The Clerkenwell Group

I went to a creative writing group last night at the hip, funky, comfortable Three Kings pub in Clerkenwell (they have Deuchar's IPA on tap, always a good sign). I found these folks online, as we live in that kind of world these days, don't we, and didn't know what to expect. There is always the possibility going into one of these things blind that you might end up having to listen to some old biddy's five cycle epic poem on her allotment plot called The Tyranny of Slugs - and then try not to be too mean when you have to say what you thought of it.

But it was brilliant and all the work was strong, diverse work. In a way meeting by the web is beneficial. I suspect in creative writing programmes you have much of the same people. Middle class folk writing about the drudgery of the suburbs and marriage.

There was a lovely 74 year old lady there, a Hungarian who has lived in Paris for 40 years and recently come over to London. She is a web writer, putting her diaries, kept since a child, on her various blogs, along with photos and other musings. There was a funny exchange when she was talking about her diaries someone asked 'are you going to try to get these published?' And she said, 'But I publish every day.' Which I thought was quite a progressive, web 2.0 way to think. I noticed she posted some pics on her Flickr site of our meeting in a folder called Dare to Share.

I left the meeting inspired to finally round the bend and finish my long gestating and much-hyped novel. It was good to share it with some others - I have only shown it to one or two people whom I care about and trust. Strange that about 60,000 people read what I write every week in The Organ, yet creative stuff, I keep that close to the chest.