Cleckheaton Writers Group met last night with Sarah, Mandy, Gemma, Neil and Karen in attendance, Alice, Daniel and Sam having passed on their apologies.
The minutes from the last meeting were agreed as a correct record.
WIP updates: Mandy has written two new short stories, which she feels is distracting her from writing her third novel. Her second novel has been accepted by her publisher, which she is editing. Karen has written a new scene for her romantic comedy WIP, 1071 words, and has received two rejections (one for the Kate Nash Agency mentorship and a Prose PGT Sponsorship of a UEA Creative Writing Degree). Sarah has been continuing writing 3k words per week and is a third of the way through her WIP. She has also attended the psychology of character course where she learned a lot on psychology and has been watching many Jericho Writers videos. Gemma has reached 40k on her WIP, book 2, with a beginning, middle and end. She is now reasearching, making notes for sub-plot ideas and reading a new book The Victorian Asylum for routines, timings and pictures (1869 asylums). There is also a competition deadline for this Friday that she has written 500 words on. Alison Taft has set the competition of a 1500 words story, the theme is Bad Women and Gemma outlined her idea to the group. Sarah recommended the book Stone Mothers (now renamed You Know, We Know) which is partly set in an asylum in three different time frames, 1958, 1988 and 2018, with a prologue set in 1868. Neil has written a couple of hundred words on his ghost short story, developing new characters. He has been having problems with his new laptop and Sarah recommended he use 16Meg memory sticks to back up, as the cloud keeps filling up and taking up too much space.
Comps/Workshops/Courses: Neil mentiioned to members that the new Writing Magazine is the 2020/21 Competition issue. He will bring along a copy to the writing session on Thursday afternoon at Ribbon Tree. Sarah informed members of the National Creative Writing Industry Day in Manchester, which is now being held on-line, where attendees can get two meetings with agents for £20. This is a virtual, week-long event and the agents meetings are still available. Sarah also recommended a blog piece by Harriet Tyce (via Twitter) on her ten years to publication and will be sending along the links to these.
Writing plans: Mandy will be writing a poem this week for the National Poetry competition or one of the others that have deadlines for the end of September. She feels she works best to deadlines and explained how she keeps three separate word documents to keep track of writing/subbing: Things to Do, Things Submitted and If It Got Anywhere. Sarah is going to continue her 3k words a week (Wednesday-Sunday) and will be looking at prepping for NaNoWriMo in November. She asked is any other members were taking part this year and Karen confirmed that she would be. Gemma will be researching, marking books with post-it notes, then transfering the information into a document to highlight the accomodation, plan, character, staff etc. and entering the Bad Women competition. Neil will be finishing his short story so that he can send it for feedback and then start on something new. Karen will be working on her romantic comedy WIP, possibly sending the first three chapters and synopsis to Kate Nash for consideration.
Sarah and Gemma suggested that a discussion on character versus plot arc and how to plot and then grow your character at the same time to be held at a future meeting. This led to a discussion and they felt members could bring examples of books that they felt did really well with this.
Mandy suggested another asylum comparison book for Gemma, a James Norris book that is coming out in the next two weeks.
Karen informed members that Cleckheaton Library was now operating a browse-time but that these were to restricted hours (Karen has sent this information to all CWG members via email) and the meeting ended with a discussion on one-line pitches and similarities in plots in books.
The next meeting will take place via Zoom on Monday 21 September. Can all members wishing to share work for feedback for this meeting, please send it to all members via email by this Sunday, 13 September 2020.
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