Clare L. Deming

Since I’m still slowly reading a couple of long novels, I don’t have a book review ready so I thought I’d take a minute to revisit some topics on writing. For this post, I wanted to spend a moment thinking about how writing can change from lonely hours spent sitting at a keyboard or scribbling in a notebook to something that involves the help of other writers, friends, felines, or other beings.

While most of my writing work is done solo, the most common helper that I have is a cat. My desk is generally off-limits to my cats, but I occasionally let one in to visit. The most curious of my clowder is Marcus, a 4-year-old who I adopted through work at the beginning of the pandemic. I might have one of the other cats visit, but they are also more nervous to be in the forbidden room.

At home, my husband also may weigh in on what I’ve written. I recently asked for his input on a short fiction piece that I’m starting to revise and I’ll show him the finished version once I get it done. We have also toyed with the idea of collaborating on a story, but haven’t seriously worked on this yet.

The other input that is helpful with my writing is to seek out critiques from other writers. I am active in two groups right now. One is exclusively online – Other Worlds Writers’ Workshop (OWWW). The acronym is close to OWW – but that is a different group. Other Worlds is a small but dedicated collection of writers who strive to give honest and helpful critiques of anything in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. We work on both short stories and novels, and the group is run through groups.io. Several members have gone on to be successful in publishing – winning awards and becoming bestselling authors.

The second group where I both submit and critique writing is the Writers of the Weird, part of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. This group is local to me and has specific critique sessions. We often meet on Zoom since the pandemic, but some of the sessions are in person. The SFABC offers a lot of activities and information for all fans of science fiction and fantasy, not just writers.

For other writers out there, who helps you write? Are there other groups you think I should check out? Let me know in the comments (above).