Members of AWOW: Kim Moravec

(Kim’s profile is longer but by execution shows what our group is about and strives for. She welcomed it being trimmed, but no one is going to trim this.)

It was well into lockdown in my little tiny cottage somewhere in the darkest, deepest countryside of Suffolk, England. Days of long dog walks through the silent sunny fields; not a single jet trail in the sky. Even the church bells had fallen quiet, no sheep bleated as we passed, just deer watching silently from the edges of the woods.

It was a chance posting on Facebook - not intended for me but someone else - "what’s the link to the online writers group?"

It was a writers group I’d had to leave five years before when our little family went back to the UK. It was the best group I'd ever been in, and without the accountability and encouragement, my writing had fizzled out.

The meetings were in Texas time, or 1 AM to 3 AM my time. I joined in a heartbeat.  It was so incredible to see faces I had missed for many years. It was like no time had passed it all. My writing kicked into full gear again. I was excited to be a part of a community I had thought lost to me forever.

But the pandemic ended. The sheep returned, and the deer melted back into the deep woods. The churches open their doors, and the ancient peals could be heard across the fields once again over the drone of highway traffic. The writers group went back to in-person meetings. I always knew it would. Like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense, I was only a visitor returning to the world where I once belonged.

It took me some time to build up the courage to ask if anyone wanted to stay online with me. Incredibly, a small group of us did! We formed our own group (this one) changed the meetings to a bit earlier, and although I get to bed at 2 AM on Mondays and have to watch my sleep the rest of the week, it’s worth it.

The value of this group is in our ability to trust one another. That’s hard to find these days. Your friends and family will read your work and tell you they like it, but you can’t trust them to tell you if you get something wrong. On the other hand, in anonymous Facebook groups, people will pile on and pick apart your work like vultures, regardless of how petty the prize. With strangers like that, you can never tell when you’ve got something right. 

I can trust the people in this group to tell me if something doesn’t work, but I can also trust them to tell me what I need to hear, and they can trust me in turn. That's worth losing a little sleep!