For the writers out there…

…especially those of you who are frustrated, uncertain of yourselves, trying to find more time to write, wondering how to improve, develop or change what you do, and so on…

I have Salon.com headlines on My Yahoo, and today they featured this article: “Go Away, Can’t You See I’m Writing?” To read Salon.com for free, you usually have to sit through a little Flash commercial–after a few seconds, you can click the prompt to “go to Salon” and read the piece.

If you don’t have time for the whole thing, I’d like to point out this particular recommendation:

“So I recommend that you find a writing workshop and attend it regularly for at least one year. Ideally, it would be a group that follows the Amherst Writers and Artists method, but just make sure there is a method. If there is no suitable workshop in your area, then buy the book “Writing Alone and With Others,” follow the detailed instructions in it and create your own workshop. That is what I did.“

If you’ve had problems with writers’ workshops, classes, “support groups” and other such activities–and it wouldn’t surprise me, because finding a good one is like finding a decent therapist or the perfect mate, possible but not probable–then this may be a helpful alternative. Anyway, I’m just passing it on for interests’ sake!

(Caveat: since Cary Tennis markets her workshops for profit, her advice should be evaluated accordingly. It’s the same on the [self-publishing] Yahoo group: the editors all say you have to pay for editing, the designers all tell you that hiring a designer is mandatory, the book coaches all claim no one succeeds without a book coach…etc. But the hardest and ultimately most important skill for every writer to learn is how to honestly and accurately evaluate his or her OWN work. You can’t hire enough “pros” to substitute for that. Any “workshop” worth its salt has taught you how to outgrow the workshop by the time it’s over. JMHO!)