In which I wonder about writing communities

I have not participated in many of the online writing communities based on sites like Wattpad (well, not since 2002, when I briefly engaged in trading smut vignettes with a friend on fanfiction.net.) I did attempt NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago and wrote over 15,000 words of a novel in two weeks, but that was the semester I started teaching at the Uni. Not only did I not get to the 50,000 word goal, but also I didn't go to any of the real life write-ins in our town, which I'm sure are very helpful to keeping up the energy needed to write so much so quickly (a novel in a month).

However, online writing communities do appeal to me. Theoretically, one could find encouragement and connection (personal and professional) there. The scheduling thing is less of a hassle. But, you've seen the internet, right? It's full of people who want to argue or show that in some way that they have a superior grasp on whatever the topic is. I don't have enough room in my brain for all the pointless conversations I would have with these invisible people. And, I'm afraid that any writing community would dissolve into oneupmanship and 'splaining. (I just saw Broken Pencil's Deathmatch. Oh god.)

Also, one of the reasons I generally don't put any of my work on the web is because once I do, most journals consider it published and therefore won't accept it. So, I would need possibly more of a private workshop type digital environment in which only other participants would see my writing.

I know a few of these are out there. I keep trying to sign up for one of the Rooster Moans free online poetry workshops. The whole workshop with a "teaching artist" is in a forum behind a pay wall. Most of the workshops on this site range from $85-$350. The Chicago School of Poetics offers six-week long online courses in poetry for right under $300. I don't know how accessible those are to most poets. Do you know of any other models like these? Hopefully, I will be able to find a cheap one and participate.

I am currently a beta-tester (is that the right term?) for Hour of Writes. The idea is to focus writing in one hour mad dash-offs against other writers. The products of these sessions are then judged, and the author of the best one gets half of the money put in the pot by the participants. I'm not sure how much that is per credit yet. My first competetion will be free. Update: my day for testing was a Sunday...and I couldn't really get into writing with my five-year-old climbing onto my lap every time I sat down. I should have gone to the office, but my schedule this semester means I'm at work many of the hours when he's home. Yeah, I'm not even close to someone who defines herself as a mother before all other things, but I still feel all that guilt. Anyway, I feel like I really missed out. I tested other parts of the site, but still I didn't do the competition.

Of course, I'm leaving out dynamic writing communities that exist in the Twitter-verse and other non-writing specific digital spaces.

So now, I want to know if anyone has good news to report from the front. Did you find a welcoming place where you receive and give encouragement? Does one just have to block all the trolls? Do trolls exist in these particular digital environments? Does your community involve posting your work on a website? If so, does that site allow you to make your work private except for the members of your choosing? Does it cost anything to become a member? How does your experience with online writing groups compare with any experience you might have with real life writing groups.

Second, I am going to post one of my as yet unfinished novels to Wattpad (tell me if I should pick a different site) and see what happens. Will people read it? Will I get adoring tween fans event though I do not write for that demographic? I am choosing to post prose because I am really a poet. That's what I write (usually). That's what I submit for publication; therefore, I won't really be losing out on anything by making my work public. I hope, too, that I'll get encouragement to finish the novel. Once I get it ready, I'll link to it here.

Last thing, I am thinking of putting a short story here and just seeing what comes out of providing free reading material on my blog. Maybe make a "fancy" pdf book out of it.

The photo is 1942's Yaddo group. Ya know just Katherine Anne Porter, Langston Hughes, and their peeps hanging out on the porch.

#writinggroups #onlinecommunities #digitalspaces #wattpad #hourofwrites