I’ve never been in a writing group that actually worked for me. Lots of nice people, often lots of interesting writing, but somehow, no. I did once suggest to a fella that rather than a group per se we should just set a challenge to write this or that by some time. That fella was Piers Beckley and, wow, did he take that on. For years, he would set a month’s challenge whereby an increasing number of us would agree to write a TV script, a play, all sorts of things, and we’d do it by a certain date.

No discussions of the work, unless you particularly wanted to. No notes, no plans, no debates. You wrote it and you delivered it to the group purely to prove that you had done the work. It really was quantity rather than quality in that the sole thing measured was whether you delivered on time. But it didn’t half work for me. Committing to something, knowing other people were waiting, it was an impetus to get writing. It was also liberating: worry about the details later, get the idea written down and finished first.

Ten or more years on from this, I’ve finally twigged that it was the accountability that I needed most. Obviously I need help with my writing – maybe I’m thinking professional help by people with earnest expressions and white coats, maybe I’m not – but that’s not what I need from a group. And it is usually all that a group can offer.

But I earned a place on Room 204, a Writing West Midlands programme, and one of its members, Jeff Phelps, set up a buddying system. A self-selecting subset of Room 204 people got writing buddies. Just a few of us. And I contributed one thing: my wife Angela Gallagher‘s recommendation that we try monthly buddying. Go around the whole group, one month at a time. It’s a shame when you get someone good and then have to leave them but it’s a huge relief if you get someone you can’t bear and yet know you’ve not got long to wait for freedom.

I think we’re almost through the first round of month buddying. And one good outcome for me is that I haven’t hated anyone, I’ve either been very fortunate in who I’ve paired up with or Writing West Midlands is very canny with who it selects for Room 204. The only bad outcome for me is that the month isn’t as long as you’d like. Christmas nobbled one month down to two weeks, too.

So we’re going to move to a two-month cycle shortly but otherwise everything’s the same and I recommend everything.

Particularly this. At the start of each month, I now send my new writing buddy a list of the three things I really need to work on during our time together. That’s it. The idea is Yasmin Ali‘s and she was my first writing buddy so I stole it from her and use it every time. And every time I’ve used it, I’ve said it’s Yasmin’s idea and every one of my subsequent writing buddies has said yes, they know, they’ve stolen it too, isn’t it great?

You get the focus of picking three things and then you get the accountability that the buddy on the end of that email or Skype or FaceTime or phone or across the coffeeshop table knows what you should be doing and you have to tell the bastard when you’re not.

Accountability. When you work for yourself, it can be hard to do. And it can become contrived if you force it. But find the right group of writing buddies and I’m finding it works a huge and enormous treat.