As a jaded, know-it-all teen and young adult in the ’60s and ’70s, I smirked self-righteously whenever I met a groupie: you know, those star-struck teeny-boppers who swooned at the mere sight of Mick Jagger or fought their way to the front at a Beatles concert and screamed and fainted as John, Paul, George, and Ringo came running onto the stage. Even worse were the ones (mostly girls) who would trade sexual favors for the “privilege” of hanging out with the rock stars of the day.
Yuck!
But now I’m a groupie and loving every minute of it! Because I’ve discovered that the best way to get involved and have fun in Second Life is to join its groups.
Virtual worlds are huge, and Second Life is becoming almost as big and complicated as the physical world. So when “newbies,” as they are called, take their first avatar-steps on Orientation Island, they often have the virtual-world equivalent of that “all dressed up and nowhere to go” sensation. How do I conquer this strange, immense territory?
“Groups,” I tell them. “Become a groupie.”
Here’s how it works: Just like in First Life, people in Second Life gravitate into communities with shared interests and goals. These are the groups that filter the vast resources of SL into containers you can actually get your hands around. Groups are essentially communities of like-minded avatars, and often provide places to go and activities to participate in.
How do you find the right groups? Often by trial and error–but we’re talking fast, easy trials!
At the bottom of your SL viewer is a button labeled Search. (The Search window in general is an avatar’s best friend, especially as you get acquainted with SL.) One of the tabs in the Search window is Groups. Click that tab and your fun is about to begin.
Here’s how I discovered the writing wealth in SL through its groups:
- I ran several Group searches on words such as writer, writing, literary, and author.
- I ordered the results by the number-of-members column, figuring that the groups with the most members probably had the most going on (though that turned out not always to be true).
- I read the intro details for each group whose name seemed to fit my interest and had no joining fee. (I still haven’t joined a group with a fee!)
- If the details sounded promising, I immediately joined the group, which gave me access to its Notices page. There I looked at the past notices. If there were none and the group had been around for a while, I put it on my “probably not” list. Otherwise I read the notices to get more of a sense of what they did.
- When I had a comfortable number of groups, I began to explore them: I teleported to their “home base” and attended every reading, workshop, meeting, party, and other event they offered.
- I began to meet other writers—people from all over the world—and would look at their profiles to see what groups they belonged to. When I found groups I hadn’t heard of yet, I’d check them out.
- I also looked at the Picks in their profiles, looking for places geared toward writers. I’d check out these places, and sometimes find a great group to join there.
- Within a short time, I’d hit my SL limit of 25 groups and had to start culling. I left those that seemed inactive and those in niches (such as sci-fi and horror) that I wasn’t particularly interested in.
Using this process, I quickly got to know a lot of what was happening on the Second Life writing scene, and before long, I was so busy networking and sharing and learning with my new writer friends, that I felt like an old hand at SL.
I’ve heard rumors that the 25-group cap will someday be removed from Second Life, and I can hardly wait—because I have a lot of other interests for which I want to become a “groupie”!
A few of my favorite active groups for writers (with links to their blog or website if they have one):
- Story Mountain Writers: http://storymountainwriters.blogspot.com/ (Alert: This is a bald-faced promotion for a writers’ center started by myself and my very dear writer friend Clarissa Tolsen, whom I met while just hanging out at a writer-focused sim the first week I went inworld – but don’t take my word for it; check it out yourself at this SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Athena%20Isle/189/98/23) (What’s a SLURL? Read about it here.)
- The Written Word: http://www.writtenword.org.uk/
- INKsters Competitive Writing Group: http://slinksters.blogspot.com/
- Athena Isle Writers (formerly Second Life Writers Club): http://slwritersclub.blogspot.com/
- Book Island Events and Discussion
- sLiterary
- The Guild of UK Writers
In future posts, I’ll describe some of the great programs these and other groups offer writers in Second Life, including professional workshops, classes for all levels, contests, open mic events, conversations with widely acclaimed First Life authors, and more!
