: I don't think it helps that a lot of the personality today is "I want it done, and now, and instantly, and be perfect, and if you say it's not I don't care because I did it, so therefore

@BetL639

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I don't think it helps that a lot of the personality today is "I want it done, and now, and instantly, and be perfect, and if you say it's not I don't care because I did it, so therefore it is perfect". Then when they get turned down, they scoff at the system and blaming it for being "out dated" or bothersome... so they go to the self publication route thinking they can do better there, only to end up 90% of the time utterly disappointed.

I think also, we have a lack of people dedicating themselves to writing. If there is one thing I gathered from this site, only the elite of the elite writers can turn this into a full time well paying gig.

For the rest of us mortal humans, it's a side hobby/job. Due to this, the desire to be the next Tolkien is few and far between as only people with the drive will be willing to go into an area that truthfully does not pay well for the average person.

This will then translate into low turn out, and low quality of material for critique groups. Probably most of them are filled with your average dreamer like myself who probably has no business even attempting to write a book but is anyways. This then gets frustrating for people of higher skill quality as they lack the equal to soundboard off of and they stop showing up.

People's lives are also busy. Kids, work, bills, running around doing chores, distractions. We have SO many more distractions these days than in the past. This takes away from the quality of writing people will do, and the volume of writing people will do. Instead of the average writer turning out say 100,000 words in a month, this could be reduced to 50 or even 10,000 and lack the focus needed to feel they are able to show up to these groups.

I can also attribute the same sentiment that the internet is more helpful. I feel this way especially for medical issues. "Why pay 100 dollars for a doctor visit to tell me I have a cold when for free I can go online see I have a cold and use the nyquil in my closet". There are tons of guides out there for writing and helpful tips. The bigger issue is knowing which advice is good to follow and not overwhelming yourself with the amount of information out there.

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