We did it! We held our first Zoom meeting of the Emerald Cove Press writer’s critique group this week. The meeting lasted much longer than expected (about three hours), but a lot of the discussion involved logistics for the best way to conduct our reviews and provide written comments going forward. After considering email, Dropbox, and other methods, we settled on Microsoft One Drive to use for manuscript exchange and commentary.

We plan to continue with Zoom meetings in the future. Those meetings are valuable for several reasons. First, they give us a chance to discuss each of our critiques and allow individual authors to ask questions regarding the comments. Second, they provide us time to talk about our shared projects and to encourage one another to continue writing. Third, and most important, they create a deadline to force…ahem…inspire us to write!

There was an additional benefit from this week’s meeting that I had not expected. It was great to see each other again. Email and telephone calls are just not the same as looking at your friends and colleagues as they talk to you. Of course, a Zoom meeting will never take the place of a real life gathering, but it’s still pretty good. And, at least, you don’t have to worry about what shoes you are wearing to the meeting!

-Susan 7/17/20