The "Other" Writers Group

One of the goals my WriteOn Joliet co-leader Tom Hernandez and I set for last year was to be more "ecumenical" - in other words, to pop into a couple other local writers groups at least once.

Of course, when we set that goal, we had no idea what would transpire in 2020.

Neverthless, I did make one Zoom meeting of the writers group in New Lenox (and the leader's been so kind in patiently inviting me).

And I've also found some writing fellowship with a group called the 5 A.M. Writers Club on Twitter. (#5amwritersclub).

I stumbled upon this one quite by accident.

Some of my followers on my BryonySeries Twitter account are other authors. And as we talked, I discovered this group. A few of these members lived on the east coast and had met in person a few times before COVID hit. So they moved to Zoom and opened the meetings up to whoever wanted to join them.

I was one of them.

The whole purpose of the group is to write for an hour every day, starting at 5 a.m., before the rest of your responsiblities begins. Everyone doesn't make this every day; life happens. And people make it at different times of the day, depending when 5 a.m. occurs in their part of the world.

The only time this becomes a bit rough for me is every three weeks. That's when we meet on a Friday over Zoom. Because their 5 a.m. is my 4 a.m. and that meet often comes right on the heels of WriteOn Joliet's meeting the previous evening - and Friday's are very full for me anyway.

So I often check in late - and in the case of this past Friday when I was dealing with a new, temporary medication that made me tired - not at all.

But the group has brought new connections and new opportunities.

We had a holiday party over Zoom between Christmas and new year. We're having a virtual writing retreat at the end of next month (just got my schedule yesterday - I'm super stoked!), and I'm co-leading a meeting on self-publishing in August as I may be the only author in this group that self-publishes. The others have traditional contracts with traditional publishers or they are in the querying stages.

Yes, 2020 was definitely a challenging year filled with tragedies for far, far too many people.

But there's something remarkable about the human spirit that just doesn't allow tragedy to get the final word.

And even among last year's horribleness, tiny green shoots of hope and new life are edging their way out.

Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."