This month, interest in Ely Writers has spread: we welcomed four new people joining the several existing members, along with the new person from last time.
It’s always good to welcome new members and to welcome back existing members. Many thanks to all who came and made it a good meeting.
With the approach of Christmas, we had a vaguely Christmassy theme. To this effect, Caity wore her Santa hat.
Progress reports and introductions
Caity is continuing has been continuing her novel, and wrote a short story about the weekend just gone.
Ely Writers’ resident zombie apocalypse guy has finished his second book in the series, and is on to the third book. Brilliant progress being made. Keep it up!
Our first new person has recently moved to Ely. She writes creepy poetry and detective stuff; her current project is top secret!
Our regular creative writing student is learning about suspense, and what makes things suspenseful, while continuing her novel.
Our second new person has a creative writing degree, and has spent some time writing a young adult novel, which is nearly finished.
Our third new member writes short horror fiction stories, and has been published in horror anthologies – exciting!
We have a member who writes women’s fiction. She’s added another character to her work in progress.
The lady that joined us for the first time last month is writing a screenplay based on a dream – fantastic!
Our fourth new member finished her creative writing degree a few months ago, but has had a bit of writer’s block since. She likes to write poetry when she isn’t blocked. We hope we can help her smash her way through the block.
Free writing
The vaguely Christmassy prompt for this month’s free-writing session was star. This was chosen because it’s to do with Christmas – the three wise men followed a star to Bethlehem – yet it can relate to so many other things: other religions (e.g. the Star of David in Judaism), stars on flags (e.g. the flag of Malaysia), astronomy (and so the sun, another star in the Milky Way or other galaxies, real or made up), a film star (or other celebrity), etc. The scope is almost as infinite as the universe itself.
Some of us read out what we’d written. As ever, we heard marvellous variety prompted by that single word.
We had some stories with a brilliant twist at the end, while the last one we heard slammed us straight into the action. There was some beautiful imagery, especially in a poignant view of war.
Well done everyone. What wonderful talent we have in our group.
Readings
We had one reading this week: the more-or-less true story of Caity’s weekend, which involved a cancelled event, leading to stepping in to help elsewhere.
We really love to hear your writing, although it’s strictly optional to read it out.
Discussion
Discussion was largely unplanned this week because we had something important to discuss, and we thought it would take longer.
We need to move our meetings to an earlier time to better suit the opening times of our host, Prosper. Everyone was more amenable to this than was expected, so the discussion lasted barely any length at all. Read more about it here: Ely Writers meetings are to have new start and finish times.
We heard from Nic about the launch of the Cambridge Writing Centre. We hope the centre is a success!
Another member shared with us a map-making tool called Inkarnate1. It is free for personal use; commercial use costs money. This member also passed round the book she’s currently reading: a collection of new Scottish folk tales by Robin Robertson2.
Finally, we were recommended the poems of Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese American.
Next meeting
If you’ve not been to one of our meetings for a while, why not make it a New Year’s resolution to come back?
Our next meeting is on Wednesday 3 January 2024 – at an as yet unspecified time in Prosper. Keep an eye on Ely Writers’ news page and our socials for updates:
References
- Inkarnate: a tool for creating fantasy maps.
- . Grimoire: new Scottish folk tales. With drawings by Tim Robertson. London: Picador.
These references also feature on our Resources page.
Leave a Reply