Post-NaNoWriMo writers group meetings

I've been a little hit-or-miss about working on my novel since NaNoWriMo ended, with most of the misses having to do with busy periods of paying work — and, of course, the holidays. Luckily, we've been a little bit more successful about keeping our writers' meetings going.

During NaNoWriMo, we formed our usual weekly meetings for participants in our area. And just like we did two years ago, after NaNoWriMo 2006, we decided to try to continue the meetings after November ended.

This time it looks like we might have a little better luck. Monday night was our third post-NaNo meeting, and all four of us who are really serious about this were able to show up.

Of the four of us, I am the only professional writer, but that's okay with me because we're focusing more on novel writing in this group anyway. I'm in the same boat as the rest of them in that regard: unpublished.

In any case, none of us are really concerned about that. Our idea when we set up the group wasn't to maintain a hard-core critique group, but to create a social environment where we could get to know other writers, provide support when needed, and discuss or share our novels on our own terms. (This is in sharp contrast to another writing group that NaNoWriMo participants in our area tried to form, that required a certain level of participation — i.e., a weekly word count and mandatory sharing — or you would be asked to leave.)

Last time we tried this, the meetings only lasted until February or March of 2007, and they were much less frequent. This time, things look to be going pretty good, and I'm hoping that at least the four of us will be able to keep it going, even if a couple of others drop off.