Like damn near every litblogger, we too have a novel that we’ve been working on that is progressing at a slow but steady clip. (Yes, we never sleep around here.) While we’re loath to announce anything that isn’t particularly finished*, the whole point of this post is to seek fairly serious (serious about the art, but not humorless!) writers based in the Bay Area for a fiction writers group that is being put together right now with a few other nice and passionate people.
We hope that this group will be brutally honest, but encouraging. Ideally, candidates should have steady bullshit detectors, a working knowledge of literature (meaning you read at least a book every two weeks and know what omniscient voice is), and passion to boot. Good grammar and basic storytelling skills are musts.
We should point out that this will be the first writers group we’ve been involved with in a while. Our last foray into the writers group world proved catastrophic, with nearly all of the short stories being written in second person and one unnamed person going in detail about all the coke she sent up her nose the previous night. This person then explained to us in great detail about the drug-related debauchery she was planning on engaging in that very night and responded to our story with the observation “Cool, I guess, but what’s a panegyric?” She failed to elaborate beyond this.
We should point out that all this was many years after the publication of Bright Lights, Big City.
We later came home and sobbed over how we were seduced by this seemingly credentialed coterie (a few were MFAs) and how this (again unnamed!) writers group took us in for saps.
But we have faith in this new writers group. These people are on the level. So if you’re interested, do drop us a line. Email address is to the right.
* — To wit, the novel is so loosey-goosey and unhoned right now that one character has been temporarily named “Bill Dungsroman.” Hardy har har!
“We never sleep around here?” Scuttlebutt says there’s exactly where you sleep around!
Wanna migrate down to LA? (No, of course you don’t). I’d hop a plane north for a decent group, but the money part don’t work out no-how. Ah well.
I’m interested. What’s your email address? (not to the right, as promised)
I’m closing in on the end of the novel I’m working on, and I’d be interested in meeting with other novel writers. Let’s hook up.
Hi,
I’m a journalist of many years (“Google” my name to get a terrifying amount of virtual fishwrap) looking to break into fiction. Do I qualify? And more importantly perhaps, why do you speak of yourself (I assume it is just yourself) in the royal “we?”
Thanks for any info.
Best,
Heidi Kriz
Hi! I’m a brand new resident of Danville, CA. I was involved in an ongoing writer’s course for three years through the Adult Learning Center in Virginia Beach, VA. I’m anxious to find a group here in the Bay Area. I write a regular column on Moondance.org. You can go there to take a peek at my writing if you wish; look under the columns section. If you think I might be a good fit, please drop me an email. Thanks!