Thursday (23 May) - The Big Slam

Thursday (23 May) - The Big Slam

I attended my first meeting of the Go Be Write! (GBR) writer's group on Thursday night. The meeting was held at an eclectic bookstore called the Upstart Crow at the Seaport Village in San Diego.

Traffic was not as bad as I expected, so I arrived early. I hadn't been to the Seaport Village is awhile. It is mostly a tourist trap, but the beautiful view of San Diego Bay, the pleasant weather, excellent walking paths, and good restaurants make it worth a visit. I did some strolling before checking out the bookstore.

The Upstart Crow is a coffee house bookstore. It's a cozy nook of a place on two floors crowded with books, a coffee lounge, and numerous small tables for reading and relaxing. I liked it. Judi loves journals - the kind with decorative hard covers and fine, lined paper inside. The bookstore was well stocked with writing paraphernalia, so I got Judi a nice journal with a bird theme. No, I didn't find any featuring cats. Which seemed appropriate for a bookstore named the Upstart Crow.

It was obvious that a couple of patrons already settled in were part of the group. It was just as obvious that the young couple playing checkers on a three foot square checkerboard with coaster sized checkers were not part of the group. The couple found themselves later participating with the group whether they wanted to or not.

The organizer for the event, Sally, arrived shortly after I'd made my journal purchase and had found a place to sit. She must have a good memory for faces as she recognized me immediately from the photo on her website. Sally is energetic, fast talking, and operates at a kind of controlled frenetic pace. I had signed up for the event first, and Sally declared that meant I would be the first person to give a reading.

Oh, I just realized I hadn't described what the event was about. The "Thursday Night First Paragraph Slam" gives writer's an opportunity to read aloud a portion of their work. In the case of this particular event, we were to read the first paragraph and one of our stories. We would all vote on who had the best opening paragraph. There were no other rules, other than that the paragraph had to be relatively short. The two best entries would receive a copy of one of Sally's books.

We were about a half hour late getting started as many members had not shown up yet for the 6:30pm start. Those late arrivals got pleasant but pointed reminders to be on time. Her threat to disallow their votes was just that, threat only, and everyone got to vote, even random people who just happened to be in the store enjoying a latte during the reading. Sally eventually began checking off those who were here and those still missing. The first of the missing was declared to have been "killed in a car accident," and subsequent no shows joined the growing list of "presumed dead." All in the vein of graveyard humor, with an undercurrent of "you'd better be here and on time if you are serious about your craft."

I did get to do my reading - twice. I was the first to read, and I was asked to stand at the front of the narrow area. The folks at the back, however, could not hear me the first time, so I was asked to move to the center of the area and read it again. About twenty had signed up for the event, but there were only twelve who did readings, three men and nine women. Romance, young adult fiction, and memoirs were the main themes. I was the only writer of sci-fi/fantasy. In fact, Sally told a story of when she met the award winning sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick, and I was the only other person in the room who knew who he was. Ok, if you don't know the name, perhaps you'll know the movie. The movie "Blade Runner" was based on his novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."

I didn't win the contest, but I had a good time and met some nice people. The winner was a published author working on numerous projects. His first paragraph entry was good, but the selling point was really the back story he told before giving the reading. The story was based on a real person who spent 15 years in prison for the crimes detailed in the book.

I talked with Sally after the event. Many new members, like me, wanted to set up our own, smaller groups so that we could help each other. We made a list of those interested and broke it down by locality to make it easier to meet up. Sally said she would send out an email with further information on how to get started.

All in all it was a great first meeting for me.