Communities are all around us. We live in a set of communities, our family, our neighborhood, our job. These communities define our daily, physical lives. They form the framework for how we move about, how we spend our time, and even how we feel about ourselves.
Other communities are less obvious, a little less physical. There’s the community of books. I joined that community when I was in the third grade. I remember reading everything on the shelves of my classroom library. When I was twelve, I discovered the school library. I read and read and read. That community shaped my thoughts, my ideas about what the world was like outside of my home and immediate family. It allowed me to think that there was more to life than going to work and coming home to the drudgery of kids and housework.
As an adult and a writer, I have the on-line writer communities to help me learn, to socialize in, to commiserate with. I belong to two and they help me in ways that have rocketed me from my initial foray into writing to being confident enough to self-publish and to submit my stories to contests and magazines and even a couple of anthologies.
My first community is the Forward Motion group. I am so glad I followed JA Marlow’s suggestion to visit that site. It’s a goldmine of information and support. The second group is less formally organized, a Facebook group of writers helping each other, giving moral support. Both groups are scattered over the entire planet. Really, how cool is that! And unlike the old days, when writers seldom had other writers to talk to, or when they did, they corresponded by letter, we now have instant access to fellow writers.
I love being able to get on-line when I’m stuck on a grammar issue, and getting an instant answer. It’s wonderful to share a snippet of my current writing and get instant feedback on how the piece reads or sounds.
How about you? What communities are you involved in?
The Merry-Go-Round Blog Tour is sponsored by the website Forward Motion (http://www.fmwriters.com). The tour is you, the reader, travelling the world from author’s blog to author’s blog. There are all sorts of writers at all stages in their writing career, so there’s always something new and different to enjoy. If you want to get to know the nearly thirty other writers check out the rest of the tour at http://merrygoroundtour.blogspot.com! Up next: Jean Schara!