Several months ago, I joined a new community for women writers, She Writes, and then I never really participated in the site because with all the networking sites out there, I had a difficult time justifying the investment of my time into yet another social networking site.

The interface is a bit bewildering and chaotic but for the most part, the site seems interesting and offers resources and an active community for women writers. There’s a store selling the books of the site’s members, a blog, many different groups catering to many interests and occasional webinars where experts lead workshops and discussions on topics ranging from finding an agent to self-marketing. The eager, extremely instructive/self-help tone of the site seems to juxtapose awkwardly with the...