Writing Meeting: 01/31/2013

Our last meeting somehow slipped from my chronicling and by golly I’m not about to let this one do the same. Wherein at our last meeting we met to discuss plotlines for our upcoming works, this meeting involved reading through the first bits of our stories. I’ve started another novelette and I am very much pleased with the progress. It’s going very smoothly. Also – it fared well at the meeting. There were no major changes suggested, but some intriguing suggestions were made and my mind was made concerning some plot points I was less sure about. Overall, I feel the meeting was very constructive. And not only concerning writing. Recently, because of work schedules for us members, we’ve had to change meeting times to the evenings, and consequently meeting places as well. I think it is apparent that we miss our meeting’s older dwelling, but this new substitute will do. At least it gives us the opportunity to crack on.

I mentioned how nice it is to be writing creatively again. I didn’t realize how much I was missing doing so until I sat down and starting bashing out another story. Now I feel enlivened in a way. I’m excited about this novelette and what I’ll be able to do with it. I’m also intrigued by what I’ll learn from it. Oddly enough, one’s own writing has a lovely way of showing how awful a writer you really can be, or how much better you could portray something should you switch things about. My last novelette taught me a lot of important things about my writing. It sounds odd, perhaps, but one’s writing can tell the writer quite a bit, should he listen. I’m looking forward to the next writing meeting, but also to getting some more of my story written out. I’ve got a lot of ideas that I’m excited to write down. Now all that’s left is to get cracking.

Writing Meeting: 11/29/2012

Yesterday, our club of two met again. This time our attention was primarily focused on my short story. The final pages received editing. We weeded through the pages I brought, making revisions, cutting unnecessary and superfluous lines of writing or adverbs. There was much less need for punctuation correction, thank goodness.

He liked how the story ended. Thought the characters developed well. Overall, he thought the story was a good one. I’m rather happy with it, myself. It’s a nice feeling, having something finished is. I’m one of those people who is an absolutely splendid ‘starter’ but a rather awful ‘finisher’. I make the best plans, but they never pan out, or I just never get around to completing those projects I start. I have six stories started, and a couple other ideas roughed out in outlines, but only one completed story. And only quite recently completed at that.

I’ll need to remedy that. For now – I’m just glad this writing meeting is motivating me to plug on. I think it’s been revolutionary for the sake of forcing me to sit down and write at least something for us to edit. Now I have no excuses. It’s quite fulfilling, actually.

Writing Meeting: 11/15/2012

                We met again for our writing meeting. This time a friend joined us to comb through manuscripts. The structure of the meeting differed from our last; as we looked over material from each of us, instead of focusing entirely on one person’s manuscript. (Mine less so, though, because time didn’t allow us to get very far on my manuscript before it was time to leave.) It was an invigorating time of encouragement and insight. The coffee was great, and we edited a lot of stuff before it was time to conclude. I know it was an inspirational time for me, and I hope the same was felt by the others. It’s official though. We need to invest in a set of red-inked pens. It’s much more official in red ink, easier to spot the edits too.

                One particular thing I noticed was the humbleness and willingness to listen that my companions displayed during the meeting. Both of them were more than willing to receive criticism and really seemed appreciative of any thoughts or opinions that were mentioned. Open mindedness was very much a part of the meeting, and I’m glad it was so. It was a wonderful time for like-minds to be encouraged in their literary endeavors. I find myself looking forward to future meetings with even more vigor. Until the next meeting – I’ll be writing as much as I can.

Writing Meeting: 11/01/2012

                Well, I feel our writing club is in full swing now. Last Thursday, we edited a chunk of one of my short stories (By chunk, I mean more than half of what I have written thus far…) and I felt very encouraged. Mostly because this story is one I hadn’t worked on in a while, and it seems I’ve improved since last I wrote much of it. I’m excited to swing back into the saddle and really get writing again. During our meetings, I feel that I learn something new about the writer whose work is getting edited. And since my work was edited this last meeting, I found some things out about myself. I think I don’t mind starting sentences off with “and”. I like short sentences that flow together, one after the other. And I am deciding my older writing habits of writing long sentences that go on and on is clunky and hard to follow and I don’t like it anymore.

                I think my style will see grand alteration. A new feel; more natural, more personal.

 I’m really quite pleased with our meeting place of choice. It feels part café, part coffee shop and I like that. Mostly, the people who frequent it are friends, meeting to catch up on each other. It’s a nice atmosphere. And they serve good coffee.

Of course, getting your work picked apart is a humbling experience, too. As I realized quite quickly, you have to be teachable. Thus far our meetings have gone smoothly and without mishap. And since we know how far to go, and how to be humble with our work, I don’t foresee there being an issue here. Still – it was a good reminder to me. When criticizing someone’s work, I do need to be understanding and as gentle as can be allowed.

And so... It begins...

One of the reasons I blog, is because I absolutely love to write. About anything, really. I have certain projects I'm working on, stories and whatnot. Also, several of my friends love writing as well. It's been good-fun being able to criticize each others' works and encourage one another in our literary endeavors. We usually pass our projects to each other through USB thumb-drives, marking each others’ MS Word documents in assorted colors of text. Personally, I’ve always found this to be exceptionally encouraging as well as very inspirational. But...

Well... in this day of technological advancement, quite often I find life to be so impersonal. We scurry here, we scurry there - never speaking in person, only texting a hello, or emailing it. People seem to rarely call each other anymore, or even sit down in person to talk over a steaming cup of coffee. I always preferred the 'in-person' conversations to any alternative. So I told one of my closest friends it was high-time he and I started a writing club. My idea was that we would meet somewhere where we could sit down and edit each others' manuscripts in person. As we spoke more seriously on the matter, we set out a general plan of action. Last Thursday, we put that plan to action, and all went remarkably smoothly.

            We met in a small coffee and crêpe shop in his hometown. He brought some of his work, and after a bit of general chattering, we got right to work. I had a good time of tearing into his work, and he took my criticism and teasing quite graciously. It was so much more enjoyable than our usual ‘social network’ style editing sessions because we were able to speak together. My questions were answered as I read the manuscript, and I could edit it verbally, which was a pleasurable experience.
 

            We worked through everything he brought to the table fairly quickly. Actually, I was surprised at how much ground we covered in a short bit of time. We’ll be meeting again next week, where I will have the opportunity to have a bit of my work edited. I’ll be sure to bring a good-sized stack of writings, so that we need not worry about running out of material to go through. I’m really excited to seeing how this idea pans out. If it continues to be the incredibly encouraging and inspiring time it has proved to be thus far, we’ll have to branch out and begin accepting new members to our little club. It’s definitely been a beneficial thing for the both of us and our writing.
 

            I’m looking forward to the next meeting!