Cleckheaton
Writers Group
Monday 30th
September 2019
Present: Gemma, Mark, Daniel, Martijn, Kathy, Sam and Cassie
Apologies: Alice, Karen, Pauline, Mandy and Sarah
Welcome /
Attendance
Great start, as Martijn and Daniel, who were regular members
some time back, attended this evening.
Everyone had a quick intro and a chat about what genres they write
about.
Minutes of Last
meeting
Taken as read.
WIP / Updates
Kathy - in terms of writing, nothing of note. Set target of Christmas to sense check
‘Tobias’ and request beta reading.
Martijn – hiatus from writing but about five months ago, he
began writing some poetry, which has been a cathartic experience for him. He has entered five pieces in the Manchester
Metropolitan University Open Poetry Competition. Poems of no more than 120 lines. £10k first prize. Fingers crossed, Martijn.
Sam - has been quite busy the last couple of week – but alas,
not with writing! He has been tied up
with his drama commitments (via college) as they are getting a piece ready (The
Odyssey) for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Get him!
Cassie - has written a story for the other writers’ group
she attends. It was a story about the
Norfolk Fens which she had to research via the internet as she knew squat!
Gemma – had feedback on her novel and has been asked to
write down every scene and list if they have a point or not. Laborious work, but she is identifying that
some scenes don’t, so a good exercise.
Just quite a big task. She has
also started book 2 and plans to make this part of the November NaNoWriMo.
Mark – hasn’t written over the last couple of weeks.
Daniel – like Martijn, Daniel has had a writing hiatus (used
to attend this group about 4 or 5 years ago).
Has also been moved to write some poetry.
Feedback
Martijn brought a couple of the (rhyming) poems he entered
in the Manchester Metro competition.
Silicone Dream was a skit on society being too engrossed in electronic
devices rather than people/life. This resonated
with the group and sparked off discussion about devices and how invasive they
were: tracking and listening to the world, yet we lap them up. His second poem was called Shiny. This was a similar theme but based on what a
materialistic world we live in. Do we
really need everything we have; do we have everything we really need?
Daniel read a poem called Going Home. It was about a river in his birthplace
country of Croatia, the Jadro. It was
very descriptive, painting a vivid picture
of that area and felt an intense and personal piece; hence it was very emotive,
very beautiful and moving. The group
asked if he’d considered entering this into a completion?
Cassie brought a short story which she had written in a twenty-five-minute
challenge from her U3A (University of the Third age) creative writing
group. They were a given a title of
‘Emotion – Extreme Relief’ and had to write to suit. It was about a woman out and about and being
desperate to get home for the loo, with a nice twist at the end about striking
up a dalliance with the taxi driver and piquing the neighbours. It was very funny, well written and well
received.
Mark (keeping with the poetry feel) read a poem he had
written in 2007 called ‘Nightmare for a Prescriptivist’. As a prescriptivist is all about promoting
norms for the use of language, the poem followed that theme but started out
very ‘Olde English’, descending into modernity, with the latter sections being
written as text speech. It was delivered
extremely well. We have now coined the
phrase visual poetry, as we have
asked him to send the poem to everyone, so we can ‘see’ it. These minutes will now become a testament as to
whether anyone reads them and follows up…
Mark?
Competitions /
Festivals /Other
None mentioned, other than those Karen has recently put onto
Facebook.
Discussions
There was short discussion in and amongst about
self-publishing. Amazon was mentioned,
and the fact it was simple to do and available as e-versions. Although Cassie pointed out that if so many
copies are sold, they will take it to paperback. We also talked about how hard it is to get
published and what constitutes a good writer or a good story. Also, how some people can be published purely
for who they are, and maybe not because they are a talented writer. Alan Titchmarsh being one such example. His books may be generally OK a read, but
nothing special, however he has a fan base who will read them because of his
fame as a gardener. Hey-ho.
Write-Ins 2019 and
Writing Challenge/Session
No writing challenges were set or carried out.
Meeting closed.
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