I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as I plan my retirement from the day job and transition to being a full time writer. Your article makes me realize I do have some support networks in place already, both inside and outside writing.

You bring up a very interesting point about non-writer friends/support. Over the past couple of years I’ve started selling more and when I’m asked to do things I know will suck up my time I’ve tried to explain I have to work on a book or prep for a workshop etc. My non-writer friends look at me uncomprehendingly like I’d grown two heads.

Lately my strategy has been to tell them I have to work with no explanation at all. This usually elicits a nod and a subject change.

People outside publishing understand “work” but they don’t understand that writing is work. I don’t actually know what they think it is, and I’m too chicken to ask.

Of course, there’s also the writer who isn’t yet serious about writing and tries to drag you into their avoidance strategies, but that’s a whole other topic.

Thanks for continuing with this project. Good stuff.

It’s been pricelessly valuable to me in so many ways. In terms of the kind of people I get to meet, their overall calibre, the challenges posed, how it takes me beyond my comfort zone, and is ultimately rewarding in many personal and even spiritual ways.

Hell, I feel like I am far closer to many people I’ve met and worked with in uniform — on a part-time basis — than some people I work with full-time at my day job.

I’ve also noticed that with explicitly writing-focused groups, fractures tend to form quickly as people reach for different goals or, often, actually achieve different goals. Dean talks about how every writing group naturally dissolves in this way, and it seems to be true.

The internet is both a blessing and a curse for me. It’s a blessing because it allows me to “connect” with so many wonderful people, while at the same time I have terrible discipline — absolutely attrocious! — when it comes to pulling out the needle. Pushing the power button. Yanking the plug. Standing up and walking away from the internet-connected computer and going to the writing computer and focusing on that day’s writing goals.

I need a physical support group of writers, as far as I can tell, and I don’t have them right now. The closest ones are a three hour drive away, and the job situation is keeping me from moving there. And freelancing without support hasn’t been working so nicely.

So. This guide is really, really useful. And that the writers with journals online just sort of went BOOM at some point. Bizarro world. 🙂

They are an intelligent reading audience, which is valuable in itself. A story I didn’t care about might grab them; a novel I love might capture one but not two others. It’s useful that way.

But I’m surprised how they also make me see my own boundaries. In form alone, other members have submitted poems, a song, and a screenplay, which made me dig out my poems and say, ‘Might as well send these out.’ I thought I was taking risks by writing across genres, but I hadn’t tried writing different forms as much, and that’s cool.

BTW, they invited me to join after coming to my book launch in November. So even though some people might think I “should” stay home and write instead of promo-ing, the book launch has paid off a little financially (I have kept the profit from selling author’s copies of the books) as well as socially (rather like Dean’s poker group). You never know where groups might lead, as long as you play well with others and know your own limits.

Good post, as always. Thank you.

The thing that I always take away from it is when he talks about how crucial it is for officers to have non-law enforcement friends. Otherwise it becomes easy for them to approach everything as an Us vs Them, because all they ever deal with is the criminal element.

I think that applies and why Dean’s poker group is so important. There’s some analogy that fits here, I am sure.

For me though, I am also like Dean where I have to go out everyday. Have to. I get REALLY twitchy if I don’t and start sending all sorts of crazy emails….

And as important as it is to have non-business friends/groups, I find I really need people in the same business(both my computer day job and my writing work) to get together with.

Fortunately, I finally found local writers who approach writing with the same professional approach that I believe in. Before that, I was pretty reliant on my 1-2 trips per year to Oregon. And that wasn’t enough.