I see you stress on marketing/networking a great deal. Can you please name one or two good writer’s forums that will be helpful for beginners? Or the ones that you have been a part of and would recommend?

Great question, and before I answer, I want to really stress two things:

1. There is no one writer’s group or forum that would be a perfect fit for everyone, so you’ll likely need to try out a few and see which ones you’re most comfortable participating in, and whether they’re of any benefit to you or not. Each group usually has a tone and a way of working, and you may or may not like it.

2. You will find, as you move onwards in your career, that you will outgrow certain writing groups and forums. This is a good thing. I’ve belonged to several networks of writers over the years, but never more than one or two at a time, and I’ve built many relationships because of them. However, as my needs change, I need to find new hangouts as well.

My most valuable network is my personal network of writers and photographers who I meet with or speak to regularly. I meet most of them through work, but they’re more friends than colleagues and it’s extremely valuable to be able to share tips, go out and talk shop, or simply commiserate about all kinds of random stuff. If I’m having a bad workday, understanding is just a phone call away.

Another category of writing groups is the critique group, and I am very grateful for mine. Again, you’ll have to become a part of these groups before you can understand their format, rules and requirements for posting, etc, but once you find a good one, it can be so very helpful. My critique group sends me back to the drawing board way more times than any editor would, and I really do appreciate that, because it really helps me challenge myself and consider things I wouldn’t have thought of.

Finally, of course, there’s the general writing group or forum where people post questions, talk about writing and publishing, and get advice on all kinds of things, including marketing, writing, time-management, etc. I used to be quite active on the Absolute Write forums for many years, but now I find that I’m not really learning or contributing anything new, so I don’t check in as often.

Sometimes, you’ll be in a situation where you form your own group. Chatting with a freelance journalist in South Africa one day, I said that I felt that there weren’t enough of us living abroad and writing for American/British publications and it would be nice to share tips with others in our unique situation. So we formed our own tiny little group of four people, and I’ve gotten more out of this group in a few weeks than I did in years of being in forums.

So that’s a long-winded way of saying, yes, definitely start with the forums (which I’ll list below), but also try and form relationships with other freelancers who you can call, get advice from, and generally share the writing blahs with. Just last week, instead of struggling on my own, I e-mailed a friend who is a radio journalist one of my recordings and asked him to check out why it’s got so much white noise. Yesterday, Sam (who is also a journalist) changed my article’s organization, chopped off a few bits, and rewrote a paragraph when I said I couldn’t put my finger on why it wasn’t working.

This is all very important, in my opinion, because we all need help at times, and we don’t have the newsroom atmosphere where a colleague can look at our copy. Usually, we’re on our own. Having someone to go to for help with sorting out problems is extremely helpful.

Keep your eyes open for like-minded writers, and then e-mail or call them to connect. In the meantime, though, here is a small list that should get you to a good start.

Forums: I mentioned the Absolute Write forums above, and I’d definitely recommend checking them out. There are several sub-forums dedicated to different kinds of writing– novel, freelance, marketing, etc. Writer’s Digest, Media Bistro, and Freelance Success too, have active forums and many professional writers hang out in these parts.

For critique groups, I can’t find a better list than this one at Writing-World.com.

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Thanks for the questions, everyone! I’ll wrap up this Q&A series this week. If you have any more questions, feel free to send them. I’ll keep answering them as they come in.