Publish or Perish? Writers Accountability Groups

If you need to write for your job, you probably have trouble starting or finishing a writing project.  Academic writers face especially tough hurdles: urgent priorities compete for their time.  Many such writers find that a support group speeds their projects.   

Experience shows you must want such a group, choose motivated members, and stay accountable when you feel like hibernating instead.  If you are an academic writer, don’t choose a group of journalists or fiction writers.  For joining or starting your own Writers Accountability Group, here are some tips: 

Spiritedwriter is a site with a religious tone.  It supplies practical steps to setting up a Writers Accountability Group.

Don’t be fooled by the post’s title, “Shut Up and Write.”   This longish article by Kerry Rockquemore argues that you deserve and can find (start?) a writer’s accountability group.

A writer named Bridget Cowlishaw has started a Writers’ Accountability Group on Facebook. You don’t have to join this one. You could start your own, using the group options in Facebook.

At women-on-writing, this newsletter, The Muffin, posts inspiration and writing tips.  Most of these people are freelance authors and journalists, but this post includes links to other writers’ groups.

I Love This Guy

Britisher Michael Quinion writes a blog called World Wide Words, about English in our global age.  I recommend you check out his blog at this link. 

Michael has an international network of informants.  From World Wide Words, here are some gems.

• Sally Springett told us of a letter to a columnist in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle of New Jersey, dated 28 May: “Dear Edith: I found a multi-unit house with four tenants for sale.”

• A juxtaposition of links on the BBC news website on 28 May struck Robin Dawes as unfortunate: Bin Laden Killed | William and Kate.

• A paragraph in a church newsletter from Orland Park, IL, reminded Richard Olson of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal: “The first Saturday of every month we will be cooking and serving 60 homeless in Roseland.” It reminded me of a James Thurber quip about using verbs; a hostess remarked, “In this house, we can sleep 18 but we can only eat 10.”

• Harvey Wachtel contributes an advertisement in the New York Metro issue for 11 May. It was for Water’s Edge condos on the Rockaway peninsula of Long Island: “Each residence has a private sodden backyard.”

• “Mohammed Ali of the Libyan Salvation Front and a Tripoli resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals ...”

Here's Michael's copyright information: 

World Wide Words is copyright © Michael Quinion 2011. All rights reserved. You may reproduce this e-magazine in whole or part in free newsletters, newsgroups or mailing lists online provided that you include the copyright notice above. You need the prior permission of the author to reproduce any part of it on Web sites or in printed publications. You don’t need permission to link to it.