Joining a writing network

Series 1.2 - Joining a writing network

Once upon a time I wanted to complete a Creative Writing degree as I believed that I needed to be taught the knowledge and skills on how to write a novel in a formal setting, amongst a community of established writers with formal writing degrees. As my knowledge of novelists, and how they acquired their skills began to evolve, many not even having a formal degree, I began to realise that a formalised setting was not essential. What was necessary was active collaboration with a community of practitioners, all who were learning and sharing their experiences of not only how to write effectively but also how to navigate through the challenges of writing.

   by  Walt Stoneburner 

To find that community of writers I first had to establish what type of writer I was, as within the writing community there are so many different writing communities. I have realised, and this is mostly due to the novels I read, and the short stories that I have constructed in the past that I am a realist writer (with all the ambiguities that the genre entails) that likes to incorporate fantastical elements into my writing. Sounds like an oxymoron but I find that fantasy and even science fiction tend to illustrate powerful ideas about life and human nature often better than realist fiction. I also believe that including fantastical elements, such as talking animals (anthropomorphism) is an effective technique for illustrating fundamental human truths. It is our relationships to animals, or other species, that allow us to be who we are. My toy poodle Sirius Black, seal-point ragdoll Jasmyne and tabby Persian Thorin reveal this to me every day. If they could talk they would no doubt be full of insight.

What does one do when they want to join a community of writer bloggers? Well, of course he or she types into Google "best writing blogs." This is what I did. I decided I was going to check out each blog and if I liked them, particularly if they included authors that wrote novels that I was interested in, I copied and pasted their url into my blogger feed and began reading whichever posts I thought were important for the beginning of my journey. As I began reading blog posts I began to frequent some blogger posts more than others and found the writers that I identified with the most. They provide not only fruitful advice on how to begin writing but also information on how to publish one's novel and become active within the community of writers.

Now that I have found my community of writers I need to begin the writer process but how does one go about it. Do I just begin typing, like I have in the past with short stories? Or does one outline the plot first, something that I do have a rough idea of but have not plotted anything substantial. Or does one do character outlines, and work from there? These are my thoughts as I begin writing my first novel.