The Gang

I joined a local writer's group through Meetup that started just recently.  We had our first session last night.  The group is pretty straightforward: sit down and write for two hours.  Quietly.  There was no workshopping and very little in the way of intros.

I was surprised by how much I did.  There was an hour of short story work followed by an hour of revisions.  After that, we spent about fifteen or twenty minutes going around the table speaking briefly about what we worked on.  The responses were pretty close to the chest, including mine.  A novel here.  A screenplay there.  Nothing about premises.  I guess we were all a little shy.  I passed along to one guy a suggestion on character descriptions that I heard from Justin Cronin when we met at Vroman's in Pasadena.  The guy, I think, took the advice with a hint of skepticism.  Perhaps I should have flipped him off with my MFA diploma, but I left that at home.

It was a pleasant evening aside from that minor discomfort.  We're having another writing session next Monday, but I'm a little wary because my tutoring schedule would conflict with it in a major way.  It's been a while since I've written alongside other people, so I'm willing to give this group a chance and see whether or not it'll make me more productive.