I've never been in a writing club but I'm interested in trying to get one going. Would anyone else be interested in giving it a go? I don't have to lead it, but will do so if no one else wants to.
What I'm picturing:
Monthly check-in cadence
Everyone sets a personal goal, and then talks about how they did the previous month
No pressure other than what you want to take on to motivate you
Maybe some "assignments" in the vein of a creative writing class
I volunteer to send members reminder DMs to motivate them :)
I was thinking I'd just start with this post - come up with a goal for myself to accomplish by end of June, and then check back sometime in the first week of July. If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to join in and comment with your goal, and any details you want to add.
PS Also very open to writing club discussion meta. I'm new to this so wide open to suggestios, comments, critique, etc.
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Oh an idea: we could make a writing club community where people can post about process and post stories to get feedback. Then there could be a pinned weekly/monthly post that has goals and other general discussion and well as letting people say if they want motivational DMs
I like this idea a lot. I was wondering about how to organise everything in one post, and it's probably a recipe for disaster after a certain size haha. A specialised community is a good solution for that.
I do want to see how things go here for a bit before getting too fancy, since this is a pretty quiet community, and also my motivation has a way of fleeing me as soon as Monday rolls around hehe, so I don't want to take on too much too quickly.
Makes sense, a new community probably wouldn't be necessary at the start & this community could probably use the extra traffic anyways :)
Maybe a way to organize it within the post is having topic specific comments? You could even link to the comments within the main body of the post.
For example you could have a comment that says: comment here for dm motivation. Then people can reply to that specific comment and it'll all be nested. Things might get tricky if the post gets too much activity, but I get the feeling it will probably be a small group :)
I like the idea of linking things back to the main post yeah. Very small scale, but probably adequate for our use, like you said :)
For DM motivation I'm just going to take the risk and assume that unless someone says otherwise that they will be ok with it.
I wasn't planning on really hectoring anyone: just a gentle reminder about a week before the "deadline" that there is at least one person (me) who will be genuinely curious about any progress (or no) that they've made towards their goal.
I think thats a great approach & your energy seems perfect for it, kind and motivating without feeling overbearing :)
Sounds like a great idea! There could be a monthly or quarterly post to encourage people to link (or quote, if not too long) the various things they want feedback on in the response comments.
I did in a previous writing community run into the issue that people would, when somebody discussed general writing approaches, point back to their own previous feedback posts and find flaws in the posts to try to "prove" to them their more general thoughts on writing approaches was wrong. Which in my opinion scares people away from daring to post their work, when it later comes back at them in a more general discussion.
Therefore, I would only request people stick with "3. What happens in feedback or critique requests posts stays in these posts" which I suggested as a rule for that reason.
Super good point! Also I don't know if you saw, but we've been doing the writing club in this community. I think there are 3 or 4 of us who have been consistently checking in, but we have had a few people chime in just for the month. I can link to it if you haven't already seen those posts.
So far it has luckily been a very positive and motivational space :) no one getting weird and nitpicky, mostly just encouraging eachother to keep up with writing
The legend returns! Sorry I'm just seeing this now. I 100% I agree with everything you've said. As @hazeebabee@slrpnk.net said, luckily things have been cozy and chill enough in the monthly posts, that we haven't actually needed to enforce any rules.
I like your idea about the author actually highlighting what they want feedback on. I'll try to remember to include that in the next monthly post.
I think it would be nice if we could get even more people giving feedback, even if they aren't participating in the goals (gods help me, I'm asking for critics lol), but I guess that's just general community building, and hopefully will come with time.