Latest News from Inkwell
The Writers Ink VIP Writers Facebook Group
Writing.ie has recently launched Writers Ink, an online writers group designed to give you support, friendship, advice and to help you achieve your writing objectives – whatever you are writing.
Whether you are just starting, have got stuck in the middle or have published and need to move to the next level, Writers Ink will connect you with others just like you and help you find inspiration, learn technique, and ultimately achieve success.
Writers Ink Online Writing Group
Writers Ink is an ‘ inclusive’ group for writers of any genre, connecting you with other writers experiencing the same challenges. Offering peer support and mentoring to its members, curated resources will help you improve your writing. Moderated by bestseller Sam Blake, aka Writing.ie founder Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin (fiction) and journalist Maria McHale (non fiction), members get accurate industry standard advice and help. A weekly AMA addresses specific concerns on problem areas, and a wide range of authors will come in during Author Takeover sessions to give you expert advice. Members can post writing samples to get feedback and encouragement from their peers, and expert advice from Sam Blake.
The key message in this writers group is that you cannot fail – show up and you’ve succeeded, reach your goals and you’ve doubly succeeded. Didn’t get a chance to write a word but you’ve been thinking about your plot? Vitally important. This group is not about measuring success in word count – if you’ve twins under two and are juggling your home with a job, even getting half an hour to yourself to think about your story is a massive achievement. Writing takes time, stories take time to form, writing technique takes time to practice and finding your writing voice can only happen when you start putting words on the page.
Writing is as much a mindset as it is a vocation, if you want to write you will – you’ll find time, and you’ll find a form that suits you. Writers Ink aims to support you in that process, linking you to writers with similar issues and helping you to find what works for you to achieve your goals.
Each week you’ll find themed days as well as general threads – we use hastags to help members find the posts relevant to them and to find others writing in your genre, and the moderators dip in regularly to see how things are going.
What makes Writers Ink different?
Writing expert Jane Friedman believes one of the issues with writing groups is “Most writing groups tiptoe around glaring weaknesses in the work being shared and sometimes tell outright lies about it, because they don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. All the writer hears is praise or vague criticism that isn’t very actionable, and so they assume that what they are writing is solid (if not awesome) and they plow on creating fundamentally flawed work.”
At Writers Ink we ensure that critique is constructive and accurate – before joining each member must agree to our charter, and to “speak with deep kindness and a sense of hope when it’s their turn to offer a critique.”
In his book Creativity, Inc Ed Catmull, President of Pixar and Disney Animation explains:
You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your idea, you will take offense when they are challenged. To set up a healthy feedback system, you must remove power dynamics from the equation—you must enable yourself, in other words, to focus on the problem, not the person.
Writers Ink is designed to help you grow as a writer – as curators, Vanessa/Sam Blake and Maria are in touch with current trends, they know what works and what makes agents groan – this group is an opportunity for them to share twenty years of wisdom and experience, and to bring their friends and colleagues in to help members by sharing their experience too.
Vanessa says: “I’m a firm believer that you create your own opportunities in life, and I’m proof of that – Writers Ink will give you opportunities, will feed your creativity and improve your writing. It’s a subscription group (€49 per month) because we all know that you value and are motivated more by something that is costing you, than by something you can get for free. We believe that in committing to the group you will commit to your writing. Our members are engaged and proactive, we offer accurate industry standard advice and if we can’t answer a question, we know precisely who to ask. There are masses of free resources on Writing.ie, this group is the next step, it’s more hands-on, giving one-to-one help and support.”
The Writers Ink group will open periodically to a limited number of new members, allowing us to bring you in and introduce you in a group – if you’d like information about the club and to be informed when we are opening for membership again, pop your details into the form below. We will announce the next membership opening on the Writing.ie Facebook page, but be sure to get in first by signing up!
