4 Ways To Broaden Your Reading and Writing Social Life

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the unique solitude of a writer’s life. Many art forms are necessarily collaborative. Think about the size of crews for film and television, the amount of people that go into the writing and production of a single song. Like fine artists, the writer’s process is typically independent. And yet it is an art form where the art itself becomes a shared consciousness. It is all too easy for a writer to silo themselves, to hide away from any form of public life. And while, of course, there comes a time when a writer does simply have to sit down and start putting pen to page, I think our stories are improved by moving through the world thoughtfully and creative-mindedly.

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To me, this means building creativity into your social life and your free time. These will have both a clear and subconscious effect on your writing. Because when you’re engaging with the world around you in a way that keeps your creative wheels turning, it’ll be easier to create something that feels three-dimensional and fully lived in.

Here are four ways to broaden your reading and writing social life.

My book club was formed in the fall of 2016. It was as simple as my friend Lily hearing about a book and thinking it would make for a great conversation, so why not start a book club? Over the last 10 years, my book club is my favorite and most important aspect of my social life. I know that in the depths of winter we will still meet, or if someone can’t make it we try to reschedule so everyone can be there. I know I’m spoiled by this luxury, but I think it’s really the only way to start a book club and to maintain it. Be serious about it. Don’t use it as only an excuse to socialize, but to read in community with others and to socialize.

Joining or starting a book club is number one on this list on purpose, too, because I believe deep in my bones that you cannot want to be a writer if you are not fully immersed in being a reader first. Reading makes you a better writer. Reading in community can help you understand what works for some people and what doesn’t work for others. It can help you figure out how to describe your opinions and how to critique without cruelty.

From my book club my writing group emerged. Two friends of mine, Lily and Margie, gathered after one of our meetings and I said, “Should we start a writing group?” I knew they were writers too—I’d gone to college with them, Lily and I both majoring in English and Margie in education. I’d written with Margie in the past but we’d fallen out of the practice, and so here we were making a commitment to write together again.

I cannot stress enough the necessity of a writing group or workshop in a writer’s life. It can be with total strangers or a few trusted creative friends. I’ve unlocked major blocks in what I’m working on from our evenings spent together.

Outside of our reading and writing social lives, talking about what I’m working on outside of my writing group, my husband, or my dog is something I’ve struggled with personally. It feels almost silly to say “I’m writing a book” to someone, because isn’t everyone? Isn’t everyone trying to do something creative? What’s so special about me that I feel like I need to tell people?

For me, not telling people that I’m working on a story comes from a place of fear of failure. If I tell people and they ask me about it but I’ve abandoned the project, what do I say? By not telling people when I’m writing something, I'm giving myself an easy out when the writing gets tough and I want to call it quits.

This time, I’m telling people. I’m working on something right now and in a very real way for the first time in a long time. Yes, I talk about this with the people within my creative social life, but also with people in other circles of my life. The reality is that the pressure is still there no matter what, and the fear of failure is, too. But having people ask me about what I’m working on or how it’s going has only helped in the process. I can say “It’s going really well” or “I’m stuck on this scene, not sure what to do” or “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” all of which are true.

My book club helps me understand what I look for in reading, which helps motivate the writing I want to do. My writing group helps me through workshopping story ideas and helps me with plot points and brick walls. Talking about what I’m working on with others helps legitimize that I’m working on something at all. All of these are things that can be implemented into your social life and daily life immediately.

But for me personally, I’ve come to realize that in order for me not to give up on a story idea, I need outside pressure. I need someone who is waiting for me to show them pages of story but with stakes. I know myself enough that if I’m just waiting on myself to finish a story, then I’ll find any reason to put it aside and let it gather dust. I need to finish a column for work or I’m behind on the book club selection or I was invited to the movies and I want to go or my senior dog is looking at me with those perfect eyes and I can’t help but stare at him for hours on end. You know, normal stuff.

I decided I needed an accountability partner, someone who I was paying money to expect a certain amount of pages from me. I reached out to an author friend who put me in touch with a book coach she endorsed. Our arrangement is simply that once a month I send her what I’ve worked on up to a certain amount of words, and then we meet a few days later to discuss how it’s going and how I’m pacing, and that’s it. In the future, once I finish the draft, I will almost certainly hire her as a developmental editor.

Knowing that there’s a financial aspect to this really keeps the pressure going, and for me personally, I need that pressure. Because knowing she’s not judging my writing or my word choices or looking at it with an editor’s eye yet, I feel encouraged to let the bad writing live on the page and be open to somebody seeing that and telling me, “Keep going.”

I do not suggest this lightly. I understand the privilege of my experience. In hiring an accountability partner I’ve had to make lifestyle changes for the foreseeable future, and I felt really guilty about spending money on the writing process. But when I told my therapist this, he reminded me, “People invest in their hobbies. Artists have to buy supplies. Gardeners have to buy plants. You’re just investing in your creativity.” And he is 100 percent right.

Something else that helped me was something my accountability partner said that was echoed by a book coach I talked to: So many writers use book coaches. Huge, internationally bestselling authors have used book coaches. It’s this little secret that nobody talks about—it feels like taking a short cut because of this idea that writing is meant to be solitary, and if you’re not brooding alone in a room for hours on end away from community then you’re not really a writer. Spoiler alert: If you write, you’re a writer.  Write the words yourself (if you use AI, we are not friends), but you can write them within and around others who want to cheer you on and see you succeed.