Every writer wants to find their readers, but I believe you must find fellow writers first. Stop Writing Alone is here to help you find (or create) your writing community, so you can grow as a writer, and fine tune your work(s) in progress.

I started writing like nearly every other writer I know: alone, with paper and a pen, slowly graduating to a laptop sprinkling some words around the Internet. Poetry, stories, articles, essays, blog posts, guest posts, and even novel-length works all spilled out before me.

And then what?

I read my words, I re-read my words, and could not deny that they simply did not sing in the same way the words within the covers of the books on my shelves did.

I started to think it was me. I decided it was because I wasn’t a “real” writer. Then, while lurking around another writer chat on Twitter I was sure I couldn’t join, a real working writer presented the following paradigm-shifting idea to me:

Why do you call yourself an aspiring writer? If you write, you are a writer.

It was all the permission I needed. I joined a local writing group and a number of online writing groups. I told them all of the Twitter-permission I had been granted. I explained my newbie status and apologized for my naivety in all aspects of the craft. But I kept at it.

That is when the magic began to happen! Merely surrounding myself with other writers in a mutual aspiration to better our writing was enough to help my words sing.

This is what I want for you. I want you to embrace your role as a writer, and I want you to take your place within the writing community to challenge yourself, to learn how to give and take critique, to collaborate, and to share your writing with writers to polish it to its best form for your future readers.

I want you to Stop Writing Alone.

Think you might be interested? Here’s how you begin:

1. Introduce yourself in the comments section here. Let us know what you’re writing and what you are looking for in a writing community/partnership.
2. Follow this website.
3. Like our Stop Writing Alone! Facebook Page
4. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @nv_rivera
5. Sharpen your pencils, stretch your fingers, and charge your laptops — in other words, get ready to write!