Minutes of 8 March 2018

Venue: Neo’s Sports Bar.

Present:

John Goodwin, Caroline Harman Smith, Maurice Holloway, Nikki Burrows, Gill Ainsworth. Dee Leigh, Paul Trebess, June Megennis, Charles Haddad, Michael White, Jordi Guri, Mary Duffy.

Apologies

Richard Palmer Jennie Rook

Guest

John Eaton

The meeting commenced at 10am and was chaired by JG, who welcomed everyone. He gave a short presentation regarding how Crime Writers Association judges scored entries to competitions. The hand out is already on the website.

JG also described the “KEEP” app for smartphones, allowing the user to type in notes such as ideas which may be forgotten during the night or when otherwise engaged. It is available through Google Play. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.keep&hl=en

Our Guest and prospective member, John Eaton, introduced himself. Formerly in the military and latterly a police detective, he plans to write a collection of anecdotes about his army life emphasising the humour found in often tense situations.

READINGS

The members were then invited to read out their offerings based on the homework to create a “middle”.

Dee Middle of her WW2 love story

Nikki Excerpt from The Zeus factor-First encounter

Maurice Chapter 2 of his 3rd book in a series of children’s stories

Jill Continuation from last week’s story

June Excerpt from Tea and Symphony

Other readings

Jordi Extract from his book about “the Odyssey

John E Patrol (a military incident)

Mike The Old Sea Dog (from his tales from the pub)

John Battle (Chapter 30 from Norm & Dig’s Epic adventure)

Writing prompt for next week, when we will be discussing descriptive writing:

It is said that a picture paints a thousand words. As writers we would point out that a picture is purely visual. A descriptive passage in a story can convey more than that. It is important to set the scene but we can take the reader into that scene invoking sounds, scents and atmosphere. So, to start with, pick a scene, either one you are looking at the time or from memory, describe it, include all your senses and most importantly how it makes you feel.

A tough job for a thousand words but, as our numbers are swelling, try and get it down to 500. Good luck.

The meeting concluded at 12.20.