Cleckheaton Writers Group met on Monday 3 April 5.30-7pm at Cleckheaton Library with Sarah, Mandy, Alice and myself in attendance.
The minutes of the last meeting were passed and we discussed the Writers and Artists Yearbook. Sarah discussed details of the conference she attended with information such as literary agents, as it is hard to get publishers as only one or two get taken on a year, print on demand and crossover fiction being the next big thing. In the flash fiction workshop with David Gafrey, he suggested playing around with where you put the reveal and thinking of it like a performance. The conference will be the same time next year at a cost of £30 for the day.
I informed the group about the workshops I had attended at Trinity Writers Festival and the Significant Ink Taster Session (blog posts to follow) and Sarah told the group about a screenwriting workshop she is attending on 22 April with Authors North as part of Leeds Bookend.
As some of the writers had not submitted their pieces for the CLF anthology, Mandy and I decided to extend the deadline for submission to the end of April, so any CWG members wishing to be published in the anthology, please email your submissions to either Mandy or myself by the 30th of April.
We then gave details of our WIP: I have been working on my second novel and have written a few new short pieces following the workshops I have attended. Sarah has written a flash fiction (for the Anita and Me competition) with the theme of growing up and feels that the end of the first draft of her novel is in sight. Mandy has written a new flash fiction and has been editing and putting a biography together for the Ink Tears anthology. Alice has been working on creative writing for her creative writing course.
Sarah shared her short story 'Alfie finds a Bronze Age boat' for the first feedback session. The group felt it had very poetic prose, was evocative of place and reminiscent. We all think that it works as a short story but agree with Sarah in that it did not have enough humour for a humour themed writing competition.
Alice then shared a section of her current WIP, written from her MC Song's point of view where she is trapped in a room. We all enjoyed the piece and wanted to hear more. There were a couple of minor editing points, but felt that it worked very well.
We then discussed signed books as certain Harry Potter novels have good resale prices, e.g. Half-Blood Prince page 99 11 outstanding owls instead of 10, and then talked about the novel The Muse by Jessie Burton.
Because of the Easter Bank Holiday, the next meeting of Cleckheaton Writers Group will take place on Monday 24 April where both feedback sessions are available.
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