Writing a book is hard.
You might scoff at that sentence. You might smile to yourself in quiet agreement, having gone through and appreciated the despair for yourself. Whatever your response, that truth isn’t properly appreciated among most people, even us writers. Having a network of individuals around you can make your journey so much easier. Not only that, being around other creatives can make you want to write if you’re feeling low; they can help you come up with ideas that you may not have had otherwise and see perspectives in your plot or for your characters you may not have considered previously – that is if you feel comfortable letting another set of eyes see your precious baby! Realizing this for myself has been a grueling and lonely journey, and I’m here to make that journey less difficult for you.
Writing is a solitary experience, it’s meant to be, after all, nobody can write your story better than you can.
It isn’t just the fact that most of our writing is done alone, nor is it the idea that all the time you spend deliberating over your words tends to mean time taken away from socializing with friends or family. It’s the idea that no one really understands you and the hours you spend putting into a metaphysical dream, but that doesn’t mean your journey has to be lonely.
The idea of community is relevant in every aspect of our lives. If you’re at work, your working life is better if you have colleagues that can go through that experience with you (and I’m sure we can all appreciate that the 9-5 is an experience). Whether you like sports or you’re a gamer, having regular faces you can do these activities with is so much better than playing with/against strangers. These peers don’t even have to be your friends in the strictest sense, that’s not the function here, we’re talking about connection.
And writing should be no different from other social experiences in your life.
The problem? Writing is deeply personal. Many people outside our realm don’t fully understand it—which is why finding the right community matters so much.
A strong community of writers and creatives can:
Help bounce ideas around if you’re feeling stuck.
Give you feedback to improve your craft.
Introduce new ideas & perspectives you might have missed.
Provide accountability so you actually finish that book/short story.
Give you the chance to read/talk about your world aloud (seriously undervalued).
Hit you with random tips and tricks that they’ve learned.
Help you meet more people and make new friends! Let’s make 2025 the Year of the Mutual Friend.
So why hasn’t writing caught on?
It’s difficult for people who aren’t involved in this lifestyle to understand and connect with us. It takes a certain kind of personality to decide to write a book or build a world for your RPG, even to participate with your own fleshed out character for D&D. Lots of people won’t understand it and many of them might want to, but they just don’t have time to commit that amount of emotional and mental energy.
I say this often to people I meet; I have spoken to hundreds of people about my writing, and they have all asked me to send them bits of my work. To this day I can count on my hands the number of people that have been able to commit, read the work, and given me feedback. The reason? I was asking the wrong people!
I’ve been working on my Fantasy-world-now-Space-Opera for 14 of my 27 years, and it is only through the use of social media that I’ve connected with anyone at all. My own sister with her master’s in journalism thought my fantasy world (long before it turned into space opera) was a Science Fiction and bought me a "How-To" on Sci-Fi one Christmas.
I’m not complaining (turns out she was onto something!), I’m trying to show how difficult it is for people who aren’t involved in this lifestyle to understand and connect with us. We’ve all got our own things going on – the trick here is finding people who have the same things going on as you.
A bit about my journey
I’ll tell you a bit about my journey, and how I came to the conclusions that you’ll read in this journey with me.
Growing up, I was very much an individual. It was my shield against a painful world, and writing became my refuge. Books were the perfect escape, so naturally, I tried writing my own. Looking back, I can see that my deep dive into building my own fantasy world was more than just a passion—it was a coping mechanism. My disconnected brain was trying to make sense of the world, but in doing so, my teenage years became incredibly lonely.
I reached out to people, but no one—not even my family—truly understood what I was doing or why I spent so much time with my head down, crafting characters and weaving them into a ridiculously long, overambitious plotline. Though I didn’t fully realize it at the time, the people around me weren’t fueling me—they were draining me.
At 18, I turned to social media because I couldn’t find the connection I craved in person, and that’s when everything changed.
I started to meet people like me.
In 2019, a group of complete strangers—one of us traveling all the way from Germany!—organized a trip to London. That day, I made two friends who remain in my life today, both of whom are now part of the Authocracy family. In fact, you’re reading this very post because of a connection I made back then. (Hi, Joe!)
That moment was the beginning, but I was still a long way from where I am today. It took real effort to push myself further—to seek the right people, to be intentional about finding my crowd. It’s in the last year (after 6 years) that I am seeing the fruit of my labors. I’ve learned so much and gained even more simply by being brave enough to put myself out there.
It’s this last year that I’ve really come to understand how long I spent looking in the wrong places.
The truth is writing is deeply personal. If someone hasn’t experienced the struggle of writing a novel; of building a world from nothing; or escaping into a D&D campaign instead of just watching a film, etc., then they won’t fully understand what it means to pour your soul onto a page (or a screen). I spent years speaking with the wrong people and looking in the wrong places, and it left me frustrated, uncared for, and disconnected—from both my relationships and myself.
And that disconnection? It was taking away from my writing.
It might seem obvious now, but I had to learn this lesson the hard way. I don’t want you to make the same grueling mistakes I did. For years, I spoke to the wrong people about my writing. I’ve told hundreds of people about my book, and almost all of them asked to read it. Only a handful followed through. Why? Because they weren’t my people.
So, what can you do about it? (And where are the Writers/Creatives?)
Join a writing club! Apps like MeetUp and Eventbrite have plenty of free or affordable writing events. I’m even considering the Deptford Literature Festival (East London) despite the long journey! Last year, I found @rewrite.club in London, which has been an incredible experience—connecting me with so many different writers.
Get on Social Media. I’m a bit adverse to giving this as advice because I, like many of you will be, are against the brain fog and burnout that goes hand-in-hand with social media. BUT since joining in 2017-ish it has helped me make valuable connections and even genuine friends. You are reading this post, (and I am writing it) because I met Joe the CEO of Authocracy through Instagram. Instagram isn’t the only place either, Discord is a great builder of communities and there are LOADS of groups and servers dedicated to people just like you from all over the world. Authocracy has its own servers too - if you weren’t already aware and are keen to join authors, RPG lovers and all-round decent human beings, I would recommend our lovely community too; you’re most welcome here. I’ve had friends from Social Media travel from the US to the UK and we’ve spent time together, I’ve been away on trips with groups of writers into London and Oxford through social media (many of us hadn’t ever met before!)
Start your own community. If there is nothing around you in the way of community, try building it yourself. You might think there aren’t any writers around you – but that’s likely because they’re hermit-ed away, working on their own projects just like you are. Many of the friends I made in the early days came about because I started my own book club on Instagram! It didn’t get many likes and at times it was a struggle, but I made connections with people that I still have to this day. This can take time and energy that you might think is taking away from your progress as a writer, I can assure you that it isn’t. Writing is about so much more than putting words on a page. I’m now planning a writers retreat to Wales because of these wonderful experiences (it’s a lot of work to organize! But it will be worth it in the long run).
Try something new. Writing is a completely unique experience, and you might not find your crowd in a library or on social media. Get yourself out to other creative events too. Someone who has been immensely helpful with my worldbuilding curses doesn’t write at all. I met another genuine soul through a music event, completely unrelated to writing. Creatives are everywhere! You just have to be bold enough to go out and find them ^.^ It can be scary, but I believe in you.
Where are the creatives? The simple answer here is that creative people are everywhere – you just have to be brave, patient and keep an open mind, sometimes the people we can connect with most don’t look like we expect them to. Reach out to anyone you can, if you tell someone about your project and they say ‘My friend writes too!’ Then ask to connect. Maybe nothing comes of it, or maybe you end up on a writers weekend retreat together in the next 6 months and you’re wondering to yourself how you got so lucky.
We are human, and instinctively, I think as writers we think we have to do this alone, but the truth is that we’re so much better together than we could ever be alone.
If you are struggling with finding your community, please do reach out to us at Authocracy, or me personally @crowslibraryofthings. The importance of Community cannot be understated. I know there are a lot of lonely writers out there struggling, thinking they are alone just like I did; I would love to help you find your tribe.
Bio
Danny Crow is a worldbuilder, writer and cartographer. He is also a fervent music lover, deep-thinker & long-distance runner; introvert and fellow weirdo. A creative since the early days, Danny is currently writing his debut novel while building communities for writers at every stage.