Clecheaton Writers Group meeting 28 April 2014

Another successful meeting of the CWG last night where A, D, P and I were in attendance, N & L having sent their apologies.

We started by having a feedback session on the writing we are working on at the moment.  A has been editing his children's novel (he shared the first three chapters with the Group for the feedback session).  D has been working on a new MG children's story and arranging a visit to a forge for research purposes and I have been editing and have sent out my novel T to another publisher.

This moved us on to talking about agents and publishers and the feedback you may get.  We discussed waiting times, which can range, but that three months seems the norm and when a manuscript would be ready for submission.

Several members of the CWG have signed up for a free OU creative writing course and I am sure the notes on this will be shared at future meetings for those members that could not join.

We then discussed plagiarism as I have recently read a post from a fellow blogger who has had his work plagiarised from a writers group member that he taught and has known for nine years.  We all agreed this was terrible and that it did not seem to be in the realm of someone having a similar idea coincidentally, as is usually the case.

D and I then gave feedback on A's three chapters that he had shared.  We both really enjoyed it and want to read more.  We loved the similarities in tone to Hitchhikers Guide, Star Wars and Red Dwarf and that the description of the psychiatrist was suitably creepy.  There were only a couple of small points in that I felt that a minor characters name jarred and we both felt that a little less backstory of the main character's father would work better and to drip feed the information in future chapters so that when the reveal comes, it is more satisfying for the reader.

D told the members about the HLF Literary Lunch that she and I stewarded for and this lead us on to a discussion about steampunk.  She recommended the work of Phillip Reeve as a good example of the steampunk genre (Mortal Engine's in particular) and P recommended the websites www.steampunk.com and www.steampunkmagazine.com.

There was not time for a timed writing session, but we hope to rectify this at the next meeting.  There are two spots open for the feedback session at the next meeting, scheduled for Monday 12 May 6-8pm at Cleckheaton Library.  New members always welcome.