Cleckheaton Writers Group Zoom meeting, Monday 16 November 2020

Here are the minutes from the last CWG meeting, with thanks to Sarah for taking them:

CLECKHEATON WRITERS’ GROUP MINUTES                                                                         16.11.2020

Apologies: David, Karen, Ashley (new member)

Present: Alice, Gemma, Sarah

 

WIP updates

Gemma has finished her research and is taking part in NaNoWriMo. She has written another 23,000 words and only has 15,000 words more to write to finish the first draft of her second book. Intends to spend December editing. She is finding the NaNoWriMo sprints on Twitter particularly helpful.

Alice is also doing NaNoWriMo and is doing sprints every day over Zoom. She is aiming to write 1,200 words every day and has completed more than 20,000 words so far. Her personal best is 1,860.

Sarah – has finished the fifth draft of her second novel and gone back to working on the first draft of book three – has written another 5,000 words and is nearing the mid-point.

 

Feedback session

Nothing was submitted.

 

Workshops / competitions / events

Sarah ‘attended’ the Perfect Crime virtual festival on 14 November.  

Sarah circulated details of the Northern Writers Digital Conference 23-26 November which is free.

Gemma has been doing writing courses with Alex Davis (pay what you feel)

Alice has been taking part in a pitch session through Golden Egg.

 

We discussed whether there was a pressure on published authors to write very quickly and produce a book a year. We also discussed that it wasn’t helpful to compare ourselves to other writers and that we all write at different paces. As readers we don’t always keep track how often an author publishes a novel, and it doesn’t put us off if they don’t produce one a year.

Alice said there was a lot more pressure on children’s authors as children would not wait a few years for the next book in a series to come out.

We didn’t set a writing challenge as everyone was busy with their WIPs.

Next meeting: 30 November