When I met Lisa Scottoline, I asked her what she thought about writing groups. She said she was against them during the initial writing of a piece because, at that point in the process, hearing negativity would hurt the creative process. I have read that Chuck Palahniuk uses a writing group for feedback at the beginning of projects. I had tried a couple of writing groups in the past, and neither had worked out for me. In the first one, I felt that I was providing some helpful hints, but was not getting anything useful in return. The second group just had so many dropouts that it disbanded. I went to one at a local community college last week, and found the remarks technically useful concerning a first chapter of a novel I had written. I was just wondering about the experiences of other writers with writing groups.
Gus Cileone
A Lesson in Murder
www.augustuscileone.com