Last night was my new writing group’s annual dinner, and roughly three-quarters of the membership turned up, some with partners. It took place at a local “pub grub” chain pub where the building was nice, the food was nice and the service was… let’s just say that basic arithmetic induces terror in modern serving staff*.
Due to the unusual seating setup, I ended up seated by the secretary and his partner and was pretty much within shouting distance of two other people, so it made most of the evening a relatively close-knit chat. Though some of the people began moving around and chatting after the main course, so I got to chat with a few other people, too, and it was in general a lovely night.
If you are new to a writing group, or you have somehow not managed to attend your group’s annual dinner (or similar), I highly recommend you make the effort. If nothing else, you have a nice meal, a few drinks and the chance to socialise with people you have a great deal in common with… even if some of them write in genres that you don’t like or couldn’t imagine writing. The depth and breadth of the genres in my group is breathtaking, and I find each of them fascinating as I get to know the people who write in them.
If you’re a writer (or wannabe writer) and you’re still flying solo: join a writing group. It will broaden your horizons, expand your social circle, teach you a great deal about writing and how to read, and will provide opportunities that sitting at home are much less likely to do.
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* They wouldn’t let us pay individually, as there were thirty of us. They wouldn’t let us pay as a group, as the group’s official cheque book was a business-type account without a guarantee card. In the end we did manage to convince them to let us pay by tables, of which there were three. Then began the inevitable ‘But I only had the lentils!’ bean-counting common to groups the world over. When I’m King Of The World, it will become law that all group meals will be totalled up and divided evenly between everyone who participated in the meal. Seemples.
I wish I had a good local writing group. There are a few spec fic groups here, but they’re all completely inaccessible to me because of location and time or seem to be totally dead.