I recently took part in a Q&A hosted by my friends the Virtual Writing Group. For those of you on Twitter, definitely check them out (#VWG). They’re a lovely group of unpublished and published writers who get together for writing prompts and support each other on their writing journeys. To celebrate their 1st birthday, they asked a few of their members who are already on their way to getting published to join them for a Twitter chat. I joined lovely writers Anita Frank, Suzanne Ewart, M.S. Clements, Sally Doherty, Carolyn O’Brien and Nikki Smith for a Q&A. It was so much fun that the allocated hour turned into two hours!

Here’s a guest post from Virtual Writing Group with a collection of highlights.

Self-doubt affects us all

There were a few questions about how to deal with ‘imposter syndrome’ and the worry that we’re not good enough as writers. Judging by the responses from the authors, this is completely normal and never really goes away. Although this might sound a bit demoralising, Suzanne Ewart has a great way of dealing with it:

Juggling writing and life stuff is key

The Q&A authors have clearly put a lot of work into writing and continue to do so on their path to publication. They all carve out time between other things including childcare, physical challenges and work commitments. But they were also clear that you have to be kind yourself because guilt will just use up valuable energy that you could be using on writing.

There is no ‘single’ route to publishing

The authors have all taken different journeys on their path to publication. M.S. Clements carefully weighed up the pros and cons of traditional versus self-publishing before deciding to branch out. As she says about self-publishing:

 

Finding an agent doesn’t have to rely on ‘insider’ connections

Some of the authors were signed up by their agents through the slush pile, though a few had taken opportunities through courses and writing festivals to meet agents (and of course, other writers) when they could. However, Anita Frank’s experience shows that none of that essential:

Learning the craft of writing can come from unexpected sources

Although the authors made some book recommendations on the craft of writing, including The Emotion Thesaurus and Reading Like a Writer, they learn from all sorts of sources. As Sally Doherty said:

Finding the right kind of beta readers can be a great help

Many of the authors had beta readers during their writing process and found it helped them hone their drafts. They said it was important as a writer to learn to understand what feedback to take on and when to follow your gut. And as Nikki Smith says, you have to find the right kind of beta reader:

Learning to find the balance between research and story is crucial

The authors who needed to do lots of research talked about the importance of accuracy whilst always remembering that it’s the story that needs to come first. As historical fiction author Carolyn O’Brien put it:

This is just a snapshot of the Twitter Q&A, too see the full conversation, check out the Virtual Writing Group’s thread.

Thanks to Virtual Writing Group for this great blog post and for asking me on the Q&A. There were lots more questions about finding an agent in particular and I’ll be kicking off a series of blog posts about this soon, so sign up to the feed if you want to stay in the loop.