Writers of the Purple PAGE

Hi
"The Writers of the Purple Page" is a critique group that I started in my home almost ten years ago and we're still going strong. It's an eclectic group of males and females all writing different things. We aim to meet weekly, but generally get to gether at least bi-weekly. It's a loosely organized group with no stringent rules and I think that's why it works.

We have limited it to around ten writers so we all have time to read our stuff and be critiqued. It helped me get through a novel, several articles and five or six musicals. I would highly recommend it as a source of inspiration and writing help.

Anyone else belong to a writing critique group?

smile

well as a matter of fact I do...YOU are my critiquing partner! Smiles and I critique something we write every other Wed...and she hasn't made me cry yet! You gotta love it!

I used to belong to two different poetry critique groups. Both of them disbanded; however, I meet once a month with three different individuals (separately) from the first group which went for 3+ years. We'll each bring 2 or 3 poems and take turns discussing and critiquing. I miss having the larger group, but scheduling was a problem. It's good to hear several points of view because everyone has a different perspective.

I've stumbled across some groups on the internet, but the caliber of writing was mostly amateurish.

JJ, your stuff doesn't need critique. It just needs a bigger audience as in """Best Seller""".

The Purple Page is tough. We have people who are such experts in various styles of writing and they lend their expertise to all of us. Everyone in the group has been published several times.

We have a wonderful poet who has no concept of story structure which was my strong point in graduate school so I help her out with that and she helps me with imagery and song lyrics.

We have a wonderful short story writer who can't seem to stretch a story out for a novel. She gets help from another guy who has written several novels, but can't write short stories. She helps him there.

One of the writers is the master of brevity while almost all of us are too wordy so she helps us cut and we help her string things out.

The ages range from pre-boomer to almost eighty. One of our most successful members died in August. He was 91 and published his first article while in the group when he was 88. I had a huge party for him to celebrate and we all watched him absolutely dance up the walk to my house. I don't think his feet were touching the ground. He moved like a teenager. He published several more articles after that and one was published just a few weeks before his death.

It's kind of like a family. Now I'm forming an online sisterhood. Gee, my family is growing.

smile

I belonged to a writer's group for about 3 years. We were a group of people that had won a creative non-fiction contest (the highlight of my writing career). Our reward was to spend a month together with a couple mentors. But now we've drifted apart.

I'm looking for a new group but am a little leery. I just pushed myself back into working on a book I've been writing off and on (mostly off) for about 3 years. Previous critiques threw me off in too many directions, made me rethink my whole concept, sent me into a whirlpool of continuous rewrites that ended up not resembling at all what I wanted to write. So I think it might be best to get the whole rough draft done, do some rewrites on my own, then join a group. So maybe in 10 years, I'll start looking for another group.

Agate, I think you're right to be leery of critique groups. The wrong one can really be destructive.
Discouragement and confusion happened to me in graduate school. I had published and produced a lot and decided to get a graduate degree in creative writing for absolutely no reason. I got so discouraged and confused by all the academic crud that I haven't submitted a thing since. I've written a lot, mostly on commissions, but I'm still am not submitting any unsolicited material.
Maybe I just got burned out by a business in which I wrote proposal after proposal and was rejected and rejected until I finally wound up with some very lucrative contracts. I'm not sure which affected me the worst. Either way, I think a critique group is ok, but an encouragement group is wonderful. That's what Purple Page has been for me. Pray for the right group.
smile

[ March 02, 2004, 08:40 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

Hi all, well here I go again. I belong to a wonderful writers group of published and soon to be published writers (they can dream). Its called The Henderson Writers Group and we have to date 21 members. Not all show up at the bi-weekly meetings but still support the group. Dennis Griffin is a famous Mystery Writer and Bob Wiseman writes Western stories and the most fantastic Western cookbooks. They are all helpful and I have learned alot. I also write reviews for The Long Ridge Writers Group out of Connecticut and attend their forums/chats twice a week, they have many famous Writers, Agents and Editors attending and offering advice etc. I feel belonging to these groups is absolutely necessary. Further down someone whos name I forgot (sorry) said she had been away from a critique group because of all the different advice she received which caused her great stress and numerous confusing rewrites. Remember, a critique is a suggestion, and only a suggestion. You are the author and you should be true to yourself when you're writing. If one person makes a comment, take it with a grain of sand, Now if 3 make the same comment, change it .Good rule of thumb.

In the heyday of the first poetry critique group, we'd have as many as 15 participants. That meant 15 opinions, often conflicting.

I agree with chattylady, you effect the suggestions that sound right to you, and file the rest.

Good advice. I've heard the rule of thumb before, just have trouble following it as I want to make all my readers happy. What I'm trying to remember is that the comments I have the most trouble with usually come from people who would never read the type of book I'm writing anyway. So of course they try to change my style, even my topic.

I am forever amazed at the errors I find in my own work when I read it aloud to the group. I can read it aloud to myself and I don't notice those things. It's astounding.

In our group, there's always discussion and critique as well as encouragement, but we respect the ownership of each other's work a lot. Also, I think it helps to keep the group small because we become very intimate not only with each other, but with our different expertise and styles.
smile