P.W.G. Minutes of the meeting 14 June 2018
Venue: Neo's Sports Club, Pegeia.
Present:
Bob Barker Rich Palmer Jennie Rook Michael White June Megennis
Caroline Harman Smith Evey Morgan Tony Samson Gill Ainsworth
Greetings Scribes,
What a lively and informative meeting we had and well attended. Nice to see positive enthusiasm. Thanks to Bob Barker for chairing the meeting in the absence of John Goodwin, who is supporting Ann Joyce in the Sligo Shanty Sea Festival.
Bob applied a different approach by asking members their interests in writing, what they have achieved and what they to wish to achieve in the next year.
The common theme from the group’s progress reports was that maintaining motivation to complete pieces is vital. The group does offer help and support to others with this challenging part of the creative process.
The amount of feedback for each reader was also noted. There must be equal feedback given after each reader, highlighting the positive points first and then offering improvements in a constructive, sensitive manner.
Caroline - continues to write stories and is also directing full time a play, 'THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE' for Stage One Theatre.
Jennie - welcome back after a break. Very busy with new work but still aiming to produce the fantasy fiction Fairyland series. She is looking for motivational support and feedback from the group. We hope to hear another installment of the fairy story very soon.
Gill - entering short story competitions, 101 words Challenge entered with ‘The Pimple.’ She is producing some very intriguing and entertaining story lines. She will return to the group in September.
Mike - continues to add to his large short story collection relating to Pubs and his goal is to publish the book.
June - moving forward to publishing her very interesting memoirs. She also stated the need for motivation to help her finalise and complete her book.
Evey - has been writing 3rd party content for Twitter and Facebook. She is marketing for a local charity and aims to write, for her own pleasure, a piece every week.
Tony - has one book on Kindle and an adventure book 'Question Mark' due out soon. He continues to run his ever-popular Facebook group supporting local ex-pats in Paphos.
Rich - has two books on Amazon published by John Goodwin, short stories and poems with a third in progress. He aims to produce another 10 stories/poems before publishing. He has also written four children's books which are being formatted. He reported great success at his friend’s wedding with his poem and his impromptu playing of the mouth organ.
Bob - has self-published his third crime book, 'OUT OF AIR' and has had some success on Amazon. He is learning about Facebook ads and how to market his own books. He reported upon a debate he was involved in at Bristol Crime Fest, on ‘which route is best: Self-publishing or the traditional method.’ It appears they both have their attributes and may come down to how much time, money, contacts and knowledge you have as a writer and how much control you want of your book, in order to self-publish or not.
Coffee break: 11.00 am to 11.15 am
Readings:
Evey story Point of view - entry for competition
Michael story I couldn't believe my eyes
June story I couldn't believe my eyes
Gill story Train 1 - entry for competition
Gill story Train 2 - entry for competition
Caroline story I couldn’t believe my eyes
A short discussion followed on writing for and entering into short story competitions for magazines and publications. Bob suggested an idea for John to look into which magazines are accepting pieces for which markets and present it to the group when he returns.
Readings:
Rich story I couldn’t believe my eyes
Tony asked which software members are using for speech recognition.
Homework:
Writing prompt for this week. A short story or poem
500 words, any genre: 'What's in the box?'
Next meeting will be on Thursday 21st June at Neo’s Sports Club.
Final meeting this term will be on Thursday 19 July and lunch on Thursday 12th July.
Thanks to all who attended and happy writing.
