And so, Micki came out of her shell and waved hello to the others. (Via the Internet Archive)
You never know where a new direction is going to come from. Could be north, could be east . . . could be straight up from the ground, or pouring down from the heavens.
In my case, an old friend sent me an email out of the blue regarding a writer’s conference in Japan. I suspected there were a lot of writers in Japan (there certainly are a lot of bloggers!), but I felt like we might all be like hermit crabs, hiding in shells of English Teaching or maybe IT Endeavors. You really can’t tell who is a writer and who isn’t just by sight.
But now, the internet is a miracle for peeling off those shells and saying, “Hey! Here I am!” Some savvy person got a notice for the 2018 Japan Writers Conference into a little newsletter based in Sapporo, and my Sapporo-based friend sent it along to me (the hermit crab by the sea). And then when I went looking . . . wow! The conference has a social media presence! Here’s the tweet about the conference, and there’s a Facebook page, and there could be more. (-: Not in the first two pages of Google hits, but still. Their Social Media Presence Can Be Felt.
Looking at the tweet also provides a lot of information – for example, information about the Twitter accounts of 14 people who liked the tweet. One of them has written about mermaids in Lake Michigan, for goodness sakes! (I’ve got a mermaid seeking revenge in a fictional lake in upstate New York. Writer-soul mate? Maybe. At least, I’ll follow and see what happens.)
I don’t know if I’ll be joining them in Otaru this year, but it’s just exciting to know that there are fellow strivers in the room. I mean, I guessed. Now I know.
What’s your local writing scene like? What do you get when you google “My Area Writers”? Is it all black and white photos of writers dead and gone? Or is there a living presence of scribblers like you? Let me know! I’m so curious.
Eight Ladies Writing 
The local writing scene here in Podunk, I mean, Dayton, Ohio is amazingly rich and vibrant. That is, in part, because Dayton is a post-industrial rust-belt town, and it appears to be typical for those towns to turn to the arts as people have less money and more leisure. However, I think the larger part is due to the efforts of Fred Marion, a former newspaper journalist who sends out a weekly newsletter about what’s going on in the area, Darren McGarvey, a local high school teacher who runs a local writing school called Words Worth Writing Center (http://www.wordsworthdayton.com/) and Katrina Kittle, a local women’s fiction author and amazing teacher who teaches at Words Worth.
That sounds so amazing! It’s kind of scary about how so many of these cultural things turn on just a few people. Lots of people want to do something, but organization is a gift, and so is just the ability to show up at the same time and same place to write . . . . Right now, I know of two other local writers. One is moving in a few months, though, and the other has a lot on her plate with small children. Still, there ARE places in town that offer babysitting services. Or maybe we could rent two rooms and get a babysitter in there if we could find other writers with babies in the area. Hmmm.
We have a pretty busy writing scene in Phoenix, too, if you go by the number of writing events during NaNoWriMo (of which I attended none — I’d much rather sprint in the comfort of my jammies and heated foot rest). I think it’s wonderful that you’ve found a group of like-minded individuals in your neck of the woods, so to speak, and if nothing else, you may get a few critique partners out of it. I live for the weekly lunches I have with my two CPs. It’s a chance for us to swap chapters, talk story, and problem solve. Not that proximity is important, because Jilly and Jeanne do that via Skype, I think. But it’s nice being face to face once in awhile.
As for sharing knowledge, I’m doing my first Scrivener training this coming weekend for newbies who want to use it, but are a little intimidated by it. I’m happy to share what I know and hopefully get more people on the Scrivener bandwagon. Software training was my before-I-started-writing career, so it’ll be like falling back into old times.
Cool! Is the training through your local RWA chapter, or something else? I’m seeing a thread through here (-: Education is so important!