A better turn out than our First Thursday meeting, as we saw returns from recently absent members Jerri Lynn, Ann Marie, Crystal, and Bill. There wasn't much in the way of business news, except to discuss my attendance of the Mid-Hudson Valley Writers Conference and some of my recent interactions with Scholastic Books.
We then jumped right to the critiques, beginning with our holdovers from Jerri Lynn and Bill, then into my Leaping Lemmings, Zack's The Dead Machine, Kay's Open House, Closed Casket, and Billy's unpronounceable title. We covered children's books and tense crime drama, light humor and the seedy underbelly of New Orleans, anthropomorphism and metaphoric zoomorphism. It's delightful to see us cover such a wide variety of topics, skills, and genres. K and I are both familiar with genre-specific groups (for me, children; Kay, murder-mystery), that are great at getting your manuscript reviewed by peers familiar with that genre, but the GFWG has always had a different purpose: to give writers regardless of genre, skill, or background, a chance to get better. Last night that was on display.
Next month is no different. We'll review a poem by Billy, sci fi by Zack, memoir from Jerri Lynn, a reworked short from Bill, and picture books from Sandy and me. Plus we have a discussion topic ready to go: the art of showing, not telling. Which ties in to what Jerri Lynn called a Johnism, as stated at last night's meeting: "A lady may not kiss and tell, but an author does."
Let's all keep that in mind as we prepare for the July 1st meeting. See you then!
Next meeting: July 1, Holden Room, Crandall Library, Glens Falls.
2 comments:
I have an observation. The formatting you use on your blog entries (as I do on mine) is everything is left justified with a space between paragraphs. And yet when I've handed in submissions in that format, I've been crucified for it as though I was committing a cardinal sin far worse than misusing two/too/to. One time years ago I submitted and the ONLY comment anyone made was on the formatting.
That's a good point. And if I ever submit my manuscripts to the group online, I promise to use this format. But otherwise...
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