Internet Message Boards
Local comic communities have a number of message boards for comics in their area. (You can check the "Best of the Web" section in the welcome area for a full list, and if you'd like your board listed, shoot me an email and I'll add it to the list.) Nashville, Jacksonville, FL, New York, Philly, Washington, DC, and many other cities have specific message boards for comedians. These are excellent resources for finding open mikes and stage time, learning the names of bookers and clubs in your area, and working through the myriad of issues that come up as a comedian.
Writers' Meetings
Many comics have small group meetings, occasionally taking place at the local comedy club. Having never been to one of them, I thought be'd lazy and pass on the responsibility to my good friend and fellow comedian Eric Grady. Eric was a member of a similar group in South Florida and he passed along his recollections:
We'd get together every Tuesday and test out a new joke... or 3. About 7 or 11 or so of us would meet at the comedy club. We'd do a joke for our co-comics, where there was no laughing, because we don't laugh for each other. We're comics. If you ever got someone to say "That was funny" about a joke, then you had yourself a "keeper". But, anyway one person would do a joke, then another person, then me and so on. Then we'd go "round robin" and do it again until we were out of new jokes.
It really made me work more. I didn't want to show up at the meeting without anything. So, I'd do my best to get something written, even if it was (weak). And sometimes, just being there was enough to get a joke written. I can remember that several times, one of us would write a joke because something was said during the meeting that sparked it. Anyway, after we did our joke, we'd all offer up constructive criticism for the joke. Sometimes a criticism was insightful, sometimes it was stupid.
