The first meeting of the Cleckheaton Writers Group after the successful Cleckheaton Literature Festival was a happy one. M, M, N, A and myself were in attendance, J, P and P having passed on their apologies. Unfortunately, we missed the new member P who arrived at 6pm and did not see M & A in the foyer and as the room was locked and I was running a little late, he left. Hopefully, we will see him at the next meeting.
Our Work In Progress updates were as follows: M is putting together an entry for the Independent on Sunday travel writing competition and her anthology arrived (the book is launched in Sheffield on Thursday evening). She promised to bring it along to the next meeting. N has been blogging and K has been busy with the CLF2015, so have not done any writing. I informed the group that P has had a play selected to be showcased at the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival at the end of June which is fantastic news. The group discussed an excerpt that K shared of her story Moppet and agreed that we hope she comes back to the group and shows more. M told the group that he has had many ideas generated from the workshops he attended as part of Cleckheaton Literature Festival and all the members agreed that we had had a similar experience.
A's piece Princess Erica was for the feedback and M and myself discussed the four characters that he wished feedback upon. We felt that he had captured the essence of the characters very well and we even picked up on a few things from just the excerpts from these disparate POVs. We discussed how we subconsciously choose characters names from things we have been influenced by (e.g. the goblin king from Labyrinth) and agreed that his character Blackblade gets angrier the more funny it is (to torture his character). He is already thinking of a sequel involving the sword and we are looking forward to hearing more.
A revealed that he did finish NaNo (50k) with his novel in progress YB, YD, but that he had only managed a little over a week of the poetry challenge. He informed the group that D, one of our other members, had hit her word count target also. He mentioned that he would be taking part in camp NaNo in July and a couple of the other members also felt they may do so.
It was agreed that M would take one of the feedback slots for the next meeting, leaving one open.
We then discussed CLF2015 and this led to a brainstorming session of ideas for next year including inviting Alan Moore and Craig Charles for more sci-fi talks.
M and I informed the group we were attending an Arts in the Neighbourhood briefing on Tuesday evening where we would be discussing funding applications for CLF2016.
The next meeting of the Cleckheaton Writers Group is Monday 1 June 2015 6-8pm at Cleckheaton Library.
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