September 2008

Last Thursday we met at the National. We read Cathy's piece from her work in progress. The group really enjoyed it. There weren't any major changes suggested, because we're just curious to know what happens next. She told us about one of her other projects, 26 books, where members write 26 book reviews within a year: http://www.26books.com/.

Nick has started sending his children's novel to agents. Writing is hard work, the group is supportive but when you've decided you've done as much re-writing as possible, the next stage sometimes seems even more arduous: the phoning round, the covering letter, the writing CV (what's that?), the synopsis. One of the original members of this group (we probably weren't called the Rooinecks at the time and had just finished our evening classes at City University) is Bridget Whelan. She moved to Brighton and is very active as a writer there, she's publishing her first novel A Good Confession http://www.agoodconfession.co.uk/ in November.

I think I've finished my own novel, The Causeway. I thought I'd finished it two years ago so I can't be that sure. I want to get on to a new project, but I keep thinking about two other stories that I want to sort out first. I'll let the Causeway settle and then decide if it's ready to send out.

The group has decided to have a competition. We haven't done one for ages. We set ourselves a topic, a word limit, submit the stories anonymously and try to guess the author. There's a cash prize of up to five or six pounds. More details to follow