Are you tired of searching online for answers to your latest writing conundrum? Do you need fresh, creative inspiration or a fellow writer to offer feedback on your ideas? You’re not alone. Many writers find the writing life to be a solitary one, but it doesn’t have to be. 

At hope*writers, we believe that we are better together. Every writer needs a community to support their writing life. Here’s why:

Encouragement and Support

Your fellow writers get it. They know what it’s like to struggle to find the time to write. They understand what it takes to wrestle with sentences and paragraphs until every word feels right. They experience the same frustrations that come with building an audience or pitching their work to publications. They know because they’re trying to do it too. A writing community offers support and encouragement from people who understand your experience firsthand and want to help you thrive.

Helpful Feedback

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For most writers, social media is an important part of building an engaged audience. If you’re unconvinced or unsure of how to use social media to reach your readers, Emily Ley, author and founder of Simplified, gives writers three valuable reasons to get started.

Social media builds a community around your work.

One of the best ways to build a community around your work is to connect with your readers online. Social media gives writers the opportunity to engage in a personal and informal way and allows readers to respond directly to your message in real time.

Regularly interacting with your audience online helps you create a loyal readership, which can be beneficial if you hope to publish a book someday. While the number of followers you have is important if publishing is your goal, Emily explains that engagement with your readership is a better measure of the effectiveness of your message. 

She says, “I would rather have a hundred followers who are engaged...

Writing may seem like a solitary profession, but all writers need a supportive community to help them accomplish their goals and flourish in their craft. Established writers often work with a literary agent, multiple editors, a marketing strategist, and numerous other people before they see their work in print. 

But, what if we’re writers who are still building our body of work and our writing career? Who should we look to for encouragement and support? What type of people do we need in our corner to help us improve our craft, reach our goals, and keep writing, even when the writing gets tough?

Read on to find out!

A Friend 

Every writer needs a friend who is a fellow writer. Family and non-writerly friends can lend support and listen to our concerns, but no one understands the writing life better than someone else immersed in the world of writing and publishing.

A fellow writing friend is a resonator. They resonate with our frustrations, our questions, and...

Are you a writer in search of a supportive community or looking for fellow writers to collaborate with you? Author, podcaster, and hope*writers member Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young found that joining hope*writers not only gave her the teaching she needed to grow in her craft, but also met her need for connection with fellow writers. 

Through smaller, member-driven hope*circles, Dorina deepened relationships with other members and collaborated with them in ways that helped all of them flourish as writers. However, like many writers, Dorina has to actively fight against comparison — even as a veteran collaborator. 

“My motto is collaboration over comparison. But if I’m ever in a spot where I’m feeling that inferiority, I have to pay attention to it.” — Dorina Lazo Gilmore-Young

Collaboration vs. Comparison

It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves and our work to others. This can keep us from collaborating because...

What is hope*writers? We’re so glad you asked! If you’ve found yourself here, it’s probably because you’re a writer looking for help on the internet. Maybe frustration with your progress has led you on endless Google searches, or you’ve followed rabbit trails all over cyberspace and come up either overwhelmed or empty-handed.

We’re here to help. 

We are a community of working writers dedicated to helping you make progress as you learn to balance the art of writing with the business of publishing. We help smart, creative writers do their work forever without losing their minds today. 

Here’s what you need to know about hope*writers to decide if we’re a good fit for your writing life.

We are a writing community.

We take seriously the creative, social, and spiritual call to the deep work of sharing our stories and ideas with the people who need them the most. We help writers find and follow the path to sharing their words...

As a ghostwriter, nonfiction author, and novelist, Shawn Smucker has a lot of experience collaborating with others. In his own work, he makes it a regular practice to invite others into the editing process by asking beta readers to read his manuscript before the final draft is written. 

In an interview with hope*writers, Shawn shares some of his pro tips for finding readers who can help spot a manuscript’s weaknesses before it goes to press. Beta readers can be an integral part of the writing process for any author. 

Who to Ask

The first step in choosing beta readers is deciding how many readers to ask. Recommendations vary among writers, but Shawn suggests asking between three and five readers who belong to your target audience for their feedback. The more readers involved, the more widely the opinions will vary. With too many beta readers, it can be difficult to find a consensus on what needs revising in your manuscript.

There are three important...

When Anna LeBaron applied to become a member of Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love book launch team, she had never participated in a book launch. Because there were an overwhelming number of applications for a small number of spots, Anna didn’t make it on the team.

Instead of feeling disappointed and giving up, she decided the next best thing to joining the official launch team was to gather the other 4,500 readers who didn’t make it into the group, and help launch the book anyway. 

For the Love became a national bestseller in part due to the efforts of Anna and the unofficial launch team she gathered in a private group on Facebook. She learned how to launch a book by doing it, and it paid off for both Jen Hatmaker and Anna.

Anna is now an author herself and a sought-after book launch manager who works directly with publishers to launch books. Her experience with Hatmaker’s book launch blossomed into a new career, throughout which she has launched many books,...

Author and speaker Jo Saxton is passionate about encouraging writers to recognize their potential as leaders and to take risks in their work. She tells hope*writers, “It takes a village to raise, launch, and sustain a leader.” 

So what does it look like to gather a supportive village? This is an important part of a writing life, especially if we want to do it for the long haul. 

Jo offers the following questions for us to ask ourselves as we create a thriving community of people around us who will help to support and sustain our work as writers.

1. What do I need to thrive in my work?

Before we can name what we need to thrive, we first have to define what a thriving writing life looks like for us. The answer to this question will be unique for each writer.

It’s important to consider your needs as they pertain to your specific goals, life season, and level of experience as a writer.

What kind of support will you need from others to create a...

Have you ever been romanced by the mythical image of the writer working in solitude while nestled comfortably in a remote woodland cabin? Those of us who write in the cracks of ordinary life with families, jobs, and busy schedules may find this image particularly compelling as we struggle to balance our lives with our writing work. 

As you create space and learn to write within the boundaries of your life, you will learn that good work requires quiet, but it doesn’t require a complete removal from your life and the people in it. In fact, as your writing develops, you may discover that inviting others into your work can be a welcome catalyst for creativity. 

A cabin in the woods sounds great, but creating in a community of fellow writers is even better.

At hope*writers, we believe writers flourish in community with one another, so we sat down to discuss this idea with author, professor, and Inklings expert Diana Glyer. 

Diana has spent years studying the...