Goldthorpe Writers: “death at the pit-head”

I didn’t go to the meeting last Monday because I already had a dental appointment, and one we’d been waiting for for a long time. I had an email from the library anyway, saying none of the others could make it either. So I didn’t miss very much.

This week, we had apologies from two members again, but we also had a new member, who I had very recently met online in a Facebook group I’ve just joined.

And so we were three this week, plus the two apologies, plus the member who has already said she will be back in September.

We spent a few minutes getting to know the new member, and then she and I discussed the merits and pitfalls of self-publishing. That conversation went on at length for some time. We also discussed further the possibility of making the library a NaNoWriMo write-in venue.

Then we addressed this week’s topic, which was really last week’s but carried over: death at the pit-head.

“R” was the first to read out his 500-or-so words, where we finally met the characters he’s been working on for a long time, in the opening scene of the book he’s also been (not!) writing for a long time. We met his first character, Argo. “R” was delighted to have finally put pen to paper.

Next up, I read a re-worked scene 1 of the pocket novel, and then jumped to scene 5, where we met two more characters, Maddy the mad vicar (a character I created many moons ago when I was a member of Solihull Writers’ Workshop) and Fal the disgraced ex-vice cop (a character who will also feature in the next Marcie Craig story, The Beast Within).

“H” hadn’t brought anything on the topic, as it was her first meeting, but instead she gave us a chapter of one of her published books, Cian’s Journey. Unfortunately we had gone over time by now, so were unable to go into any detailed feedback.

We have pretty much decided that as the three of us are all working on something, then we may as well bring that along to get any feedback on. When the others are there, we can give them topics or plot ninjas if they don’t know what to write about.

Goldthorpe Writers meet every Monday at Goldthorpe Library, Barnsley Road, Goldthorpe, Barnsley S63 9NE, from 3:30pm until 4:30pm. There is free parking to the rear of the library, buses stop almost outside, and the railway station is a short walk away. Refreshments are also currently available for free. All are welcome.