Cleckheaton
Writers Group
Monday 13th
May 2019
Present: Alice, Cassie, Gemma, Kathy, Mark F and Mark S
Apologies: Karen, Pauline
Introduction
There
were two new members tonight, Mark Frost and Mark Stradling.
Current
members introduced themselves and outlined their writing experience, aspirations
and current projects.
Mark
F told us that his genre was high fantasy (for adults) and he’s been writing
for many years, mainly as a hobby. He’s
already written a book called ‘Love and War’ which he is considering
self-publishing on Kindle. And he has
started on a second, a sequel.
Mark
S has had a bit of a hiatus from writing, he was a member of the Huddersfield author’s
circle group (which he and Gemma have in common). He is interested in poetry and his genre is
anything adventurous; something with a heartbeat!
Both
Marks were welcomed.
Minutes of Last
meeting
Taken as read.
Cassie is having difficulty picking up the minutes from the
blog.
WIP / Updates
Kathy has been working on ‘Tobias’, getting over the
stumbling block of Adrian’s death, and is looking at how to finally tie it up
and end it. Some work has been done on
‘Book Puppet’ after deciding to introduce two new characters to mix up the fun
a little. Also, while looking at
competitions in general, found one for stories of 144 words. More details on the competition site,
Grindstone under competitions. Wrote
three stories and requested feedback if there was time for that.
Cassie has started a story about a mature woman, working in
a care home, who comes across a patient she recognises as a friend from her
younger - and wilder - days. The story
will focus on the flashbacks to how the two younger selves lived a raucous life
before the main character made the choice to live a life which society would
deem normal, whilst her friend continued to play havoc with her own. The idea is that both are now in very
different places because of life choices, but neither of them have fulfilled
their dreams or potential.
Alice is working on her book, spending time on some editing and
is at 60,000 words, with the final aim of around 50,000. Her editor advises that for now, she
concentrates on getting the story down and right, and that wordage can be fixed
afterwards. She has a deadline to meet
of June.
Gemma is still structural editing her book, moving scenes around
etc. She has a deadline of end of August
and is hoping for a beta reader beforehand.
Mark F is struggling in his sequel. Stuck with a character and where to go next
and wants to get back into it, but it’s finding the time. Will consider bringing extract to next
meeting for feedback. Is happy for other
members to read his first book as well, will be a PDF format.
Mark S has not been writing recently but is here because he
wants a jump-start to get him going again.
Feedback
Kathy read her three shorts:
· Peace at Last – OK but try to create an
emotional side to the man’s impending death.
· Missed call – Alice recommended to lose some
description (adverbs aplenty…) at the beginning and rethink the location of the
‘phone’ to keep faith with storyline (would she be careless with it?)
· Here Today Gone Forever – A lot of words taken
up with MarVac sitting, to stand again.
Rethink. Consensus was to still go ahead
and enter after tweaks.
Cassie read the beginning of her story. It was her second beginning, and she wrote it
in first person, as if relating the story to someone else. Felt the first part was a descriptive list
of actions, which whilst OK, might be hard to keep up if she continued. She was undecided on how to tackle the
flashback angle. Alice/Mark S advised
she needed to ensure there was a link or a trigger in the present to enable the
flashback, but then also one in the flashback to bring it back to the future
(good name for a book by the way). Mark
F suggested she alternate chapters, present and past. Also, she was writing in first person; try
and consider writing it in third person.
Competitions /
Festivals /Other
Grindstone. See
website www.grindstoneliterary.com. Event funded but they give feedback on
entries. Competitions for novels, short
story, poetry, flash fiction and what they call dirty dozen (144 word stories).
Creative Scene – Leaflet brought (via Karen) on becoming an
Arts Adventurer for anyone interested.
North Kirklees looking for people to hand out leaflets, introduce people
to festivals, performances and workshops near to where they live. £9ph, causal basis.
Alice brought a useful book The Emotion Thesaurus which is a
guide to writing character’s emotions.
Authors are Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.
Write-Ins 2019 and
Writing Challenge/Session
We ran out of time.
Quickly discussed next meeting; this falls on the Bank Holiday (27th)
so there will be no meeting. That will
put us to Monday 3rd June if we decide not to meet until then. Will ask Karen what she thinks when sending
the minutes, hopefully then an email will follow to let people know what the
date will be.
Meeting closed.
N.B.
For those members that are having difficulty gaining the minutes from my blog, please let me know and I will copy and paste and send along via email.
Also, as we are having a creative writing session tomorrow at Ribbon Tree Cafe in Cleckheaton at 2pm, think it best just to move the meeting to the next planned one of the 10th of June, that way we can have another creative writing session at Ribbon Tree on the 3rd of June. Any members who wish to join us, please feel free to bring along some writing to be working on and join the session.
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