Writing has always felt like a particularly solitary art to me. It demands a great deal of time spent alone, or in your own head, with little assurance that the outcome will be seen by anyone. When I knit a hat, I can put a picture on Instagram and at least some people will see it. But writing can be harder to share with the world, even unprofessionally. There’s more competition. It demands more of a time commitment from the reader. I have writer friends whose work I’ve never read, and ones who have never read my work. And yet, there can be some comfort in that, because it removes the pressure of feeling like I need to prove myself.
This pressure is something that I have had to unlearn. After I first learned about James River Writers, it took at least a few more years before I actually attended an event. Frankly, part of me was worried about not fitting in. Maybe I wasn’t a good enough writer. Maybe I was too much of an amateur. Maybe I didn’t have strong enough professional ambitions. But when I did take the plunge, I found a supportive community where I felt able to contribute regardless of how successful I was.
Before joining JRW, I’d already been navigating writing communities for several years. In the mid-2000s, I started hanging out on online writing forums (a format I often miss in today’s social media-dominated world). I met a lot of wonderful people, and joined a couple online critique groups that gave me valuable experience with giving and receiving feedback. But I also learned that my unhurried, seat-of-my-pants writing style made regular critique group participation difficult depending on the structure of the group.
But there are many different types of writing communities. They can be structured or unstructured. Critique-focused or social. Between 2015 and 2020, I spent most of my Thursday evenings at the Urban Farmhouse restaurant in Midlothian, attending JRW’s weekly Writer’s Farmhouse meetup (which unfortunately had to stop meeting due to the pandemic). It was through this entry point that I started volunteering with JRW and attending other events. I found something specific that I needed: a low-pressure social outlet where I could spend time with other writers and learn from them. Though I’ve worked with critique partners and groups since then, in 2015 this was the farthest thing from my mind. I had graduated with my English degree a couple of years prior, which temporarily sapped my energy for leisurely reading and writing. Furthermore, I’d just started a new job after a lengthy and sometimes demoralizing search. The community I found inspired me and helped me rediscover the joy in writing that I had been missing for a while.
A few years ago, several of us who regularly attended Writer’s Farmhouse decided to put together an informal anthology as an excuse to write short stories and poetry and workshop them together. I have always gravitated toward novels, and this was the first time in years that I’d completed a self-contained short story. Rather than feeling nervous or under pressure, I was excited to take on the challenge and share my efforts.
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