Who's in Your Writing Community?

Hello Readers! 

It is no secret that writing can be a lonely task filled with long hours spent with only your computer, a half drank cup of tea, scattered notes, and the voices of your characters keeping you company. When that day's work is done, you might be exhausted and wish to find respite away from the real world or use it to get a break from the one you just left.  

Though separating the writerly and non–writerly life can be efficient, it can also make the former feel isolating, observed only through surface level conversations with friends and family who don't have common ground on the subject. I personally enjoy the chance to explain my ideas to people at family gatherings and in small talk, but I came to wonder what it would be like to find a community of people just like me.

Over four years spent at college and making connections in class and out, I discovered the value in sitting around a table with like-minded people. Just recently, I found myself in the middle of a Sigma Tau Delta meeting (it's an English honors society; if your school has one, I highly recommend joining!) gossiping about the professors in our department and sharing class experiences. This was a very mundane thing to be doing, especially among people with similar majors, but something about it felt very significant, as if I was finally seeing the clear connections between our lives. This web, if you will, only became more noticeable in my workshop classes as I realized how invested we all were in one another's work and then again when we hung out just for fun and spent time bonding. 

I've also been lucky enough to find a housemate in the creative writing major with the same passion for reading, writing, and publishing career pursuits as myself. It hasn't escaped me in recent months how cool it is that when I want to bounce a plot point off of someone, share work, or freak out over a book that I have a built in buddy who I know will give good advice and resonate with my thoughts. In the spirit of the week of Thanksgiving, I can't help but be thankful! 

I am especially thankful when I think back to my humble beginnings as a writer. Imagine me, 9 years old, an ancient Dell laptop, and a piece of cinnamon toast (for some reason my first memory of sitting down to write includes this delectable snack) one weekend morning. That little girl wouldn't believe me if I told her that now she writes everyday and sits around tables with other writers she truly respects and values. Those people, whether I've worked with them for one semester or many, have had a profound impact on the way I write and granted me the wish of seeing someone read and react to my work. The conversations I have in the workshop room are what keep my head on straight and the fuel that keeps me chugging along when doubt creeps in. 

To spend time with these people is to be amongst a crowd that intimately understands my hopes, struggles, and humor when it comes to being a very bookish college student. The experience of explaining my book or ideas to those in the writing world versus out of it are two very different ones, with one growing into a longer conversation about the nuances of my kingdom's economy and the other with polite smiles and more surface level questions. Though both engage me, the first inspires a feeling of being noticed and seen by a true peer. 

You might not be in a place in your life where it is easy to create a writing community and that's okay! For the longest time, mine consisted only of me and the extended family I shared my newest chapters with. If you're on the prowl though, the internet is magical and as I've recently experienced, Twitter is full of authors who may be strangers but have hearts full of support. The amount of #writerslift's and encouraging comment chains I see bring tears to my eyes and prove that you can find community anywhere you look if you really want to. 

I promise there are writers out there just itching to work alongside a talented person life yourself and that your journey will collide with theirs one day. Keep writing and working; it will pay off! 

P.S. If you're looking for a Twitter stranger to connect with and see writing content from, check out my new one: @marissacwrites! We can join in on the virtual community together. 

 

Find Your Book Idol

Hello Readers, 

If you know me in real life, you probably know how much I love the Ascendance Trilogy (which is now a series!) by Jennifer A. Nielsen. I have also most likely coerced you into reading The False Prince or at least made a valiant attempt (I have successfully made half my extended family, friends, and friends of friends invest in a copy). As a reader and fan, I have to admit that I am highly loyal to the books I covet– or stubbornly dedicated, whichever way you prefer to put it. 

Though I can't speak too much on the main characters or the plot given that Sage, the MC, keeps most of his motives and secrets close to the vest, I will say that there is something so lifelike and alluring about the way Nielsen wrote him. He leaps off the page with a mind of his own, which makes me believe the author when she says his voice in her head pushed him to write two more books. Knowing how completely my mind he's occupied my mind since the moment I cracked open the novel has kept me returning it and attempting to mimic the startling effect it has on my life and writing. When a fellow creative writing major told me during a workshop that my style reminded them of The False Prince, I just about shed a tear! 

Is this book for middle grade readers? Yes. Am I 21 years old and about to graduate college? Also yes. Do I love this series more than any 12 or 13 year old who picks it up? Ye– well, I can't completely speak on that. I can vouch for my longevity, though, as I have given those books a coveted place on my shelf longer than many of them have even been reading! Take that (only kidding– when anyone of any age tells me they've read it, I feel an almost personal surge of pride)!

Ultimately, it doesn't matter who a book was meant for, it matters that it touched your life in some irrevocable way, making it impossible to look into your psyche without seeing some sort of reference to it (at least, that's how I feel). That book could be a time-honored classic, YA romance, high fantasy, experimental, or even a nonfiction story, but the point is that your friendship with it doesn't involve the rest of the world when you sit down to read it. It's just you, a cup of coffee, and your favorite character. 

For this reason, I think it's important as a writer to lean into the inspiration you find in the books you read (while still finding your own style, of course). They are the reason you picked up a pen, after all! So read up on your favorite author, splurge on their books, and look to them as role models because they are the people who have paved the way for you to have your hand at telling a story. 

Me? I'll be re-reading The False Prince and dreaming of one day writing something as important to readers as that book is to me. 

P.S. I urge you to find a copy of The False Prince in your local library. 

P.P.S. This is in no way a sponsored post for the wonderful Jennifer A. Nielsen (ha!), as hard as I try to make myself a walking advertisement. Though if you see this, I am obsessed with your books and will tout their magic for as long as I shall live. Thank you for being one of my idols.