#22: Unleashing Collective Creativity: The Transformative Power of Writing with Others

Have you ever wondered how group writing might improve your personal narratives? Prepare to experience the transformative power of collaborative writing as we explore the advantages of writing in groups - highlighting the benefits of brainstorming, deriving inspiration, staying accountable, and gaining varied perspectives. This isn't just about putting pen to paper, it's about the camaraderie, celebration, and collective creativity that makes these writing sessions a unique practice, irrespective of whether you're teaming up with family, friends, or colleagues.

Join me, Melissa Ann Kitchen, as I share my personal journey with group writing and discuss how it can evolve your craft. Through my own experiences and insights, we'll uncover the five significant benefits of writing in groups and how it can help bust writer's block, inject fresh viewpoints into your stories, and, most importantly, make writing a more gratifying venture. So, don't forget to share your experiences with us - who knows, your writing group endeavours might just inspire someone else to take the leap! Together, let's foster a community where we encourage, inspire, and challenge each other to write compelling stories.

Transcript

Melissa: 0:01

Welcome to the Preserve your Past podcast, where we'll explore all things related to the creative process of writing your stories for future generations.

Melissa: 0:10

I'm your host, melissa Ann Kitchen, author, teacher, speaker and coach. I believe that your personal history is a priceless gift for family, friends and generations to come, whether you consider yourself a writer or not. We are discussing the topics that help you with every step of the process, like how to mine for the juiciest story ideas or how to refine them into polished final drafts you'll be proud to share. Let's face it sure, your stories can be overwhelming, but I've got you covered. We all have a lifetime of memories to share, so why not save yours to pass along? Let me help you leave your lasting legacy. Hi everybody, and welcome back to the Preserve your Past podcast.

Melissa: 1:08

Today I have a fun topic that I wanted to present. Many of us, when we think of writing, we think of it as a solo process. There are parts that definitely are, and there are times when we need our quiet space alone to be creative and get the words down. I also know that I have found many benefits by writing in groups, whether it be a writing workshop or a course, or even when I was teaching having students write together. I want to today talk about writing gatherings and the benefits of writing with others. This is something that I offer formally to my groups, but it's also something that you may want to work through and set up on your own informally. Whether you are gathering with family to reminisce over memories or gathering with friends for a creative get-together in a writing group, I think that writing groups and writing with others can be a great way to stay motivated and creative with your writing.

Melissa: 2:17

Today, I'm going to share five benefits to writing in groups. Let's start with number one. The first benefit that I think you can get from writing with others is inspiration, greater inspiration. Many of you have shared, when I've reached out on social media or talked to you at different conferences or even classes, that I've done that you sometimes are feeling a little bit stuck with your stories, what to write about topics that you want to pursue, or just even becoming inspired to do that. I think writing with others is a way to allow an opportunity for brainstorming together, whether you're working on the same project or you might even be working on separate projects, but when you're in a group of writers, taking time to offer inspiration to each other or feedback on topics to each other is so much help and it can help you to think of topics you may have missed if you were just being isolated and writing by yourself. So that number one benefit I really believe is inspiration, and I know that because I've worked on my writing and reached out to even like my sister and brother about different topics that I'm thinking of, and some of just even talking with them or sitting down with my sister and doing some of our content together. Being able to bounce that off of her or of friends that I'm doing other courses with is has been really helpful for me to be able to feel inspired and kind of, you know, have someone to kind of bounce those ideas from. So brainstorming and inspiration are a very good benefit to writing with others.

Melissa: 4:18

The second benefit I think is accountability. So another part of working in a group is it helps us to focus on what we're working on if we're around others and kind of mirroring their behavior. But it's also nice to have others that you can use to help keep track, and you can do that for your teammates also. Working with others helps us, keep us motivated, keeps us present and it makes it more fun. So that accountability of knowing that you have made time for your writing because you're made a commitment to other people can be a great motivator. That is Much more of an advantage if you're in a group than if you tried to schedule your own time for writing alone and kind of talk yourself out of it, right? Or you don't do as much as you say you're going to do in your mind when you plan to do your writing, because nobody is there for you to answer to. So having a writing group or even writing with others, or having that accountability can be really helpful with your writing. So that's number two accountability.

Melissa: 5:30

The third benefit that I believe comes from writing with others is the idea that we can see other viewpoints. So writers can often be isolated, right. We think of writing as hunkering down at our desk or sitting with our blankie and our tea on the couch or, however, at our kitchen table with our typewriter, and so usually it's thought of to be a one on one. You know just you and your thoughts, and I think sometimes when we're alone doing our writing, we can get stuck and we can see things from our own lens. So I believe that writing in a writer's group or with a group of others allows us to seek feedback, not just the ideas and that inspiration part of it, but also of looking at the other viewpoints that we might be missing in our writing and even raise the quality of our writing when we think from a lens of how others are going to be perceiving this, because sometimes when we're writing we just assume people are going to understand it the way we've written it or, you know, look at it from our same lens and I think having other viewpoints and feedback on that viewpoint is a immense benefit to improve our writing. So that would be my third benefit having other viewpoints.

Melissa: 6:57

Okay, so for the fourth benefit, I would say that writing in a group allows us to more fully either celebrate or commemorate a special event. So whether we're gathering to celebrate a birth and maybe we're going to be writing stories to gift someone who has an expecting a child, or we're coming together to remember and commemorate a person we've lost, coming together in group together is a wonderful way to be able to celebrate these two items and I think it's a nice opportunity for you to create it as a celebration. So, thinking about what are some things you can add to it that can make it a lovely experience. It is going to be like a party type format where you have food and decor and maybe some guided writing prompts and you're coming together in this personalized writing workshop type environment but you're celebrating for a specific purpose or you are commemorating a loved one. This is actually a benefit that's near and dear to my heart and something that I am really contemplating how I can assist others to do this more and become more impactful on you all to foster more of this celebration and commemoration with your writing, with others. So that is a number four benefit.

Melissa: 8:46

The fourth benefit, which leads us very much into number five, which the fifth benefit that I see to writing in a group environment, is just the benefit of the connection, the connection itself. I think the last few years while we were quarantined, we all really came back from that and craved that connection, that being close to loved ones again, and I think we appreciate it more now and I think that Since then I feel like, for me anyways, life has been full throttle and so many of us are kind of seeking ways to spend the quality time together like how some of us were able to during the quarantine not everybody, but it definitely was a different time, and so I think it brought many people to a point where they could slow down and maybe even be more creative and sought different hobbies that they would not have done before. And so I think, as we've gone back into real life, it's nice for us to think about how can we bring that connection into our everyday life now that we have the freedom to do so. We have the freedom to connect. What are some ways we can create that? And so I think gathering to work on our writing of our stories with family members again similar to those celebration and commemoration, but it could be with a group of friends, it could be with family members, it could just be with like-minded people that want to get their stories done, and just having that experience of spending quality time with people in the creativity is just super powerful, and I think that is an immense benefit to coming together and gathering with a group to do your writing. For me, connection has always been an important piece of me feeling connected to the world of stress, relief, of feeling like I wasn't all on my own, and I think those benefits benefit not only our writing but also our wellness and well-being, but I also think that they help us to be better writers, right, having that connection and support. So be on the lookout, because I have some really cool ways that I'm going to be introducing to you all of ways that I can help you foster connection, but also these other benefits of working in group, gathering in groups and having that be able to have positive impact on being able to work on your projects and really make headway with writing your powerful personal stories.

Melissa: 11:44

So let's do a little recap of the five benefits that I see to gathering and writing with others. Number one, we said, was inspiration. Number two was accountability. Number three is the benefit of having other viewpoints. Number four was celebrating or commemorating, and number five was the power of connection.

Melissa: 12:16

I'd love to hear which ones are your favorites or which ones you've tried, or if you have any others you'd like to add. Please send me an email at melissa, at melissaankitchencom, and, as always, if you want to see this in written format, I often have a blog version of the podcast and there are places there for you to comment also. So please go over and read the blog at melissaankitchencom and please feel free to leave a comment on what you think the biggest impact of working together in groups is for you. What is that benefit? Leave those comments, I invite you to head over to the blog and until next time, here's to writing your powerful personal stories. Wasn't that a fun episode. I enjoyed our conversation so much, and if you would like to continue our conversation, be sure to follow this podcast and share with friends. This helps share the mission of preserving the past with stories. Want more tips, tools and inspiration? Head over to melissaankitchencom and, as always, let's get writing your powerful personal stories.