Writing Buddies 2014

You don’t need to write on your own.

AOG, Madrid

A few years ago, when I was living in London, I came up with the idea of the ‘writing buddies’.

It was just a group of people, some of whom I’d met through participation at various writing workshops around the city, and I, who endeavored to meet up once a week, sometimes more, to write.

The idea was similar to gym buddies, those people who only go to the gym because you are going to the gym.

And the only reason you are going to the gym is because they are going to the gym. So you go to the gym. And you work out. And it all is less of a struggle if there is someone with you for the duration.

It was one of the best ideas I’ve had, and it worked for all of us. From coffee shops in Soho, to a friend’s large Victorian home in Finsbury Park, we very quickly became an encouraging support group of sorts.

Sometimes we would just sit in silence and write. At other times we would read our stuff out to people, giving them our feedback.

Yes, since then I have discovered that I was not the only person on Earth to dream this up, and that other people have been doing it too, but I digress.

It was a very supportive and creative environment, one which benefited me greatly and which, once here, I tried to recreate in Spain.

“A writer who doesn’t write is looking for writing buddies…”

When I first moved to Madrid, I placed an ad on an online paper, looking for buddies. Only three people replied.

Well, four if I count the over-apprehensive lady who might not have understood what the group was about.

I met the first of them, David, in Santa Ana square and we went for a drink at a nearby German bar. We talked for hours. About writing, life, women, love, Spain, politics. Basically everything.

We became friends and would often meet up. But not to write.

In fact, we never wrote together.

We would tell each other our writing projects, problems, etc, but we never sat down to write, just talk.

We became friends.

“I will hate you for the rest of my life.”

The second of my ‘buddies’ I met at Madrid’s Café Comercial, one of the capital’s literary cafés.

I saw a guy who was sitting down and I approached him, not really knowing if it was him or not.

“Hi, are you Ricardo?” He said no, and just as I was feeling mortified and started apologizing, he laughed, got up, and shook my hand. I was slightly taken aback, but ok, it was funny.

I did say to him half jokingly that I would hate him for that for the rest of my life.

Ricardo is from Chile, and he lives with his family in Zurich now- but when they lived in Spain, he and I would meet up frequently to show each other what we were working on, and discuss it.

He had a novel which we would discuss and which I always thought I would have bought if I’d come across it on a book store. He never listened to my comments, but he was always interested in knowing what I had to say.

Guess what? Ricardo and I also never sat down to write together.

The third person to answer my ad was Pablo. A guy in his early 20's from Huesca province.

We got along like a house on fire from the start and, yes, he and I would actually meet and write together.

We did this for close to a year before, well, before life happened, as it often does.

He went home on vacation, then came back, then both he and I never could get our schedules in order. I was out, he was working, I was working, he was busy. We were both busy, or tired, or working, or away, or…

Well, eventually we stopped meeting.

It was, in part, this situation which made me start looking for writing buddies once again. I didn’t find them, but I did come across the Madrid Writer’s Club back in November 2012.

Not long ago I was having a drink with the founder of the Club, and I told him about the buddy system.

He liked it and started the Madrid Writing Buddies group on Meetup.com. A couple of the group’s member have taken full advantage of this, and I am nothing if not chuffed that this is all going on.

I have to say that, although I can’t fully immerse myself in the writing buddies group that’s been created (time limitations), I am glad it exists. And I’m glad I can just post a time and a place and that someone out there will want to get together and write. Or not.

Yes, summer is around the corner, and some of our Club’s members are away until Fall.

No matter. The important thing is to get writing. To continue writing. Sometimes, to just start writing.