Cleckheaton Writers Group minutes, meeting Monday 7 February 2022

The Cleckheaton Writers Group (CWG) met last night at Cleckheaton Library with Alice, Barbara, Cassie, Gemma, Karen and Kathy in attendance.

WIP updates: Karen has been editing and submitting. She also took part in the Eve White Agency pitch party on Twitter garnering two likes for two different MSs and she has submitted the first three chapters and synopsis for one of them. She will be working on the other to submit at a later date. Karen has also taken part in a Writers Clinic Zoom through the Book Trust with Dapo Adeola and Karl Newson, where they kindly gave feedback on her picture book saying they felt it was in the top 5% of the picture books they'd seen for review. She will be editing her picture book following their feedback with a view to submitting once more to Emma Layfield, Picture Book Development Director North, Hachette Children's as per her request. Cassie has edited the beginning of her novel and written a political argument as an assignment for U3A. Kathy has compiled her Tobias MS and put it in a word document and sent it to Karen for feedback. She has also looked at her 12 Dates of Chris Moss MS and transferred it to Scrivener to reformat. 1-5 are complete, 6 and 7 need to be tidied and then Kathy will finish 8-12. Barbara has written two more stories inspired by people she has known in care homes. Gemma has gone through her 10k editorial notes, some she has re-written, some moved, to make more sense of the novel. Alice has been researching for her current WIP.

This led to a discussion about the Word read aloud function and choose your own adventure stories, both modern and classic versions.

CW comps/workshops/events:  Write Mentor 2022 Summer Mentoring Programme opens April, TikTok Shorts Open Screenplay Contest 1 March 2022, Drawing Room Winter Wellbeing Courses, e.g. Yes! You Can Draw.  https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/leedslibraryevents/t-ogxarg Life Drawing March’s 4 week course here https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/leedslibraryevents/t-zvljqa and other art based courses are available

Plus my writer friend John Irving Clarke is running a set of online writing workshops in January: Workers Education Association starting on Wednesday 19th January, 1-3pm every week for ten weeks Creative Writing: Creative Writing - Where The Road Runs out (C3680275) (wea.org.uk) Course dates 19/01/2022 - 30/03/2022 Session details 10 sessions for 2 hrs per session Wed 13:00 Fee £76.00

Includes accreditation & materials if applicable.

The Owned Voices Novel Award 2022 and the Northern Writers Awards 2022 are open for submissions.

Feedback sessions: Karen brought along her picture book text that she is editing and a new picture book text. The first story was well received and lots of helpful feedback was given in terms of scansion which Karen will use to edit once more. The second text was a rough first draft and it was felt the first few spreads needed more work for the scansion but that the story was a funny concept.

Writing plans: Karen will be editing her picture book, second EWA pitch submission and giving feedback on both her SCBWI group documents and Kathy's novella. Cassie will be working on her novella and her next U3A assignment. Kathy will continue work on her 12 Dates of Chris Moss collection. Barbara will continue working on her short stories. Gemma will continue to edit her WIP. Alice will continue her research on her current WIP.

Date of next meeting: Monday 21 February 2022.

February's writing challenge, for those who wish to complete it, is: Valentines.