Girlfriends,

It's time to show your face IRL, take a shower, grab some clothes and get your butt in gear. Get out, meet another writer in person, face to face, in a coffeehouse, a hotel lounge, a restaurant, at a play, the movies, or for a walk or a bike ride.

SheWrites is a great platform, so wonderful, that we're tempted to remain at home, exchanging thoughts and convictions by hitting keys on the board, or chatting face to face with a far away friend or writing buddy.

Don't tell me it's not true. If you're anything like me, you love not having to dress up to go to work. All I do early in the morning (today it was 4 a.m. what's up with that bio rhythm?), is brush teeth, wash up, put on some clothes (detail, detail, the editor whispers in my ear, and I say, shut up, I don't want them to know I'm sitting here in the kitchen, in my nighty and my husband's old work shirt, lilac fluffy slippers on my bare feet) comb my hair with my fingers, and I'm ready to face the screen of my laptop. I may put on some lipstick, just for my own benefit when I make that morning photo with Evernote, or in case I'm surprised by a Skype encounter, but that's about it. Yesterday I put on a necklace, and added a cardi to a tank top for a business related Skype appointment.

I love browsing all the departments on SheWrites, I love getting into discussions about how to organize data, how to use diaries for memoirs, and how to fictionalize experiences from life. I love the possibilities the Internet offers, the way it's helped me get out of the shell I'd created around my writing life. I love how it makes me feel at home, while so very far away from my motherland. In e-mail I often say more than I ever did in real life, if only because there's no time limit, there's no bad time. You answer when you can, you write when you can, there's no grabbing calendars and sighing, oh, my, that won't be until Sint Juttemis(meaning it ain't gonna happen). And yet, there's something I miss when I sit behind my computer.

Online all we see are the emoticons, what we read is what we get. In real life, we watch the gestures, hear the intonations, and what a friend's LOL really sounds like. Beside that, we eavesdrop, take note of other people's conversations, or draw them into ours.

Writing is not as lonesome a business as some make it out to be, after all, we've got our characters (or subjects) to keep us company. But characters are characters, in every sense of the word. And what we need in our lives now and then, are real flesh and blood people to talk back at us, to smile at us, to hiss, sigh, cry and laugh with us.

If SheWrites is a wonderful platform to meet women writers Online, the Meetup organization makes it possible for people to meet up in real life. Check it out. You may find a Meetup in your neck of the woods that fulfills your in real life needs.

As for me, tonight I'm meeting up with members of the Greater Seattle Women Who Write Meetup umbrella to get ready for the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest. The deadline to sign up is tonight before midnight! We'll keep record of what we're up to on the Facebook Page, which is the hub for >Sea3w.

Who are you meeting with this weekend?