Lively CWG meeting tonight where A, N, P, L, D, myself and new members Ay and S were in attendance. Ay felt that she was a beginner and is looking for advice and to become more disciplined; all the members agreed that this is one area where all writers struggle, it is amazing how good the washing looks when you know you should be writing. S also felt that she was a beginner as her writing has been in the academic field of science and facts, though she finds writing cathartic and writes a blog to get into the discipline of writing regularly but feels she has the beginnings of three books.
Following the introductions and P passing around cake for her upcoming birthday, we discussed our WIP. I informed the group how my crime novel is taking shape, D discussed her work on her new WIP 'TW' and A told us that he had written 4/5 chapters since the last meeting. We discussed NaNoWriMo as this month is camp NaNo and D & L told the new members about their foray into JanNoWriMo, a writing project they and N undertook in January.
I then read out N's science fiction short story for feedback from the group. We all agreed that it was a great piece of writing, created good empathy with the character and that it felt like the beginnings of a much longer piece. The strength of the character came out and it was suggested that the backstory should be hinted at rather than given away too soon. N does feel that he would like to write more of this story and we all look forward to reading more as N goes forward with the piece.
D fed back to the group in regards to her science fiction/horror/fantasy course that she has been attending at the Lifelong Learning Centre at the University of Leeds.
I told the group about some of the things I had learned at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival this weekend (blog post reviews to follow from tomorrow) including a writing exercise using 'What if?' to generate plot points (more of this in an upcoming blog post).
D then led the group in a creative non-fiction session about feature writing (a hand-out featuring travel writing and feature writing was circulated to the members) followed by a timed writing exercise where members had to write a feature story. S, A, P and myself shared our features and I passed on my apologies for the next meeting. It is yet to be decided who is to chair the next meeting, set the agenda and which two members are to submit work for the feedback session, but the second part of the creative non-fiction session will be tabled for this upcoming meeting.
The next meeting will take place on Monday 4 August 2014 at 6-8pm in Cleckheaton Library. Meetings fortnightly thereafter and new members always welcome.
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