I am running out of writer craft insights to share and so I’m branching out to this other enterprise that I have been running for my fellow students from the UBC novel writing courses. I created this back in 2018, off this random idea I have of providing a platform for us all to gather after the courses are done to see each other through the novel writing exercise but also for collective learning etc.
One problem I continually have been running into is the issue of engagement. Basically we only had one administrator and no one had expressed an interest to join me when I asked around (small membership was an issue and probably continues to be an issue. To date, there are a total of 62 members, the most recent joined 8 months ago- the course instructors kept about my group and directed new students to this group of mine so I get occasional new member requests). One solution would be more activity from me which I think did work on a short term basis when I had daily craft questions or themed months that focused on a particular craft element with weekly tasks. However, usually there would be only one person who would engage with me on a given thread. Also, it does take energy out of me when I was the only content provider.
Recently, I had played with the idea of bringing the themed months back but tried to elicit more content providers to reduce the workload on me. However, I’m very doubtful of this working.
On the other hand, there have been subsidiary groups run off this particular FB group of mine in the form of writing sprints. I was even asked to join as a member but it’s not really my thing so I ended up declining the offer.
In summary, is it easy to run and manage such a FB group as I had created? Yes and no. It is not hard if I want to maintain the status quo of minimal level of engagement and just a platform for general encouragement for each other. But it does get hard if I want to take it beyond that. Which I haven’t.
Moonlake's Fiction Space 