Postcards from ... Kidder

Sadly Chris was unable to join us because of work commitments and we were feeling light in numbers come the appointed hour because Annie had texted in to say that she was running late. She had gone to Halfords to pick up a brake-light bulb and was entertaining two young men under her bonnet. When she arrived, all of a fluster, she was able to give us the news that the other members of her "proper writing group" had liked her plan for a new Polly Poodle story and all she has to do make it into a rhyming story.

By then we had already shared that Tony has entered another competition and is halfway through a mental health dissertation; Linda has submitted 'Budgerigars' to another agent; and Izzie is trying to ensure that her work for the Internet, other than her personal blog, is remunerated.

Rob shared details of his Pubslush crowdfunding campaign and the other members were excited to learn that not only will they soon have an opportunity to read his new novel Out of Such Darkness but, through becoming Darkness Angels, they have a chance of sharing in its success. They all rushed from the meeting and found their way to the website  where they learned all about it.

Izzie read from a blog review of her stay in an all-weather holiday destination called Bluestone which is close to Tenby in Pembrokeshire. We all responded with enthusiasm to the writing, the use of the postcard visuals and her enthusiastic descriptions of the activities they had enjoyed. We would have liked to have seen more descriptions of Izzie's personal experience of some aspects of the holiday. It became clear that the areas where we were looking for more detail were those she didn't enjoy so much and we discussed approaches to overcome this.

Being a seasoned and successful blogger, Annie is a master of the bullet-point summary and the list of hints and in this piece worked really well.

In summary:

·         Annie arrived late but seemed to have had good service at Halfords

·         The news highlight was Rob's crowdfundingcampaign 

·         We all admired Izzie's work and gave constructive feedback including Tony's idea that she should adopt "Postcards from …" as her travel writing brand

·         As always the meeting was a good mix of writerly chat and nonsensical fun

The next meeting is on Tuesday March 10th. It's at Rob's and Chris has already submitted.