Poem - I preferred it when the world was ending

I preferred it when the world was ending.
When everything mattered.
When it all...

I believed. I believed with all I was.
I hoped.
I wanted.

When the world was ending
It made meaning.
Made my life important.
To be there for the end.
To know it was happening.

Now, the world continues.
It goes on. Every day.
Unfocused and dull.

No apocalypse. No reckoning.
No oblivion.
No end.

Instead, I go back to my job.
I wait.
I go home. And sleep. and start again.
And wait for a death
that nobody will mourn for.

I wanted to be one of the last.
Thousands of years of humanity.
Millions of years of life.
And I would be there for the finish line.
Last orders.
For once in my life, I would see the end of the party.

I preferred it when the world was ending.

Magic Falls Part Nineteen

Gemma sat in the bar waiting. She felt a long way from Fleet Street, even if the pub wasn’t all that far away from her normal stomping ground.

The pub was dark, especially in the cellar rooms where she was sat. A little alcove around and away from the stairs. Someone would have to know where she was to see her as they walked in.

She looked at her phone. Damn. No signal. No way of letting her colleague David know what was happening. She checked the time instead on the display. Exactly when he should be getting here.

“Hello, Darling,” the man said walking towards her. He held a pint in his hand, and he put it down on the table, sitting down with a flourish of his leather jacket. He had a shaved head, alight blonde goatee, and was wearing dark glasses.

“Jamie?”

“Don’t recognise me, luv?” he said, with a smile that somehow managed to be both open and warm and tight and cruel at the same time.

“Quite the image change,” she said. “David said that trenchcoat of yours was practically a second skin.”

He laughed and took the glasses off. “He should have seen me years back. Nah, I just like to change my image every now and then. You know that old thing about how all your cells have completely changed every seven years or so?”

Gemma nodded. “Everyone’s heard that one.”

“It’s something like that. That appearance suited who I was then. Doesn’t suit who I am now.”

“And who are you now?” she asked.

“Who I need to be,” he replied, the smile gone. “Now, you called me. You screwed up with the fairy story…ha! The fairy story. I like that – and you wanted to call up Uncle Jamie to come and clean up after you.”

“We didn’t screw up the story.” She said, her hackles raised.

“That means I must have slipped into a coma and not realised. I thought I’d been asleep for just the one night, but it had obviously been a couple of days, because I figured a story about a bunch of little kiddies going missing and being found, and a whole load of magic crap around it might – just might – have constituted a story. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it isn’t Alex Ferguson retiring, I get that. But, y’know, I don’t think my journalistic radar is that – “

“Our editor wouldn’t run it.”

Jamie’s lip curled. “Really.”

“You burned us on the Shane Smith thing,” she said.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “I promised you an exclusive interview, and I arranged it exactly as I promised. I saw how many comments that thing received. I know exactly how popular that story was. I delivered exactly what I said I would.”

“You turned David into a laughing stock,” she said. “Everyone thinks he got played by Shane Smith’s PR department.”

He drank and looked at a poster behind her. “I can always take this elsewhere, you know.”

She waited for him to look back at her. “But you haven’t.”

He looked back at her, and for a  moment, she wondered if she had overstepped the mark. She was also very aware how isolated she felt. She suddenly felt like he was very dangerous. “No,” he said. “I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

The moment broke and he smiled, all charm again. But Gemma felt the danger remaining underneath, simmering under the surface of his skin. “Just a fan of the paper, obviously.”

“Well, whyever,” she said, as he returned his focus to his drink. “We still got burned. Smith’s story was just too unbelievable.”

“That’s because you had something that was one person’s word against another. You need something with verifiable facts, I reckon.”

“Facts are always good.” She said. “But we need something with dates, actual papers. Something like that.”

He sat back and drained the last of his pint. “You might be in luck, then.” He said.

“Why?”

“Our agendas might just be crossing.”

“What’s your agenda?”

“Messianic. What’s yours?”

“I just want the truth.”

“Okay, how about this. Look back at the lottery results for the last six months. Since January, anyway.”

“The lottery results? Are you kidding?”

“No. And then – “ he moved his hand over to her, turned it flatside up, then down again, and when he turned it up another time, there was a business card in it with a yin-yang inside a pentagram. “- and then check out what this woman was putting in magazines and online. Then do some cross-referencing.”

“That’s all you’re giving me?”

He laughed. “You want me to write the article for you? Or just hold your hand and mop your brow the entire time and tell you what a wonderful little writer you are?”

“Fine,” she said. “But this had better not be a wild goose chase.”

“Pass me your phone.” He said, standing up.

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

She did so, and he held it for a moment, then gently kissed it and returned it to her.

She raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”

"Have you ever heard the saying that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic?"

"Yes."

"Works both ways."

"What?"

“You’ll work it out. Now, I’m a busy man. I have a lot to arrange, and it’s going to be a while until you see me again.” He stood up. “But when you do, it’ll be just in time.”

“For what?”

He smiled one last time. “For the coronation. The big one. Trust me, you’ll know.”

She looked down at her phone. “I don’t know what you’re – “  She glanced back up, but he was gone.

She drew out a small pattern on the screen to unlock it, and then saw it.

Full signal. She blinked a couple of times. 

Definitely full signal.

Magic Falls Part 18

“David, if I were you, I’d think long and hard about whether you want to remain a journalist,” Robert said, putting the papers down on the table and picking up a half-drunk pint of Guinness.

“That’s not fair,” Gemma said, looking at her downcast colleague. “The story’s true.”

“It’s not about the story being true,” Robert said.

“Then what is it about?” David asked, trying to conceal a scowl by reaching for his own drink.

“It’s about what I can actually publish in the paper,” the older man said. “This isn’t something the Sentinel can publish. Go to the Enquirer. Go to the Weekly World News. Hell, go to the News of the World if it was still publishing – “

“- the Sunday Sun might take it,” Gemma said with a grin.

“ – shut up, Gemma.” Robert said. “But you can’t bring me something like this. We’ve got way too many sceptics reading this paper. Christ, Richard bloody Dawkins has a subscription. You can’t expect me to run a story about a bunch of kids who say they were kidnapped by fairies.”

“They were gone for months, Robert.” David said angrily. “Their stories all match up exactly. They all went missing in the same place. I’ve taken photos of it, and there’s this scorched circle which is still smoking. The kids didn’t age a day. I know it’s insane, but – “

“So who was this guy who rescued them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You got the rest of the story, but some guy wanders in like Batman and saves them, but wonder reporter David Levy hasn’t got a clue who it was.”

“The kids didn’t age, Robert,” Gemma said. “I spoke to the families, and they all say the same thing. They look exhausted, and tired, but they look exactly the same as when they left.”

“We can’t run this story.”

“I’m not saying that there is a fairy ring in West Yorkshire,” David pointed out. “I’m saying that the kids say there’s one. That some of the adults say there’s one. That isn’t a story saying it’s happening. It’s a story saying that it’s a belief.”

“In which case,” Robert said, “the sodding story is about the guy! The guy who supposedly rescued him. You don’t think it’s far more likely he abducted them?”

“No.” David said.

“The families don’t think so either,” Gemma said. “They think he’s a hero.”

“Then why aren’t they saying who he is?”

“…” Gemma didn’t answer, and glanced at David instead. He just nodded.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Gemma flicked  a curl of her long black hair behind her ear.“We think they’re protecting him.”

“The families?”

“Yes,” David said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Our… our source suggests so.”

“Your mysterious source,” Robert said sarcastically.

“He doesn’t want to be named.”

“Is this the same guy that put you in touch with Shane Smith and made us look like a pack of morons?”

“Shane hasn’t been discredited,” Gemma said quietly, unable to avoid mentioning it, even though she knew the reaction.

“He’s a bloody stage magician!” Robert shouted. “We ran one interview about how he supposedly outed a murderer, and we got – did you see the feedback? Did you? Did you read the letters? Did you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know what people thought!”

David shouted back. “And some of them believe him!”

“Including you,” Robert said quietly and dangerously.

“Yes. Including me.” David replied.

“Me too,” Gemma said. “I didn’t believe it at first, but the more we’ve looked into this – “

“A stage magician getting involved in a murder case. Bloody sick is what it was.”

“I know how it looks, but he… he really didn’t seem to be doing this as a publicity stunt.”

Robert snorted. “So it’s just coincidence he ends up doing a tour a couple of months later?”

Gemma shifted uncomfortably. “That was already booked.”

“You know how this sounds,” Robert said, standing up to go back to the bar. “Cover the story, but for God’s sake, don’t try and sell me on psychics, fairies….or any of that crap. Okay?”

The two reporters sat awkwardly for a moment, until David nodded like a sullen teenager. “Okay.”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Robert said, and left.

“You okay?” Gemma asked David.

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“We could always take this elsewhere,” she said. “We both agreed. This is important.”

“I know.”

“I’m just saying it’s not the end of it all.”

“I know.”

“We’ll keep working on it.”

“Okay.”

“This could have gone worse.”

“Could it?”

She smiled. “Well, we’re not fired.”

“Not yet.”

“Call him.”

David looked over at the bar, where Robert was ordering. “I’m a big nervous about doing that.”

“He’ll want to know what’s happening.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been worried about it is all.”

“Then I’ll call him.”

“That’d probably be best. He seems to like you, anyway.” He passed her his phone.

She took it and put it in her handbag, then made her excuses and went into the ladies’ toilets.

Once she was there, she took the phone out and scrolled through the contacts until she found the one she was after. She kicked herself for not thinking to bring a pen with her, so she could take his number.

No matter.

She scrolled through the contacts, found the one she was looking for and dialled.

JAMIE MOORE - CALLING

Writing a serial story - thoughts, confessions and begging.

The idea of a weekly serial was basically a New Year’s resolution. I’ve not really suffered from writer’s block, but I have gone through times where I lack the motivation to write. So I thought that a weekly deadline might help give me some good habits.

The rules I set myself were a minimum word count of 500 words (I usually hit around a thousand), I had to publish one a week (I’ve missed one due to an exceptionally busy week) and I can’t write ahead, so I have to start each entry the week it’s published (I’ve kept to that).

I had no idea what I was going to write when I came up with the idea. Magic Falls wasn’t a novel I’d had planned or anything like that. I came up with the idea a couple of days before I started writing it, and I’ve been more-or-less making it up as I’ve been going. I have rough ideas, and I know the idea for what the end will be, although not the details yet.

To give an example, the last seven parts have formed a story around Bretton Hall (my old Uni) involving fairies. I knew what the fairies wanted, but I didn’t know exactly how I was going to resolve it. I didn’t know that it would be Jack’s daughter until I came up with the idea at the last moment. Jamie Moore is a new character who’s now going to be a major part of the overall story, but I came up with him the same week I created him. But this is a different way of writing for me, that I’m enjoying a lot.

In terms of building habits, it’s working. I’m writing more than I used to, and I’m now more comfortable writing quickly than I used to be. It’s given me more trust in my own instincts than I had before. This has also been helped by the 30 Hour Novel Writing competition, which I’ll talk more about in a future blog post.

The main problem I have, and I suspect many others have when writing, is that I doubt everything that I do. I write part of something, then I end up with a decision to make with regards to what should happen next, and I freeze. I don’t want to do it wrong, so I’d put off doing it.

I don’t know that I’ve broken that, but I’m getting better at it. I have three major stories to go, and each will be around seven parts. But I only have rough ideas what two of them will be. The Knights will be part of it, and obviously we need to find out what’s going on with Nina. The Jamie Moore mystery may need to be explained. But while I know the destination, it’s a set of rough directions rather than a map.

I’m doing another two-part story while I plan the next major one, but we’re going in the right direction. And I know what the destination is, and it's killing me having to wait until I get there. I'm impatient and I want to tell you about it all now, but I'm not going to. Because then, there'd be no point in the serial. But I'll be shocked if anyone correctly guesses where this is all heading.

Now, a confession.

It’s scary writing a serial though, because it’s not always the kind of thing that engenders interaction and feedback, and sometimes it isn’t until I check the overall trends of page-hits to see that people are reading it. And when I’m feeling down on myself, that lack of interaction can be difficult sometimes, as it feels like nobody is reading it. And while my motivation is a lot better than it has been in the past, it's still a fragile youngling, peeking out at the scary world with big eyes.

So I’m going to ask for your help in regards to that. Firstly, if you haven’t read Magic Falls yet, please do – it’s mysterious, a little scary and it’s all building up to something major.

And if you have read it, and you’re enjoying it? I have a specific and huge favour to ask in return for a year’s worth of free story.

People have been reading it, and what feedback I have been getting has suggested that those that are sticking with it are enjoying it a lot. And readership is definitely growing, but it’s growing slowly, which means that I need help in getting the word out, because I’m not doing it well enough on my own.

So here’s my favour. Tell people about it. Please. Retweeting me talking about it is lovely, and it does help, but it’s still me asking people to read what I’ve written. It’ll be more likely to convince other people if you recommend it to them. If you think someone else would like it, please tell them why.

If you’re enjoying it enough to do so, you telling people about it would be the best way you could help me to keep doing it. It’s a weekly thing, so I’m not going to ask you to constantly cheerlead or anything – that would be asking way too much. But every now and then, if you could tell other people that you think they should check it out, it would mean a lot to me, and it would help what I’m doing considerably.

Thanks for reading, and if you've been following Magic Falls, I really appreciate it.

Magic Falls Part Seventeen

“You….what?” I ask, totally off-guard.

“mercy we want mercy”

“I…who from? From me?”

“yes from you mercy from you we beg darrenoneill we beg for mercy”

They seem to now have completely shrunk in front of me. The two aspects of them that I could see earlier, the two perspectives, have now deadened. The glamour is no longer there, and now I just see some small, desperate fairies making brainwashed children dance.

There aren’t too many children. Five..no, six. But they’re crying and exhausted, all of them. And underweight visibly.

“Let them stop.” I say, feeling my own anger rising in my voice.

“we…i…we cannot for long we need them to – “

“LET THEM STOP!” I roar at them, lost in my own fury. “They’re children!  They’re exhausted! Let them stop, now!”

They hesitate again, but when I take a step towards them, they cower back.

“we stop them we stop them we stop them we do as you ask we stop them”

As if their strings have been cut, the children drop to the ground, exhausted.

I walk over to them.

“no we stopped them you must speak to us now not them leave – “

“Shut up,” I say, ignoring them. “I’m speaking to them first.”

For the first time since I woke up in there, there are no other noises other than gasping and whimpering from scared, exhausted children.

“Kids….hey, kids,” I say.

Some of them look over at me.

“This is going to be okay, I promise. Okay?”

They look scared.

“Is one of you Andrea Whittaker?”

A little girl with brown hair raises her hand. I walk over to her and kneel in front of her. “Hi there,” I say. 

“I’m a friend of your daddy’s, and I’m going to take you home to him as soon as I’ve finished with the people who took you, okay?”

She sniffs and looks up at me with reddened eyes. “I want to go home.” She says, flatly.

“I’m going to get you home as soon as I can. All of you,” I say looking around at the others. “We’re going to be out of here very soon, so just sit still for a few minutes. Can you do that for me?”

To be honest, from the state of exhaustion they’re in, I don’t think they could go far.

“They need water,” I say to the fairies.

“we….we will….”

“I’m taking them away from here.”

“NO!” they scream at me this time, and they attempt to push their glamour harder, turning themselves into enormous demons staring down at me.

I stand and look at them, and start making my way towards them, challenging them. The glamour doesn’t last, and they shrink in on themselves like they’ve deflated, their snarl caught in their throat.

“Why me?” I ask. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

“…..”

“You want mercy, you want to, what, negotiate?” I say.

“neeeee-goa-teeee-aaate”

“Then you start by explaining the deal. And if I were you, I’d start fast, because I’m about to walk out of here with the children.”

“no not the children please not the children please not - "

“What do you need them for?”

“……we hunger”

“You feed on them?”

“….no we do not feed on them no we feed….. we feed from them…..feed from their work their effort their dancing we feed”

“And when they can’t go on any more?”

“we......we find more”

I turn back to the children as I continue to speak to them.

“Then what makes you think that I’d be in any way interested in negotiating?”

“the war is coming and we know what you lost what you will lose”

They say it slyly, creeping towards me. I stop, frozen, thinking about Nina.

“Don’t you dare.”

“we know what you lose what you lost and we can help we can help you save it”

I think. I wait.

“all we want is the children that is all just them just enough just to feed just to be remembered”

“No.”

“please all we want is to be remembered magic is falling it is falling and we fall with it if we are forgotten please just mercy when they tell your legend - ”

“You don’t get mercy. You feed on children.” I’m scared of what I’m giving up. I’m scared of walking out of the deal. But I have to. “You don’t get to be remembered.”

I walk to the children, and I take Andrea’s hand, and I tell the rest of them to follow me. Now the glamour has fallen, I can see my way back to the circle… or at least to a circle. It may be ill-judged confidence, but I can feel their panic rising as I walk away from them.

“you will die but you will die after her after she dies screaming after your child dies”

I hold the children’s hands, and we stand in the circle.

“Nobody will ever use this circle again. And every circle I find, I’ll destroy,” I say, my anger at them refusing to fall. “You know who I am. You know what I am. You tried to threaten me, and I can take that. I even know that you feed on children because you’re desperate, because you’re hungry. And I may not be able to blame you for that, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t try to stop you.”

“no please we did not mean it please stay just leave one just leave one just one child please just leave one”

“You want my help to be remembered. To survive. To feed. That’s all you want, isn’t it?”

I can feel the circle letting us through now, beginning to send us back to Bretton.

“yes all we want is to survive please just leave one child please let us survive please let us feed”

“No.”

“but you will kill us if we cannot feed on the children we must feed on them we must”

“You don’t get them. You don’t get it, do you?” I say, as their world begins to fade from site and I can begin to see the trees around the circle back in Bretton again.

“This is a war and you aren’t on our side.”

And then we’re back in Bretton.

And Jack is there, and he runs over and he holds Andrea, and she holds him, and I feel so exhausted right now.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” he says to me.

“I…” The rest of the kids make their way out of the circle and gather. “They need help. They need to go home.”

Something about Jack is bothering me. Why does he look so different?

“I came every day,” he says holding Andrea. “I didn’t give up.”

God, I’m tired. Why does Jack have a beard? He didn’t have a beard earlier.

“Jack…how long was I down there?” I ask.

“….you…” he looks at me, and everything begins to swim. 

"....how long?"

“You were down there for three months.”

I pass out.

Magic Falls Part Sixteen

“What have you done with the children?” I ask, trying to ignore the music which is edging its way into my brain.

“dance with us do it dance with us”

My vision splits again, and this time, it seems like I’m looking at them surrounding me, stood perfectly still, while also being aware that they’re all dancing. All of them. Some of them just bobbing mildly, but others whirling around frenziedly.

And I look around for a moment, trying again to process the conflicting images in my eyes and head, and then I see the children.

There are maybe a dozen of them, and they’re all dancing. Some of them are crying. They look exhausted, and I wonder if one of them is Andrea.

Seeing them like that snaps me back into my own head for a moment, and gives me something to distract myself from the constant thumping of the music.

“You’re hurting them!” I shout at them.

One of them (or is it all of them?) replies:

“no not hurting just dancing they dance with us forever we keep it fun for them”

The music is back, stronger than before, and now it begins to hurt my head. Throbbing in time with the beat, which makes me want to join it, to dance.

The pressure in my head feels like it wants to explode out of my ears, eyes, nose and mouth in a torrent of blood and bile. I struggle against it, still trying to make sense of them.

“What happens when they can’t dance any more?” I ask quietly, sweat dripping down my face.

They start their light laughing again, which gives me some irritation to focus on at the very least.

“they don’t stop why would they stop they keep dancing until they can’t dance no more can’t dance no more”

“Why… why do you force them to do that?”

“no not force never force just let them dance let the music do its work”

God help me, I can feel the music.

“What do you get out of it?” I ask.

For a moment, the music falters as they hesitate in answering.

“they make us stronger their dancing it feeds us it nourishes us it makes us…more”

They feed on them. The children. Of course they do. They use the music to force them to dance, and then they feed on them like leeches.

My body wants to join it, even if my mind is rebelling against the music. It can feel it, mirroring my heartbeat, and wanting to join it, wanting to throw myself in and forget everything, just be part of the stream of music.

I can feel the dance beginning in my heart and infecting the rest of me, and I try to focus on Nina, on Maria, on Jack, on Andrea, even on bloody Jamie bloody Moore….

“dance with us dance with us join our dance dance with us”

No, there’s something else, isn’t there?

Something I’m forgetting.

Something Jamie said.

Think about who they prey on. That’s what he said, wasn’t it?

I try, one last time to ignore the pounding in my head from the music, and concentrate on that.

What did he mean?

They prey on children.

Why do they prey on children? Who preys on children? In the wild, who preys on baby birds, on eggs, on cubs, on….

I breathe in and out slowly for a moment, trying to stop fighting what I’m seeing and hearing.

They are beautiful and horrible. I am drawn to them and repelled by them.

“dance with us”

But now I have their measure. Now I know what they are.

“No.” I say, as I allow the music to wash over me, and I decide not to dance to it. That easily. I just decide it.

“but you want to you want to dance with us”

And now there’s a tone in their voice that there wasn’t before.

Fear.

“No.” I say again, and I walk towards them now. “No. I thought you were powerful, but you’re not, are you?”

They withdraw from me, and they now look so much smaller than they did earlier.

“You prey on children, because you’re not strong enough to prey on adults. Are you?”

“no not true not true we are powerful do not test us we are more powerful-“

I laugh at them, bitter and full of scorn.

“I’m standing right here. Bring me down if you want to, but I don’t think you can. I think you have to try and trick your way, and that’s why you work on children. But you brought a child of a friend of mine here, and you did it to speak to me.”

The music has stopped now, and they’re all regarding me carefully.

“So, I’m here.” I say. “What do you want?”

And then they do something I am not expecting.

They fall to their knees.

All of them.

“mercy”

How to set up a writing group

I’ve run a writing group in North London for over two years now. I set one up in York a few years before that. Like so many things, I got the idea from my mother.

My mum has now had 10 novels published (you can find her over on her website  - buy her books!), and she attended a writing group every couple of weeks for over fifteen years, which was run for some time by the overwhelmingly experienced Malcolm Ross-MacDonald. I attended a couple of times when I was dabbling in writing as a teenager.

When I started doing more than dabbling, a writing group seemed like an obvious thing. I’ve had enough people ask me about it, or express disappointment that there isn’t one near them, I thought I’d put together a few tips on setting up your own.

1 – Find a space.

The group my mum attended was in a library. The first one I set up was in a side-room in a pub. The second one I set up was in a small independent bookshop (the wonderful Big Green Bookshop).

All you need is a quiet room with enough seats and, ideally, a table of some kind. And the table isn’t that necessary.

If it’s a pub, ask them if you can use their quietest room on a night they don’t have anything going on. In return, on a regular basis, you’ll get a few people in it who will buy drinks and some snacks. If it’s a bookshop or a library, and they’re not opposed to events, ask if they already have one, and if not, ask if they’d be interested in one.

If you, or someone you know, has a large enough living room, that’s always a possible as well – but I’d recommend finding somewhere neutral. It’s one thing to host it once or twice, but another to host it regularly.

2 – Choose how often you run.

The first couple of groups you run, you should ask the group when they want to run, and choose the night that is likely to please the most people. You probably won’t be able to please everyone, but that’s inevitable.

I find Tuesday or Wednesday nights are good. They’re not big social nights, and there’s not that much on TV-wise. Start late enough for people to get there, but not so late that you run into the middle of the night.

I suggest running every two weeks. If you do it weekly, you’re likely to burn people out. If you do it monthly, people are going to forget when it’s on. Fortnightly is just often enough, and it gives people enough time to write in-between sessions.

3 – Find people

Twitter, facebook and your venue are your friends here. Ask your venue to tell people as well. A notice in a bookshop or library will automatically get some people interested. The most important thing, once you’ve started, is to keep going. It will naturally grow,

4 – Drinks/snacks

We run a charge at the bookshop group. It goes to two places – firstly, it buys drinks and snacks for the group. White wine, red wine, water and fruit juice. Also, any cash left over, we give to the shop, to cover them keeping the place open for us. £3 each seems to cover it. If you’re in a pub, give them the custom and don’t charge the group.

5 – Format

First off, if we have anyone new, we run through quick introductions. Your name, the kind of thing you write, and what you’re working on now.

Then, I ask people to put their hands up if they have anything with them to read. It shouldn’t be compulsory (although you’ll naturally have people who only turn up when they’ve written). Then, each person reads out a segment of what they’re currently doing (no more than 1,500 – 2,000 words usually). When they’re done, we give feedback, and the writer responds to the feedback.

Of course, you can print out and pass round if you prefer. Having done both, I suggest reading out as standard. It’s scary. Of course it’s scary. But it’s worth getting the hang of. You’ll get better at it, and that will help your confidence.

Once you’ve all done that, you can all go to the pub. Or, if you’re in the pub, you can leave.

6 – Rules

I keep two main rules and one smaller rule.

The main rules are:

A – No egos. Everyone’s stuff is up for criticism.

B – Keep it constructive. There’s no point tearing something to pieces. You’re there to help.

The smaller rule?

Nobody asks “is this based on you?” when they hear what you’ve written. It’s irrelevant, potentially forcing people to answer a personal question, and if it is based on you, it only makes it difficult to give feedback on. 

It’s a question based in natural curiosity, but if it’s relevant, allow the writer to bring it up. It’s nobody else’s business – after all, if it sells, the reader won’t know it’s based on their real experiences.

7 – What’s the point?

A writing group performs a few functions. Firstly, it reminds you all that you’re in the same boat. And that’s useful. It reminds you that you’re normal. Or, if you’re weird, you’re not that much weirder than the rest.

Secondly, it provides motivation. Once you’ve been through a few sessions while not bringing something to the group, you’ll want to write.

Thirdly, you’ll get better. Reading it out, hearing what other people are writing, hearing the feedback… you’ll start picking up on what you’re doing wrong. And if you don’t, someone else will.

Finally, it’s social. And social is important when you’re doing something as naturally solitary as writing. It’s good to get out every now and then.

8 – But what if someone’s awful?

You know what? Doesn’t happen.

Oh, sure, some are better than others. And not everyone is good. But I’ve been running a group in London for over two years, and we regularly have a good number of people there. And nobody has been outright terrible. NOBODY. I’ve never heard anything that’s made me think “Oh, just give up”.

You’re there to get better. Everyone is. And when you see people getting better, it’s wonderful, and it’s even better when you realise that you’re getting better.

Don’t be afraid to give your thoughts. Just keep them constructive.

Any questions? Any thoughts? Comment below or tweet me (@chrisbrosnahan), and if I realise I’ve missed something, I’ll add it here.