How to find your tribe

Spoiler alert: you create one

Every successful person has their crew of also successful people. Taylor Swift has her girl squad. Peter McKinnon has Matti Haapoja and Kirk Lepiten. Friends was a solid group of six. If people are the average of the five others they spend their time with, then surrounding myself with people I look up to will naturally lift me up to the group average.

When it came to my writing, I wanted to find my tribe.

First step: join a cohort-based writing course. Write of Passage couldn’t stop harping about the power of community. Long gone were the days of writing solo in a cabin. In the internet age, writing is social. Having a group of fellow writers will continuously oil my writing engines so that it can keep chugging, essay after essay.

My more experienced classmates seemed to all have their tribes. They exchange drafts. They encourage each other to keep writing. They have a weekly call where they catch up and deepen their relationships.

I didn’t graduate the spring 2023 cohort with one. I thought I was just unlucky. Many already had their own cliques. The people I was randomly paired up in Zoom breakouts with didn’t seem to be in need of an accountability group. There weren’t many folks in the Asia time zone either, so it was harder for me to connect with folks. But I’ll join the fall 2023 cohort again. And then I’ll have a writing group!

Another six weeks of intense writing passed, and I was still without a group. This time, I even had more interaction with folks because I was more familiar with the course. But still no candidates for an accountability group. How can that be?

I wanted to keep my writing going and valued these “gym sessions” that happened throughout the cohort. These hour-long sessions are dedicated to writing, brainstorming ideas, and exchanging feedback. One of the coaches,

Rik

, encouraged me to start a gym session with just a five-week commitment. Pick a time slot, share the Zoom link with the whole Write of Passage alumni and see who shows up. If many show up, great. If none showed up, then at least I had locked in five hours of writing.

During my first session, a handful of my classmates joined. By week three, some declared themselves as regulars. Every week, we rendezvous in a Zoom room and work on our essays. If I can’t make it to host a Zoom session, another friend will take over. Before I realized it, my five-week experiment had turned into a full year of meeting these folks weekly.

I found my writing group. My tribe. I didn’t find it by waiting to be invited to a group. I simply created one.

Sure, I don’t have a tight seven-person accountability group, but I have a wider, more fluid group that’s co-helmed by a few other classmates. Our WhatsApp group has 42 people. Around five show up every week to my sessions and a handful more show up to other weekly sessions. Many more lurk and chime in during off-gym hours. We share wins, express the need for encouragement, and of course — essay drafts.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to take a look at some essay drafts posted in the group chat.

Thank you to my tribe for this week’s essay:

Lavinia Iosub

,

Josh Ponelat

,

clare chai

.

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Update log:

• 😷 Caught a cold and learned that I need to rest the hard way. I once again went to work before I was recovered. Which knocked me back a few more days of being sick.

• 👾 I’m continuing with the Phoenix Wright series and have just started Spirit of Justice.

• 🎥 Watched two Detective Conan films: Black Iron Submarine and Black Iron Mystery Train.

• 🥡 Freezer is full of food I brought back from my parents’ house. It’s been a while. My heart feels full.

• 📖 Reading The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco (95% completed).

• ✈️ Mapped out travel plans for the rest of 2024. Early October: Melbourne. End October: Taipei. Anyone around?

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