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Heart, Soul, and Rough Edges — A Gypsy Journey of Words and Wonder

Archive for the month “March, 2012”

30 Mar 2012
1 Comment

Make Visible: Aragman

I made my anagram poem, an Aragman, from a line from “A Blessing”, a beautiful poem by James Arlington Wright.  I found 6001 anagrams for “contain their happiness.”  I chose the ones I used for the poem below from the first 1000.

Here are the basic rules for constructing an Aragman (courtesy of Mary Jensen, her post is here: Focus on Form:  Aragman).

*****************************************************************************

Rules

The poem consists of six-line stanzas, ending with a stand alone line.

The concept centers around anagrams (“aragman” is, in fact, an anagram of “anagram”). Here are the rules, as set by Buttaci:

  1. First of all, begin with a word or two, perhaps your first name or first and last name. Settle on a word or two with not too many letters.
  2.  After you settle on a word, go to the internet site http://Wordsmith.org/anagram
  3. Type in your word and click on “Get Anagrams.” Instantly, you will be provided with all the words that use the letters of your chosen word.
  4. Copy/paste all the words that are derived from your chosen word and carry it over to your Microsoft Word screen, give the file a name, and save it.
  5. Now take a look at each of the anagrams and decide on a few for your aragman. You will need three for each six-line stanza. From the list select those anagrams that can be woven into your poem.
  6. In each stanza, odd-numbered lines 1, 3, and 5 are different anagrams from your list. If it’s possible, restrict each anagram on these lines to the same number of syllables. Make these anagram lines darker than the others. Even-numbered lines 2, 4, and 6 are completions of corresponding anagram lines 1, 3, and 5. If possible, let these completion lines also conform to the same number of syllables.
  7. The poem’s last line stands alone, after the stanzas, and it is one more anagram line.

The trick for this is finding a good phrase or word that will produce enough workable anagrams. Have fun trying different word combinations until you find something you like.

******************************************************************************

Those are the rules, here’s how to break them.

Contain Their Happiness

(you are a blessing to me)

You speak to me in code, tapping on my wrist,

heartaches pinion pints

the pinions of my heart, the engines of my mouth,

apothecaries ninth spin

the bottle spins, “Drink Me” the tag reads,

piranhas cops ninetieth

he’s not like the others, for the 90th time,

partisanship once thine

I cleave you, we break apart,

pharaohs incites tenpin

like bowling in bikinis, it’s a delicate dance,

antenna choppiest irish

radio only gets U2 songs from the 80s, vinyl varieties,

passionate chip thinner

to fit into your white-picket-fence vision, let me

phantasies enrich point

enter your dreams, as you have mine,

catnap pithiness heroin

such a diabolical drug in my veins.

© Anne Westlund

Point Judith, Rhode Island

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Posted in Creative Writing, Focus on Form, Make Visible, Poetry and tagged , , , ,
27 Mar 2012
5 Comments

Focus on Form: Aragman, Lin Style

Angel 013

Angel 013 (Photo credit: Juliett-Foxtrott)

This week’s poem, an aragman, was a real challenge for me.

I generated over 2000 anagrams with the link http://Wordsmith.org/anagram using my pets’  names and saved the results to a Word document. I then picked about 50 that appealed to me which I could see had potential as leading lines into my choice of non-anagram words.

I put them into 2 six-line stanzas starting as odd number lines, even numbers my choice of words, with a single anagram as the closing line. There are rules suggested for syllables which I dare to say I ignored- I was having enough of a problem getting the poem to make some sort of cohesive whole! My favorite anagram I couldn’t work in was “Gale omen sky” so maybe I can use that and some of the other left-over bits in a new project.

Here is my effort:

Smokey Angel

-an Aragman-

Gleams key on          

St. Peter’s belt

As elegy monk

Drowns his sorrows

La genome sky

Hovers over all

Angels key Om

Praising abounds

Make yes long

Open golden gates as

Gale monkeys

Laugh in storm like

Leaky gnomes

© 2012 Lin Neiswender

Posted in Creative Writing, Creativity, Focus on Form, Inspiration, Lines by Lin, Poetry and tagged , ,
22 Mar 2012
1 Comment

Focus on form: My Aragman

Tuesday, Mary posted about a new form, Aragman:

here is a quick recap

Pick a word or words, and generate anagrams by going to http:// wordsmith.org/anagram and generating a list

Pick some anagrams. They form lines 1, 3, and 5 of your stanza.

Complete the phrases in lines 2, 4, and 6.

The very last line of the poem is another anagram.

Hint: check out the parameters for advanced search.  The word I chose,  perturbations, had an overwhelmingly large number of anagrams, so I first generated the word list  — simply a list of all the words that can be generated from Perturbations. There were over 1400 of them. Then I picked a few,  and went back to the advanced options, inserting the word I picked and generating all the anagrams with that word.

Here are some of the anagrams I liked — some of them made it into my poem:

Spurn Abettor I
Spurn beat riot
Obstinate Purr
Protuberant Is
Interrupt Boas
Abrupt Stonier
Abrupt Orients
Parson tribute
Repair Buttons
Uproars bitten
Bare tint pours
A Burrito Spent
Bare Iron Putts
Barter tin opus
Boater tips urn

and here are some of the words:

Protuberant
Interrupts
Reputation
Stationer
Terrapins
Abruptest
Obstinate
Transpire
Rapturise
Interrupt
Baritones
Printouts
Prostrate
Patronise
Restraint
Unbaptise
Atropines
Transport
Eruptions
Serration
Portraits
Patterns
Superior
Urinates
Trustier
Nitrates
Eruption
Portrait
Abettors
Transept
Portents
Patients
Notarise
Strainer
Tarriest
Anterior
Pertains
Puritans
Baronies
Snottier
Straiten
Subpoena
Unripest
Urbanest
Raptures
Robuster
Unpraise
Reprints
Petunias

Here is my Aragman

Perturbations

Typdom, Buchstabenspiel in Kreuzwortmanier, al...

Typdom, Buchstabenspiel in Kreuzwortmanier, alte Ausgabe von etwa 1930 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Uproars bitten
create havoc
Top Sun Arbiter
taken in custody
Repairs button
torn in riot

Bare iron puts
dent in car
Boater tips urn
douses new mayor
Urban spite tore
our city apart

I spurn abettor

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Posted in Creative Writing, Focus on Form, Margaret's Musing and tagged , , , ,
20 Mar 2012
4 Comments

Focus on Form: Aragman

Welcome to Focus on Form. For the next three weeks, each of us Muselings will be writing a poem in the same form and sharing it here on the blog. 

Aragman

Aragman (pronounced “a rag man”) is a fairly new form, created by Sal Buttaci in 2005. All poetry forms have to start somewhere! I’m not sure where I first heard about this style, but the notes for it have been sitting in my poetry folder for years now. I figured this would be an ideal time to pull it out and try something new.

Rules

The poem consists of six-line stanzas, ending with a stand alone line.

The concept centers around anagrams (“aragman” is, in fact, an anagram of “anagram”). Here are the rules, as set by Buttaci:

  1. First of all, begin with a word or two, perhaps your first name or first and last name. Settle on a word or two with not too many letters.
  2.  After you settle on a word, go to the internet site http://Wordsmith.org/anagram
  3. Type in your word and click on “Get Anagrams.” Instantly, you will be provided with all the words that use the letters of your chosen word.
  4. Copy/paste all the words that are derived from your chosen word and carry it over to your Microsoft Word screen, give the file a name, and save it.
  5. Now take a look at each of the anagrams and decide on a few for your aragman. You will need three for each six-line stanza. From the list select those anagrams that can be woven into your poem.
  6. In each stanza, odd-numbered lines 1, 3, and 5 are different anagrams from your list. If it’s possible, restrict each anagram on these lines to the same number of syllables. Make these anagram lines darker than the others. Even-numbered lines 2, 4, and 6 are completions of corresponding anagram lines 1, 3, and 5. If possible, let these completion lines also conform to the same number of syllables.
  7. The poem’s last line stands alone, after the stanzas, and it is one more anagram line.

The trick for this is finding a good phrase or word that will produce enough workable anagrams. Have fun trying different word combinations until you find something you like.

Examples

Here are a few stanzas from Buttaci’s original poem, based off his first name:

SENDING SALVATORE SOME ANAGRAMS

A slaver to
the labor of wordplay
A travel so
vicariously thrilling
A vast lore
from which to dabble

Altas over
a hefting of strong words
A rave slot
machine to pull down poems
Area volts
zapped in poetic lines

Tear salvo
from the broken-hearted
Tears oval
and wet flow down faces
Alas, voter!
it’s time to add your name to

Art as love 

© 2005 Salvatore Buttaci

And here is my own poem. For my first attempt, I decided to make a tribute to this group:

MUSELINGS

Mingles us
in lingering chats
Less in mug
as we drink, think
In sums gel
the words we play

Lines smug
from much revision
Single sum
we come together
Smile sung
our words do ring

El Musings

Your Turn

Now I open it up to you. I welcome any feedback on my poem, as long as it is constructive and not destructive. Let’s help each other improve.

I’d love to see your own attempts at the form as well. You can post them in the comments here, on future posts, or link to your poem if it’s on a separate site. I hope you have fun with the Aragman.

Posted in Creative Writing, Focus on Form, Poetry and tagged , , , , ,
15 Mar 2012
3 Comments

The Artist's Way, an interim Report

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher C...

The Artist's Way book cover

The Artist’s Way is a book by Julia Cameron which turned into a movement on tapping into on creative potential. The book is divided into twelve chapters, one each week for twelve weeks. The core of the practice is the morning pages, 750 words that one is supposed to write longhand first thing every morning, and the artists date, a date with oneself to do something to nurture one’s creativity.

I have been through the book before. At the time, I did write longhand, although I usually fell short of three pages. I did write them fairly early in the morning. Now however knowing the limits of my concentration and my major, major dislike of writing anything by hand, I signed up with a website , 750words.com. The site is meant for morning pages and the like– not a blog, stuff is private, but it keeps you on track by

  1. Emailing you a reminder every morning,
  2. Keeping a count at the bottom of the screen so I can see your progress towards 750 words, and
  3. Awarding points for successfully doing ones pages 4. stats — it tells me how fast I types, how many words per minute, etc –
  4. Statistics.It tells me how fast many words per minute I typed, and the like.

I find the statistics surprisingly motivating. I’m a pretty fast typist, and when I’ve finished my allotment, I take a look at how long it took me and what my words per minute rate was. My rate is generally pretty consistent.

I’m finding that the discipline of having to produce 750 words is a key, for me, to tapping into creativit part of the experience for me. It’s long enough so that I have to find a fair amount of stuff to blurt out, which means I actually have to dig down and figure out what’s on my mind. I know that I’m not going consistently produce 750 words/three pages if I wrte them by hand, so in spite of the fact that writing by hand taps into a different area of the brain than typing, this is the best solution for me . I don’t delete the reminder until I’ve completed my pages.

As to the artists date, last time I went thru the book, I was convinced that the artists date had to be something big, and I never seemed to get to it. This time I know it can be something simple, like treating my self to a trip to the bookstore, or following thru on my commitment to get to yoga..

How is it going so far? Last week I went to the bookstore and loved over a book I was thinking of buying, spending an hour or so drinking coffee and reading the first chapter. I decided to borrow it from the library. This week, I followed through on my commitment to go to yoga. I’ve been twice this week to the Ashram around the corner. They have loads of classes, some of them free, and great instructors.I’m also finding that the discipline of producing 750 words every morning is making it easier for me to decide what to write.

Here is a link to an online community devoted to Julia Cameron’s ideas:

http://juliacameronlive.com/

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Posted in Creative Writing, Margaret's Musing and tagged , , , ,
14 Mar 2012
7 Comments

Meet Magdalena Ball, author of Black Cow

We’re excited to host Magdalena Ball — poet, fiction writer, mentor, friend we’ve not had the pleasure of meeting in person (yet) — as she travels cyberspace to share her latest book Black Cow. Most stops on her schedule focus on the novel and writing fiction. Here, she’s at home in poetry, and gave us permission to post the poem that started the story.

Poetic Muselings:  Maggie, welcome to the Poetic Muselings blog! You are to blame, you know, for what we as a group have accomplished.

Maggie Ball:  I enjoyed writing writing that blog post, and was so proud of what you’ve accomplished with Lifelines. But blame? Perhaps your readers should take a look at the post:  Am I Really to Blame?

PM: Is there anything you’d LIKE to talk about that doesn’t come up in on your book tour?

MB:  Would love to talk poetry.  I know that seems odd in the context of a fiction book tour, but for me I always start with poetry – the impression, the irritation, the itch.

I even began Black Cow as a poem many years ago (it’s published in my poetry book Repulsion Thrust) as I always do with fiction, getting the general overall feeling and theme I want clarified in poetic form before I begin to work on the formal structuring, characterisation and plotting.

So, since I know no one else will ask me if there’s anything I’d like to talk about (thank you!), I thought I’d provide the whole poem in its entirety.  When you read the book, and for anyone visiting who has read the book, I’d be interested in how close to my original conception I came.

PM: We love exclusives! Thank you. We have your poem at the end of this interview.

PM: As I began reading Black Cow, I was struck by your startling poetic images to describe the mundane. Freya, your “Mom” character scratched out a tiny bit of time for herself to workout, in an early scene. She isn’t doing it to feel better, but because it’s another thing that’s expected of her. I loved the language about grabbing a bite to eat:

“Talk about insect morphology. She felt like an arthropod right now, her mandibulate mouthparts working quickly to munch down a late lunch in the car on the way to the office.”

This is Kafka meets American Beauty! Can you share something about your process?

MB:  Well I must say I like “Kafka meets American Beauty”  (better than the “Dilbert meets The Good Life” riff I’ve been bandying about!). You know, aside from being a long time fan of Kafka’s (and Gregor Samsa was definitely on my mind when I wrote James’ character), I’m also a fan of American Beauty, and the idea of a stressed out real estate agent has been on my mind since seeing (several times) Annette Bening’s “I will sell this house today” scene followed by that amazing scream  So you’ve really nailed it, and maybe even nailed my process as well in a very tasty soundbite. 

A character or image will lodge itself in my head and won’t go away until it’s driving me crazy enough to want to write about it.  The idea of our modern obsession with ‘success’ and the way in which we’re driven harder by financial trouble rather than reorienting is something that I also couldn’t shake.  My first novel, Sleep Before Evening, was very much about youth and art as my female Portrait of the Artist.   

For Black Cow I really wanted to play around with middle-aged creativity and the work-life balance in the context of recession, financial crisis, and consumerism of the sort that is rampant in American Beauty.  So these were the motivating principles.  I always begin with a poem or two, then a story, and then I usually begin mapping out the scenes and structure and characters of the novel, getting the nitty gritty in place before I can then go and write more scenes.

PM: Do you have a favorite scene in Black Cow? If so, what makes it so?

MB: I quite like the scene where the family arrives at Cradle Lake in Tasmania for their first holiday.  Mainly because it’s so beautiful there, I was able to just give in to the utter pleasure of the scene and describe it, but also because it’s a real epiphany for them all – a kind of turning point when they’re so stunned by the natural beauty of the place –the magic of reality to use Dawkins’ phrase, that it wakes them up, just a bit, becoming a catalyst for everything that happens afterwards.

PM: What else can you tell us about the poetry of Black Cow?

MB: I wasn’t quite so free and easy in quoting other people’s poems as I was in Sleep Before Evening, but Wordsworth does get a look in, as does The Prose Eddas, a fairly important collection of Icelandic mythology generally thought to have been written by Snorri Sturluson in the year 1220.  This work is a combination of prose and poetry but has a rhythm, and many references to poetry and Norse mythology which also picks up on Freya’s name and background.

PM: Any other questions you wish you’d be asked as you wander around the universe?

MB: I suspect that people will want to know where to pick up a copy (and will want one straightaway!), so they could just hive off right now to Amazon’s Kindle shop and be reading the book within seconds.  Apple has it too, as does Nook. It’s also available in print on Amazon, Book Depository (free worldwide shipping!), BeWrite Books (my publisher) and other good bookstores (you could just ask for it in your local shop).  For anyone who wants to check out an excerpt, they can visit: this page.  Or can check out the Black Cow Book Trailer

I’m more than happy to send out custom autographed bookplates, so people should just drop me a line if they’ve got a hard copy and I’ll happily post off a bookplate, bookmark and a few other goodies.

PM: I know you’ll never be far from your vivid imagery, no matter what you write, Maggie. Thank you so much for allowing us to present the genesis of your book here.

Maggie’s Farm

when the good life calls
simplicity for loose change
pressure drop freedom
you answer

like Voltaire
lock the door
walk ten miles in fancy shoes
remove dreams from your pockets
a dozen crumpled receipts
and kiss the ground

the dirt tastes like shit
bodysore and boneache you fall asleep
each night
dead tired
no time to toss and tease
sleep matters now

it isn’t heaven
no candy floss choirs
fanning your every sweat
each serve on your battered table
reflects a cut or bruise
muscle knit tendon job
unlike anything you ever imagined
in those tower block days
glassed in tight

a pretty prison
escaped

Magdalena Ball  http://magdalenaball.com/wordpress/

http://www.magdalenaball.blogspot.com/

Posted in Interviews, Michele and tagged , ,
12 Mar 2012
1 Comment

Prompts: Jump-Start Your Poetry

English: harvest moon

Image via Wikipedia

Sometimes I feel like my poetic well has dried up like the middle of the Sahara desert. So I did a little sleuthing for inspiration.  I’ll pull a poem nugget from each of these sites and see if I can get a poem out of them.

http://poetsonline.blogspot.com/2009/05/random-poetry-line-generator.html which yielded the lines “In the water of discord the seasons sleep,” and “In the stillness of the soul the spirits turn, ”

http://www.languageisavirus.com/title-o-matic.html

“Shine Portrait”

http://languageisavirus.com/phrase-generator/

“It is the dying spirit.

Lost moon, velvet spirit.

Wither, decline. With sharp flames

Declining, shining.”

Here’s what I came up with:

Shine Portrait

In the stillness of the soul the spirits turn,
Lost moon, velvet spirit.

It is the dying spirit,
Declining, shining, burnt orange crescent
Tangled in purple-bruised clouds
Evening’s mantle dusted with stars
You wither, decline, disappear

In the water of discord where seasons sleep
Sister moon’s spirit stirs, sharp flames
Calling out to seasons
You shine once more
A glowing orb, reincarnating  spirit

In the stillness of the soul, spirit awakes
Found moon, craggy spirit.

©2012 Lin Neiswender

Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Lines by Lin, Poetry, Uncategorized and tagged , , , ,
07 Mar 2012
6 Comments

Poetic Forms: Sestina

Arnaut Daniel.

Image via Wikipedia

The sestina is a poetic form attributed to twelfth century French troubadour Arnaut Daniel. It consists of six six-line stanzas and a three line envoy. The six end words of the first stanza cycle in a pattern thusly:

ABCDEF/FAEBDC/CFDABE/ECBFAD/DEACBF/BDFECA

and an envoy whose form varies somewhat, but which uses all six end words:

BE/DC/FA

or

FA/DC/BE

How to choose your end words

There are doubtless many ways to choose ones end words One is to write the first stanza and then lay out the pattern for the rest. The other, the one I use, is to pick six words, generate the skeleton, and start writing. I try to choose words with more than one meaning and that can be used as more than one part of speech.

Here is a link to a sestina generator: Feed it your six words and it spits out a skeleton with the six stanzas and envoy:
dilute.net/sestinas

Here is a link to sestina by Ezra Pound:

//www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15423

Here are the first two stanzas;

I

Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let’s to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.

II

In hot summer have I great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth’s foul peace,
And the lightnings from black heav’n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God’s swords clash.

Here is one of mine:

Polemic

Workers, you are choked by the collar
of convention. Will you spare
yourselves? Will you ever tire
of the endless round of days, brave
the waters of controversy and refuse to play it safe?
Will you strike a blow

for self expression? Will you blow
down the artificial walls your white collar
has erected around you? Will you leave the safe
space you create in the spare
confines of your tiny cubicle? As you brave
each new day, do you ever tire

of the endless wheel of useless make work? The tire
of useless flesh grows round your middle. You puff and blow
climbing a single flight of stairs. How brave
are you? As you lounge, idle, the shirt collar
around your neck grows ever tighter, until there is no spare
room, and you choke. When will it be safe

to throw your old shirt away? What will jolt you from your safe
little life? What would be enough to make you tire
of the endless round of dailyness? Spare
yourself and live, not merely exist. Blow
the clouds from your eyes. White collar
workers, unite. Take a chance. Be brave.

Allow yourselves to brave
unknown waters, to give up your safe
small space, to throw away your collar
and try the new. Rise from your chairs. Retire
from the rat race. Overturn your desk. Blow
your boss’s mind and run from your office. Spare

yourselves. You have no spare
life. You have one chance to be brave.
You will never get another chance to blow
away the small, safe
walls around you before you tire
and are choked by your white collar.

You cannot spare yourself and stay safe.
Let yourself be brave. Throw away the tire
of convention. Strike a blow for life. Throw out your white collar.

Margaret Fieland

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Posted in Creative Writing, Inspiration, Margaret's Musing, Poetry and tagged , , , ,
05 Mar 2012
4 Comments

How 750 words Freed Me

Swirling thoughts

Swirling Thoughts Image via Wikipedia

Today I’m going to share with you my favorite tool for dealing with writers block.

You may already be familiar with Morning Pages. This started with Julia Cameron, creator of The Artist’s Way. “Morning Pages are three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness.” The idea is to, first thing in the morning, get out a notebook and write three pages of whatever is in your head. No overthinking. This clears your head for the rest of the day, opening you to inspiration, happiness, opportunity.

My problems with this system? I don’t function first thing in the morning. And I’ve been burned before by someone finding and reading stream-of-consciousness pages, and I don’t have a convenient place to keep these close and yet secret.

The solution? 750words.com. This takes the same concept online. It’s easier to sit down at your computer than find a pen or pencil and write by hand. (At least for some of us.)

The site is completely private. No one will be reading your words, you can do them at any time in the day, and there are incentives! Streaks and different statistics can earn animal badges. Amazing how motivating it is to get them. There are also monthly challenges to write daily for a special badge and bragging rights. A point system keeps track of how many days you’ve started and completed your 750 words. Sometimes it’s an incentive, especially if I have a streak going that I don’t want to break. But I never get reprimanded if I go too long without visiting.

My first month was brutal. My brain wanted to edit my words, censor, plan. I had a hard time simply opening my consciousness and writing whatever. Now, even if I’ve gone a month without writing anything, it’s so easy to get back into.

Since starting on the site (just over a year now!), my thoughts are clearer, my ideas more frequent, I’m less bogged by negativity. Even my typing speed has gone up with all the speed typing to keep up with my thoughts. I spend less time worrying about issues, which frees my subconscious to other ideas. I wish I was more consistent in using the site, as I know the results are positive.

750 words is: 
My rambling,
brainstorming,
venting,
planning,
documenting,
a bit of creative writing,
pure randomness.

No worries about it being read.
Safe.
Unfiltered.

Some people use the site for their regular creative writing. Some use it as a serious journal. Others following the guidelines of Morning Pages. Whatever purpose you want. This is completely for you alone. No one else. The site is completely free, so no reason not to give it a try.

Next on Mary’s Expression (March19): a poetry prompt.

Posted in Creative Writing, Inspiration, Mary's Expression and tagged , , , , , ,
02 Mar 2012
2 Comments

Make Visible: Start Your Own Tribe

Please refer to my previous post Make Visible:  Find Your Tribe.

So you’ve checked out a few social networking sites and been to a few local meetings but don’t really feel comfortable with any of them.  Give it time!  Maybe you just need to hang around for awhile and get to know people better.  Or maybe, and this is very likely, the groups don’t address you specific interests.  What to do?  Why not start your own social networking site or offline group and find your tribe?

Wait.  Don’t abandon the sites and groups you’ve tried out.  They are good places to find people with similar or the same interests that you have.  Here are seven easy steps to starting your own tribe:

  1. Decide on the focus for your group. It should be something you are passionate about. You don’t need to know everything about your subject to start a group about it.
  1. Name your group. Find a name you can live with that sums up what your group is all about.
  1. Find a free (or paid) platform for your new tribe. Or find a meeting place for your offline group.  Here are some suggestions, by no means exhaustive.

Online:

Google Groups

Yahoo Groups

Webs.com

Tribe.net

Ning.com

Offline:

Libraries

Churches or Synagogues

Community Centers or Convention Centers

Cafés

Restaurants

  1. Then set up your site the way you want or consider topics for your first offline meeting.  Real world groups have slightly different considerations than online groups.  You will need to find out about refreshments, if you need a key, if they need to buy drinks or food (if in a café or restaurant), and if there’s a fee to use the room.  For online groups you may be able to design the site the way you want it to look, and set notification and membership settings. You can usually decide whether to let anyone join, join by invitation only, or to extend your membership to a select few.  For offline groups you also have a choice whether to have a public group or a private group where you handpick the members.
  1. Advertise!  This is where those previous networking sites and offline groups come in.  They are great places to post about your new group and find new members for your new tribe.  You can email and call your friends and post on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.  Keep in mind whether or not you are inviting “everybody”, interested parties only, or a few select friends.  That will determine how and where you publicize your new group.
  1. Provide content.  Some people will come to your group and just chat, but it’s better to give them something to chat about.  For online groups you can provide your own content, photos, writing, and artwork.  Depending on whether your group is public or private, you can also share book excerpts.  Always when sharing, share who the author or artist is. For real world groups, you may just have the group members bring something to talk about, or you could bring in speakers or teach classes in your subject.  It may cost to hire speakers or teachers, so this is another opportunity to provide your own content or have group members take on these roles.
  1. Don’t let all this go to your head!  Sure you started the group and can decide who goes and who stays, but don’t be a dictator.  Let your new friends voice their opinions and post their own content.  Encourage dialogue and respect among equals.  As owner, you are in charge of getting rid of any spam accounts, sharing basic guidelines, and discouraging explicit photos and profanity (if that bothers you or becomes a problem).

One caveat:  Your group may start slowly, may be active at times and inactive at other times, or may grow exponentially.  You never know.

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