A scary new journey

Writing has always been a very solitary thing for me. I've never been part of any kind of writer's group, but that's something I've been thinking about a lot in recent months. It just seems like it would be great to be part of a community of writers. People that understand the things you're going through, that can offer advice, support, and best of all - feedback. That's not something I've ever had before. I live in a small town and don't know any other writers in real life. There are a handful of local authors that I've read about in the newspaper. From what I can tell they are mostly retirees who have written memoirs or children's books. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it makes me afraid that me and my urban fantasy would be met with a double chorus of "get behind thee Satan!" and "get off my lawn!" So I've been extremely reluctant to try creating a "real life" group. I've decided to give a virtual group a try. Not sure about how to find one to join, I just created one on my own. We're going to use a Yahoo email loop to communicate and though we only have a few members to start out, I have high hopes that it can become something that is both fun and useful for its members. Since I started the group I thought it would be only fair that I be the one to post the first excerpt for critique, so I posted the first chapter of one of my current works-in-progress.  This may not seem like a big deal to those of you who are used to working with writing and critique groups, but I can assure you that this is a scary step for me to take, in a lot of ways. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that it's a success.

The group is called Write Club (tag line: Chaos. Mayhem. Books.) It's open to writers of all genres, so if you think you might be interested drop me an email at clarksonyab @ gmail.com.