transparent on Amazon. (No judgement, ok?)

It seemed I would never get any writing done ever again. Which felt fine, because I wasn’t convinced that my current work was all that great anyway

In other words: just another normal writing week.

And this is me now that I’m not parenting on a daily basis. For a long time, I was also single parenting while working and going to school at the same time – and yet, in those years it seemed like I got even more writing done. What is up with that?

What’s...

Nothing has made more difference to my writing life than working with mentors -- writers with more experience than I had at the time who could encourage me to push myself and my writing further than I know I'd have been able to do working on my own. I can't say enough about how that has transformed my poetry, fiction and non-fiction work. If you think your work could benefit from an experienced set of eyes, here are 5 good reasons to find a writing mentor, along with what and what not to expect once you find them

Deadlines

Working with a writing mentor will mean external deadlines. Based on mutual agreement, you’ll identify a regular time period for you to submit your work and receive feedback. If you are the kind of self-disciplined angel who takes deadlines seriously no matter who sets them, then may life continue to shower blessings in your general direction. For the rest of us, having a set time by which we must deliver a poem or story or manuscript to someone else can help get o...

I believe that writing groups can really push writers ahead -- much more quickly than when writers just trudge along on their own. Here are some useful tips to help create and sustain effective and supportive writing groups: I hope they help!

For most of the past decade, I’ve been in one writing group or another. Mostly for fiction, although I’ve also shared my writing with poetry friends in smaller numbers (less group, more #girlgang!). Deadlines and feedback have been critical to my growth as a writer and one sure way to get this is through sharing your writing regularly in a writers group.

Or: writers groups, plural. At different times, I've been in separate groups for both poetry and fiction at the same time, and had a writing mentor at the same time. It really depends on your focus and how much time you have.

But to make this work you have to have the right group(s). Nothing will curdle your writer’s soul faster than poorly given input on your precious paragraphs. How to find t...