Last week, I went to my second monthly writer’s group meetup on Thursday. It was a much smaller meetup this time with only 6 of us compared to around 15 last time (Easter weekend was right around the corner and the lousy weather might have had something to do with it). But it was a lot more comfortable for me, and we still got some writing and sharing done (faster sharing, for sure!).
This meetup was similar to last time, some writing prompts to work with for 10-15 minutes then optional sharing. The prompts were harder to work with for me this time, though it seemed most of us had difficulty. I think shorter, more vague prompts are easier to work with and interpret with our own creativity. This time, the prompts were longer and more elaborate, more of a story summary than a prompt, and it left much less room for our own ideas. I only have one story worth sharing this time (I didn’t even get close to finishing one of the others).
Prompt: Someone wakes up after a night of heavy drinking to find themself in the hospital.
The big news from the meetup is that a new replacement for running the group has been found and will be joining next time. Since this was only my second time attending, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of things we do going forward, and what the average attendance looks like.
But that’s not all!
Another member mentioned that she and another (who wasn’t there) started a weekly meetup at another library on Mondays (the one right around the corner from where I live!) and invited anyone who wanted to join. Since it’s so much closer, I decided to go. Another member from the monthly group also attended.
This meetup was just a quiet writing session rather than using prompts as a writing exercise, so I worked on a few scenes and an outline for a story I’ve been working on. The other new member ended up reading a draft of that same story and leaving some feedback (she didn’t feel like writing and offered to read), which is what I had been hoping for since joining a writer’s group! She enjoyed the story and left some really good feedback. And her main suggestion was exactly what I was outlining to fix! It’s great meeting other writers who operate on a similar wavelength.
Unfortunately, walking to the library in spring was a bad idea. I was totally knocked out the next day from allergies. It was worth it, but maybe next week I’ll take transportation.
A small bonus update, my Japanese language books finally arrived! The Kanji book arrived a while ago while the other 3 books (in one shipment) sat around for nearly 2 weeks before they finally shipped. At least I can now get started.
Thomas P. King, author and game designer 