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As a writer, I think it’s essential to meet with other writers. We are a weird crowd. We need to stick together!

For many years, I belonged to a number of online writers’ groups. The BBC GetWriting was the first and, when that folded, many of us moved to WritersDock and/or MoreWriting. And then there was Chapter79 which, sadly, closed its doors (portal?) recently.

When I first moved to Salcombe, I set up a local face-to-face writers’ group called Ria View. Five of us, all members of the South Hams Writers Group, we’re looking for more in-depth criticism and mutual support. Ria View worked well for a couple of years and then lapsed due to personal dramas affecting various members of the group. Today, I’m delighted to say, we are reforming. Not the same people, but the same goal: mutual mentoring support via the creation of a nag buddy team.

The Ria View format is simple.

We meet every 4-6 weeks. Halfway between meetings, we submit a piece for writing for discussion, and these are circulated to all members of the group. At the meeting, we take it in turns to be ‘in the spotlight’. The net result is enough comments to keep everyone busy – and the encouragement to keep on writing/editing our masterpieces.

Today is the deadline for submitting my piece to the group, ahead of our meeting on 7 June. This morning, I’ve spent a while looking through my NANO novel drafts deciding which to work on with the Ria View group.

I’ve chosen the 2012 novel – as yet without a title.

This draft, like all my others until the discovery of Scrivener, was in Word, so I’ve spent a short while inserting hash marks at the start of each of the headings which served to remind me what was happening in that scene (and were never destined to be published!).

This then allowed me to import the text and have it split automatically into ‘scenes’.

Each of my headings is now the heading for a scene:

And I can view my corkboard to check the structure of my draft.

Now all I need to do is decide which section of text to offer for review by the Ria View group!

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