Cleckheaton Writers Group met on Monday 4 July 2022 with Alice, Gemma, Karen and Barbara in attendance, Kathy and Cassie having given their apologies.
The minutes for the last meeting were passed.
WIP updates: Karen has submitted to the Creative Future Awards, edited her crime MS, submitted to Guppy Open Submissions for YA, pitched to Darley Anderson and received a like (so she has submitted three chapters and a synopsis of her first RS MS per the guidelines). She has also taken part in #kidlitpit and received a like from Starry Forest Books so has submitted one of her pic book texts, and nudged a PBDO following a submission in February. Barbara has now collated and printed all twenty of her stories and she finished this in 6 months (was a year deadline) with 35k words in total and has an anthology that she now needs to think of a title for. She was unsuccessful in the U.S. short story competition she entered. Gemma has found a first person account of an asylum resident which is 14+ pages in length and an article from 4 French women and has made a massive editing to do list. Alice has been working on part 2 of her choose your own adventure story which has led to research she was not expecting. She has also booked an agent 1-2-1 next week, good luck Alice.
CW comps/workshops/events: Bradford Literature Festival is taking place, @serenemaria is open for YA and MG queries, the Bath Novel Award and York Literature Festival is on, as is Write Mentor WowCon and there are bursaries available for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival.
Feedback sessions: Alice read her first 500 words of her MS Project Nightmare which she has switched from 3rd person POV to 1st as an experiment. It was well received as it had a distinctive irreverent voice which members loved. Suggestions included making sure there were clear indicators when changing from what is taking place now to the past and the timing of naming the character with it being in 1st person POV but it was agreed that the experiment had worked. Karen shared her pic book MS and it was suggested she look up The Viking Who Liked Icing (there is a libraries teacher who reads the picture book) as it has a similar vibe to Karen's The Devil is in the Doughballs so can be a great comparison title.
Writing plans: Karen is hoping to get some much needed editing done. Alice will be taking part in 'Writing Bingo' which she showed to members. Gemma will be editing. Barbara will be looking into publishing an anthology on Amazon Kindle. She also informed members that stories from the POV of a pet will not get accepted by People's Friend or Woman's Weekly and that she was looking forward to Gemma sharing a section of her WIP.
Date of next meeting: Monday 18 July 2022, 5.30-7.00pm at Cleckheaton Library.
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