Help! Help!

This is something i've been wondering about a lot recently - and an associated topic has also popped into my head as I write this - do any of you find writers groups useful? I have written my first 10,000 words of a book and am well on my way in terms of world formation, plot, character development etc. I'm taking the Robert Jordan "to hell with it, just write it" approach (apparently he wrote his first novel in three months with little or no prior writing experience) but of course the old self-doubt does creep in, and I feel like its rather arrogant to just think you can write a novel first off!

SO - anyone got any thoughts about the whole writing process, how you know what you're doing is "good" and whether going on a course can really help?

Any advice much appreciated,
GO

You seem to have asked two questions. One in regards to writers groups, and one in regards to courses.
Other than this site I have never really been part of a writers group so I can't comment on that one.
On the other hand I have taken various 'writing' papers through Massey over the course of my study, from poetry, to script writing, travel writing to the art of short stories and childrens books.
My first experience of that is that regardless of what a lecturer might think of your writing, the audience for which you are writing can have a totally different response.
I never really know if my writing is 'good' until I've let it sit for awhile and come back to it. When I'm less attached I can look at it more critically, when I'm in the moment I can either love or hate it - neither of which will stop me from writing it down. Another good gauge is to give it to other people to read. Not your family, not your best friends, because they are always going to look at things in a biased way.
The first person I let read my nano novel was someone i know from world of warcraft, someone I have never met in the real world, and also someone who had nothing to lose by telling me where I had gone wrong.
Anyway, back to the courses before I write a whole novel here.
I found them very helpful, in loads of ways, but it really depends on how you write to start off with. I don't think it can hurt to look into new ways to do things, or open up different avenues for yourself. I certainly made a lot of personal discoveries through doing classes and being pushed to do things I never would have thought to do otherwise. And I feel like this has made me a better writer than I was before.
You dont need to take a course to be a good writer, but it can help you work on your style and techniques.
Hope that helps! Sorry for the massive post.
I think you should definitely just keep writing, get the story down and if you have a solid base to work from at the end then thats the main thing - most people dont write the perfect book on their first draft, that comes later on ;-)

WIP: Ayden: 70,096/95,000 (estimated total).
Rough Editing: Lifelines: 104/104 pages.

J.C Hart

Haha - good question goodomens.

I think the short answer is "you don't". There is no real way to know for sure.

Cassie has a lot of good points in her post. You can get advice from people who read your stuff, but in the end, you have to depend on yourself to "know" if it's good or not.

Even if it isn't good it's completely possible that there is an audience out there for it and you can publish it. On top of that, if you are continuing to practice, you will get better as you learn new lessons from reading your own material and reading other things that you like.

In the end though, if you are going to be successful, you will have to trust your own opinion.

Travis.
--
http://cottreau.blogspot.com
http://cottreaureviews.blogspot.com/

Personally, I would suggest, "write and don't worry about what others think". The important thing in a first draft is to get the story out of your head. If you worry about what others think, then it can paralyze the writing process.

Once you have a first draft, then you can work at rewriting it into something readable, and that's where the help of others can be useful. From my own experience and from Stephen King's "On Writing" I would definitely think 'rewrite' rather than 'edit'.

I have had a lot of useful input from "My Writers Circle" http://www.mywriterscircle.com/index.php
and would highly recommend it - lots of fun, lots of useful critique, and lots of time wasted on the forums :-(

I think a better question might be not whether it's good but are you getting better.

Writing courses, books on writing, resources on the web can all help you learn and grow as a writer. Some help more than others but I think it's hard to know how much they'll help you until you've gone through it.

No Excuses. Just Write.
WIP - Freeing the Flame: 0/66 scenes of rewrite #2.
Eve's Vineyard: 2,158/6,000 (Sept Zing Thing)

Why can't you write a novel first-off? Many good novels, I believe, were probably written first-off the same way as you're writing yours. If they can do it, so can you! (with practice) So believe in yourself and keep writing!

And I have yet heard of a writer who could say, "My first draft is good enough to be published as soon as I typed the words "the end"." The key, when you're writing a draft, isn't that it has to be a GOOD novel. It has to be a COMPLETED/WHOLE novel. The "good" part comes later, when you have something to edit. It doesn't matter, at the stage of first draft, whether it's a good novel or not -because if you keep working at it, eventually, it will, inevitably, become a good novel.

To me, a novel is a super-long fiction work that I write and finish -the key is "finished", whether it is published or not. I enjoy writing, and if my end result isn't a "good" novel (I haven't finished a single novel which I classify, as a perfectionist, as "good"... yet.) But at the end of each crappy novel, I'm happy with myself. Why? I love writing. I had fun. I wrote a full, completed novel. And that's a lot of words.

After finishing my first Nanovel, which was, and still is, total rubbish, I complained miserably to one of my nano-friends, "This is crap. I'm a winner, but my novel isn't really that good. Actually, it's crap. I spent the whole month writing crap." And my friend replied, "Even if it's crap, you still wrote 50,000 words. And you know, you can't write all those words, and come out a worse writer than before you started. You probably became a (slightly) better writer now than you were a month ago." And I take that to heart -every word I write, 2 words, 500 words, 50,000 words- makes me a better writer than before. So it doesn't matter for me whether it's a good novel or not. I believe it's a "better" novel, and I write because I enjoy writing it and learning about myself along the way.

I can't remember which author said this now, but one of 'em published-authors out there said something along the lines of this: "Write what you would love to read. Before anything else, write for yourself. Because you could be your only audience for years and years and years." And that is true for soooo many writers. Few writers are born talented, they develop to good writers by writing and writing and writing.

As for courses: what I picked up from the internet is that in order to be a good writer, you need three things:

1. Content -your theme/message, your "inner source" which you draw experiences from. ("What" the message is)

2. Craft -your writing style/techniques. ("how" you write it)

3. Knowledge of the publishing industry

Writing courses, as well as books on writing, tend to help you with the craft (and a little bit of industry knowledge) -but good writing still needs successful Content, which can't really be taught.

Courses can HELP you, but what I learnt from experience with (expensive T_T) writing courses is that.... writing courses do NOT make you a writer/success, it can only point the general direction. You also don't NEED it to be successful -with practice, your writing style can develop without needing courses. It CAN help, but in the end, it's a balance: You CAN benefit from studying courses on writing, but don't overdo it -many writers (like me, but I'm trying) spend all their time reading about writing, thinking about writing, and studying courses about writing -yet do too little writing. Courses help, but don't forget, in the end, practicing-writing is the most important thing.

A post on Miss Snark looked at this issue from the 'when should I give up' point of view. Here is what she has to say.

No Excuses. Just Write.
WIP - Freeing the Flame: 0/66 scenes of rewrite #2.
Eve's Vineyard: 2,158/6,000 (Sept Zing Thing)

Oh, nice post! Sweet post! (I also loved some of the Snarkling comments...)

This is a good question, and one that has no definite answer. As a musician, I have seen many people who are technically astonishing players, but only a handful who could bring tears to my eyes with their playing. The same holds true for writing. You could go to a course, you could do a degree in it, but at the end of the day it is all about getting that story in your head onto paper (or some other medium these days) for others to read and, more importantly, to be able to feel what you felt when you were writing it. Obviously, courses may help, and groups may help, but to what degree depends on where you are at the moment. You might find a course too simplistic, or too complicated. Groups may be unrealistically gushing or harsh in their assesment of your work, discouraging you from carrying on. The best thing is to write and don't stop. Then, as has been suggested, get someone to critique your work, and at that point you can decide what you want to do.

Just my 2 cents.

I guess I should put some funny quip here.