Submitting to Critiques Beats Suffering Alone

I’m going to let you in on a trade secret: Writing is hard.

OK, so it isn’t quite like mine excavation or suspension-bridge construction, although writers do a fair amount of rooting, dredging and digging of another sort.

They also spend a lot of time locked in self-imposed isolation trying to coax the clever phrase, the Big Thought or the silly notion out of a tormented state of mind. And when they succeed, they fool the rest of us into believing that it is easy.

But it isn’t easy. Which is why writers tend to become brooding members of that collective cultural consciousness know as “The Tortured Souls.” Or why they become members of writers groups, where they learn to suffer in a group instead of suffering in silence.

“We writers tend to join a writers club because it gives us the knowledge that we are not alone plugging away in our little rooms with no feedback except for the occasional rejection letter,” said free-lance writer Ann Shields, who wrote this week’s Centerpiece story on the 300-member Ventura County Writers Club.

The club, Shields said, has been a home away from home for local writers since 1932.

“Some of the workshops have been going on so long that the members have become like family,” she said. “They even support each other in other areas of their lives.”

And as in all families, a certain amount of sibling rivalry is considered necessary, even healthy. At the writers club, that rivalry shows during workshops, where writers gather to critique each other’s work.

“The critique group is definitely not for everyone, but those writers who can take it find the criticism very helpful,” Shields said. “They get a chance to see their writing clearly, not from the point of view of family members who may be overly impressed with everything you do.”

Shields, who has been a member of the group for 12 years, has occupied the workshop hot seat any number of times. And during those years, she has occupied a few other seats as well.

“I’ve been a member since 1982 and I’ve been about every officer in the group except treasurer,” she said. “They took a look at my checkbook and decided they didn’t want me in that job.”

All of which is fine with Shields, who is happy just being a member in good standing.

“The help, concrete help--not just support--that you get from a writers club is invaluable. Besides the workshops, the guest speakers, the newsletters and the social events, writers are there to exchange and share marketing ideas and give each other up-to-date info on the business,” she said.

“A writers club is a community building thing; it really is a community.”