http://www.canadianwriterssummit.com/If you're a writer seeking more on the craft of writing, you're in the right place. Along with reading other writers' work comes learning from them.

Learning From Other Writers
 
To measure the growth in your writing, you’d have to go back to some of your early pieces and reread them. If you are a member of a critique group, look at some marked-up pages to see what your fellow writers suggested, or you could also look at judge’s comments on contest material you have previously submitted.

J. A. Menzies, mystery writer and author of **Glitter of Diamonds: The Case of the Reckless Radio Host, enjoys the game of baseball she writes about in this book, but she studies forensics and police procedures to ensure she gets the details right. In addition, she’s a member of Crime Writers of Canada and Toronto Sisters in Crime, an avid reader of mysteries, and an amazing networker with hundreds of followers.

Learning from others takes various forms. Here are three ways:

1. Listen carefully to feedback in a critique group meeting: Learn from authors who have similar aspirations to write well. Do they have experience to share?
2. Study other writers’ work: Kevin Sylvester, illustrator, broadcaster and Silver Birch award-winning author of Neil Flambé and Gold Medal for Weird, says, “I try to write the kind of books I like to read. …And I write like I talk, in a conversational style as if we’re sitting around a campfire.”
3. Attend events for writers. At a writer’s conference, you’ll learn from people successful in the publishing industry. Consider Write Canada 2016 held in Toronto, Ontario, this June, or the Inscribe conference held in late September each year and serves Western Canada. Also CanWrite! (by the Canadian Authors' Association) held yearly in Canada, is being absorbed in the Canadian Writers Summit for 2016.

 
You will always find good books on writing, but personally I enjoy getting out and meeting other writers. It’s refreshing, kind of like a trip to the water cooler. Get out, meet people, go places, talk to others and try new things, then you’ll have things to write about when you return to your desk. Your stories and experiences are the best resource for your next creative piece.
 
Organizations for writers:
Canadian Authors’ Association
The Word Guild
Inscribe Christian Writers Fellowship
CANSCAIP for those who write, illustrate, or perform for children
Professional Writers Association of Canada
 
Other online sites for writers:
Writers’ Digest
EduChoices.org
 
**Free ebook of this title on the author’s website until the end of April, when you subscribe to the update newsletter.
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Dear Disillusioned Writer,

There’s so much to learn, isn’t there? Writer’s guidelines and grammar, the struggle with making the words sound right, and a hard time getting published. Ready to give up? You are not alone. Every writer receives rejections, even J. K. Rowling of the Harry Potter series. Those rejections of her first manuscript must have been painful too, but she never gave up. We all know what happened next.

Consider this. When you learned to ride a bicycle, you wobbled a little at first. You fell down and scraped your knees. Perhaps you were lucky enough to have someone hold on to the back of the bike, much like a writing mentor who stood by your side on those first tries.

You really want to ride that bike, not for the sake of a prize, but because you see others having fun, and you want to do it too. You learn the rules of the road and practise and try again. Then you ride easily, find freedom and feel the wind in your hair.

The rules of the road are the grammar and guidelines, boring yet necessary to know. Revisions go with it. Rejections are your scrapes and bruises that in time may hurt less, or not. They happen to all writers. Get back on that bicycle and you’ll get better with practice.

When a reader sends a message, unbidden, that your story or anecdote made them feel they were not alone, that it inspired or entertained them, that’s the wind in your hair as you ride fast and coast down a hill. You’re making progress. Perhaps you feel whole and right with the world when you write, whether it’s a poem, a story, or a note of encouragement to another.

Like the person learning to ride a bicycle, it takes time. Write because you want to, and if you win a prize for something well done, consider it a bonus. Keep on and do your best, because with practice, your writing will improve. If you fall, climb back on that bicycle and give it another try.
 

Carolyn Wilker, author of Once Upon a Sandbox [available soon as an ebook], contributor to anthologies Hot Apple Cider with Cinnamon, Grandmothers’ Necklace, Wisdom of Old Souls as well as poetry, articles and devotionals.