Authors Electric

We come here to jam once a month with our friends in the swinging saloon called AE. Let me start off with this definition…so I don’t get in a stickier jam with those who think I mean jelly: A   jam session   is a musical event, process, or activity where musicians play (i.e. "jam") by improvising without extensive preparation or predefined arrangements. Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material (music), find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session . To some extent, AE’s unique structure precludes an exact parallel: 29 writers who post once each month does not precisely equal a group of six musicians who hook up every Sunday. True. But we have enough in common to pursue the metaphor. In fact, the metaphor’s enriched by another significant difference:   our ‘solos’ can continue in the Comments section to our posts…and we’re free to sound off in the Comments to our colleagues’ posts. In the...

Writing can be a lonely business. Whether you live alone or are married and/or have a large family, the act of committing your imagination to paper or computer is highly personal – just you and your words against the world. Of course I’m discounting all the people that live in your head and whisper to you at odd hours of the day – if I admitted I talked to imaginary people, I’d have even less of a social life than I do already! It’s slightly different in the 21 st century – the internet helps us connect to other like-minded people, sharing ideas and offering support across the world via facebook, blogs and even sites set up specifically for writers to share their work. These can help even the most isolated of writers to talk to people who understand what it’s like to sometimes feel you are living two lives at the same time. But you can't beat physically meeting up with other writers. Whether it's to share work in progress or just socialise, you know you are with people ...