The Good Enough Writing Workshop — Peer Feedback &c.
PLEASE READ OUR NOTES TOWARDS A "GOOD ENOUGH" WORKSHOP HERE
The Good Enough Workshop is an online group for sharing and getting peer feedback on fiction, poetry, song, creative nonfiction — and TV, film, or stage scripts.
The meetings are organized through Meetup. To post and read texts, request access to the Dropbox by contacting me. If either is an obstacle or you are having trouble, let me know.
We meet on Zoom and share texts on Dropbox.
DROPBOX LINK? If you do not have the link for the Dropbox, please send us a message here with the email address you use for Dropbox. If you don't have Dropbox, you can sign up for it with this link. (Note that you want "Dropbox Basic" which is completely free and below the button for the free trial; if you're having trouble, contact Gordon.)
The link to Zoom is in the Dropbox, in a text file in the root folder, and in the notes to the Meetup meetings
HOW THIS WORKS:
TEXT LENGTH: Most texts should be not longer than about 1000 to 1500 words. Longer texts can be serialized week by week or, once you're a regular member, you can ask the group if it's okay to post something a bit longer for the following session. In any case, writers should plan to read their text to the group but also post a copy beforehand in the Dropbox.
If the text is an extract from a novel or longer work, please post the work from the beginning and give us a short and unique phrase we can search for (e.g., "she pulled the dagger out of her heart and ran after her attacker"). If it is important to the understanding of the project, you can also include a short "dust jacket blurb" to orient your readers. (Yes, it's okay to "spoil" the plot of your story but keep it to the length of a dust jacket!)
SHARE and READ the texts ahead of time (as is possible). Be sure to give to the group as much as you take from it.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: The writing that each writer shares with the group is their own; it may not be kept, passed on, reproduced, or appropriated in any way without the express written permission of the author.
DROPBOX: The texts are shared on Dropbox. Look for the dated folder and put it inside. If you can, post a comment on Meetup when you've put your text in the Dropbox.
VISITORS and newcomers are very welcome! Please know that SHARING is OPTIONAL and EARNED! Several of our most beloved members help by giving thoughtful comments but do not (as yet) share their texts. This helps make the group work. If you’re new or occasional, do not assume you can share your work when you first join us. Pay it forward!
DONATIONS: Organizing these meetings takes time and energy (and money for the Meetup site). If you want to support these efforts, please see my about me page to help support these efforts.
**You can sign up to our very occasional newsletter here. **
WHO WE ARE:
The Good Enough Writing Workshop, online — Peer Feedback &c. is an online peer-review workshopping group. You can share and get feedback on fiction, poetry, song, creative nonfiction. Although we don't have any scriptwriters now, you are welcome to bring us any TV, film, or stage scripts that you’ve been working on.
The group is nominally based in Toronto but we welcome people from around the world. For example, I'm living in Chicago these days but will be moving to Berlin next year.
If you are serious about writing and are looking to meet and connect with other writers, please join us! Which is to say, we are happy to welcome new writers or ones who have been at it for a while. But we ask that you have a strong commitment to your craft — or to improving it. Most of our active members have professional ambitions for their writing. This need not be your case but we do hope you work hard on your writing.
Likewise, if your focus is on genre fiction, we might not be your best readers. This is not intended as a judgement on genre fiction. We can only be good at so much in this life and our active members are more focused on literary and experimental fiction. That said, if what you write is a mashup of genres — or genre taken to the level of art — this might be a better match for our reading backgrounds.
I think it's important to keep in mind that writing can only ever be "good enough" — just as the feedback we give can never be perfect. As the Italian proverb said, "l meglio è l'inimico del bene" — the perfect is the enemy of the good. As writers, we are too often prevented from doing good work because we don't think it's perfect. It's much easier to improve what is good enough than to improve nothing at all.
◊
Note: we usually post only a few days, hours, or minutes before a meeting. Some short pieces have been added during meetings. But we're a great group!
We lean a little on the smart, contemporary literary or experimental fiction and poetry. Some of us share music; that ranges from experimental pop through to folk and singer songwriter (or early-2000s garage rock).
We have had traditional genre writers but it wasn't a great fit.
Ideally, we ask writers to post their texts ahead of time so people can read and think about them beforehand. But … sometimes there just isn't time. We only share up to about a 1000-word text at a time. But you can serialize a longer text. This is for two reasons:
You get a closer read and more fine-grained feedback than if you shared a whole chapter at a time.
These days many of us don't have time to do extra reading!
Don't be shy about dropping by. The idea of workshopping your writing can be frightening so we encourage you to join us before you're ready to share. It's also important to "pay it forward" — no fly-by-nights!
Let me know if you have any questions! Best is to contact me through the form here:
https://www.v11.org/contactform
(NB. I don't always see direct messages or comments on Meetup. I turn off the Meetup alerts because, if they have a way of only sending me notifications about direct messages or comments, I haven't found it!)