Tastes Better Than It Looks
Writing groups have always been fairly popular with authors.
It’s a good place to talk craft. Get feedback on your work and just be one with the written word. However in the digital age of indie publishing they have taken a bit of a back seat.
More and more authors meet up online on forums, chat rooms, Facebook, Goodreads and even on Google Hangouts. While physical writing groups still exist (and do well) they like many physical places have to take a back seat to our ever growing reliance on technology.
This past Friday I had a chance to meet two indie authors in person for the first time. I’ve met authors before at a local writing group. I’ve met others at conventions and book signings, then mostly as a fan. It’s the first time I’ve met two people in the flesh that have gone the indie route.
Demelza Carlton who is a Perth based writer (like me) and a fan of this podcast was one. Erica Conroy was the other. She is based in New Zealand, and was visiting Perth with her husband.
We chatted for several hours about writing, publishing, marketing and a bunch of other things. We laughed. We talked strategy. We talked about podcasting and other ways to get noticed in this busy environment.
We ate food. They were smart and ordered the tasty looking chilli beef chips (fries for our American friends) and I chose the small chips and gravy. The large plate looked a bit much for one person to handle for a light lunch snack. It was priced around $7.50 (Perth is expensive at the best of times) so I took the smaller option. I was rather shocked when one of the smallest plates in the history of man (it looked like a saucer) came out, with chips somehow piled on it. It was coated in thick brown gravy that found more time on the table than in my mouth.
I enjoyed the experience and getting to know both Erica and Demelza outside of the chat space of this website, Google+ and Twitter.
Have you had a chance to meet up with other indie authors in your city or on travels?
What did you talk about? Did you enjoy it more being face to face than online?
I’d love to hear your author meet up stories in the chat below.
My first response to seeing the title of this post was, “Oh ^^%%$%^&**.”
Second…yeah, mate, you should have ordered the chili chips. Yours was definitely on a saucer.
And third…I actually panicked and turned around to go home, because I was terrified of meeting two other authors I’d spoken to on a Google Hangout. I’m pleased I didn’t, though, because it was seriously cool to be able to talk to another author – let alone TWO! – face to face. With chips.
It was horrible! Carl’s beard is an evil malevolent entity that tried to take over our minds and coerce us to the bearded side.
Seriously though, it was a good meet up. Even my husband had a good time (he had potato wedges and sour cream on a plate the same size as Carl’s chips and gravy). We should do it again sometime, especially if you come out to NZ 😀
BatmanErica I’ll be back home in NZ in December. Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin at this stage. Had fun meeting your husband too. He looked slightly concerned by our book chatter at times though.
Demelza Carlton as I said on Friday, it wasn’t as big of a deal for me as I’ve gone overseas to meet online people before. My husband was an online person–granted he lived only an hour away at the time 😀
Carl Sinclair he might have appeared concerned on the outside, but he was fine. Trust me, he puts up with a lot from me 😛
BatmanErica Demelza Carlton I know…I was the only one who was scared. Admittedly, the evil, malevolent entity of a beard was more reassuring than I expected.
We should probably also point out that Carl Sinclair took the photo of his lunch after he’d eaten half of it, so there was more to that poo-splosion above.
Demelza Carlton yes and it was nice to see the rest of the face for the ‘unaging eye’ 🙂 You also found out that I am not in fact business cat and I also do not wear a collar and tie.
BatmanErica Carl Sinclair Lies
Carl Sinclair not my fault you weren’t hipster enough to think of taking the photo before you started eating it 😛
BatmanErica Carl Sinclair I was still in shock about the ridiculous plate.
Sounds a bit like when I first met other sports fans I met online through message boards, who have subsequently become good real friends.
I met a bunch of Indies at the event Kobo held at their head office back in December, which was a blast.
I’ve been wanting to find a good fit of a regular writing hangout with other indie fantasy authors just starting to publish novel-length work, to talk craft, share work, and grow together. I’ve been a part of a local writing group that was way too diverse (children vs thriller vs memoir vs poet) and didn’t fit at all, and am currently a part of one that meets by hangout but we’re all in driving distance, but still ranges a bit in interest (sci-fi shorts vs literary novel vs contemporary novel). It was still fun meeting the ladies in person when we met up at a local spec-fic colloquium.
Anyone looking for something similar?
JamieMaltman There are a couple of fairly active fantasy writing communities on Google+
I happen to write fantasy as well. I love to talk about it. Would be more than to happy to get a few together and do some fantasy focussed Hangouts at some point.
I’ve been around some of those G+ communities and have been scouting around some message boards too. It was listening to Jamie and Cristin recently on your podcast here that got me wanting the right fit of fantasy authors to connect to. I was thinking of dropping you a line about it, but it seemed to relate well to your question here so I tacked it onto my comment. I’ll shoot you a message on G+.
I guess it’s easy to feel a bit isolated as a writer so meeting up with like minded folks can be so helpful. I’ve had the chance to meet up with a few fellow erotica writers late last year, only one of whom I had spoken to online before. Quite scary, but only beforehand, once everyone starts talking about all the same sort of stuff (writing, publishing, whatever), things work themselves out. And (are we allowed to mention competitors? 😉 ) the Rocking Selfpublishing Podcast London meetup was great fun as well.