Becky Levine and the Basement of a Mall

When I first dove in to read Becky Levine’s book, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, I grabbed a pencil. I knew I’d be underlining and bookmarking and returning to the pages again and again. Every writer needs a survival guide, especially when it comes to critique groups.  Two years ago, I wrote the post below right after I began reading her book, as her words urged me on to my first meeting with a local writing group. Today, in light of my 2013 mantra, Fearless Writing, it seems apropos to post it again.

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A few days before I attended my first meeting with a local writing group, I read these words in Becky Levine’s Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide:

Take care to make the meeting worth your time and money. Talk to people. Too often, at these events, writers give in to their nervousness, shyness, or just their uncertainty about their own writing.

…[R]emember: This is your writing. It’s important. I’m not advocating shoving yourself into the middle of someone else’s discussion or waving a red flag in the bathroom line, but put yourself out there.

I was nervous, uncertain, not exactly ready to put myself out there. But, the woman who runs this particular group had emailed me such a nice introduction with the room information (in the lower level of the mall) and said I was welcome to attend. She mentioned that they all would be bringing a sample of their work to share, and she hoped I would as well.

After working a split shift at my paying job, being gone most of the weekend, and after my daughter cried both times I had to leave, the decision to steal away for another two hours on a Sunday wasn’t easy. Add to that guilt the anxiety about sitting in a room with strangers and reading a short story out loud (for the first time to someone other than myself), and I could have easily backed out. But, something in my gut told me – and Becky Levine’s words encouraged me – to go to this meeting.

When I got to the building, I came upon another woman looking for the room. She told me her name and smiled and immediately put me at ease. We made our way to the basement of the building, wound through hallways, and walked into the meeting together. She introduced me to her friends as a “fellow traveler.”

It was a small group, and, mostly, I just listened. When it came time to read our samples of work, I hesitated. A few of the members were aging adults, and the conversation at the beginning of the meeting had drifted from writing to assisted living. In the story I brought to read aloud, a young woman visits her grandmother in a nursing home. I thought maybe they wouldn’t like the story, that they would think I was rude to read something like that to this group. Worse yet, I worried they might not like my writing style.

Then, I remembered,

This is your writing.
It’s important.
Put yourself out there.

So, in the basement of a shopping mall, I sat around a table with six other writers and read my work. My face grew hot and my voice wavered. But, I pushed off that feeling of insecurity and panic and kept my eyes on the words.

After I finished, one person noted a place where I might change the wording. Everyone else sat quiet. Someone got up to leave. I tried to interpret the silence, the sudden departure, then I decided, No. Focus on what’s important: at least I took action. I can’t control their response. Nor, can I assume I know what it means.

And, isn’t that the way it is with every story a writer sends out into the world?

Before the meeting ended, the woman who acknowledged in her kind way that we are all travelers along this winding road complimented my story. The man across the table suggested my work would be published one day. I left the meeting with a few phone numbers and an invitation to come back.

I don’t know that I had much in common with the people there, other than writing itself. But when Becky Levine talks about finding a writing or critique group, she doesn’t say we should search for people like ourselves: with kids or without, working day jobs or not, old or young. Instead, she emphasizes that we follow our gut instinct. Find a group where we feel welcomed and supported – a group that will meet our writing needs.

Whether or not it’s the first group you attend, the key is: put yourself out there.