Back to Castle Lodge for a group session with Maureen.  Really looking forward to it and meeting the other writers.  Maureen worked on us regarding settings.

It was a little intimidating being with other writers.  Although they were a very friendly bunch, i got the distinct impression that they were more experienced than me.  Some of these writers had been published.

The session ended with an writing exercise.  I took part but for the first time ever I was too shy to read my piece out.  Everyone else read theres out and it was enlightening to hear why they had written what they had and to understand their inspiration and thoughts behind it. 

All in all, it was a very rewarding session and I learnt a lot.  Again, I would definitley consider going again if a future event was held by Maureen.

Picked up Simon to go to the social evening together.  It was nice to arrive with someone and not on my own. 

Once at the pub, we ordered our drinks and found the other Scribblers.  We all ordered our food.  It was nice to hang out with everyone and meet their other halves or family. 

But, being 'The Scribblers' we soon drifted back to the topic of writing...

Today, I went to Castle Lodge to meet Maureen Blundell.  She is an editor but runs workshops every so often.

She agreed to meet me and look over the first 2,000 words of Drift.  It was really useful sitting with someone and discussing my work.  Although, Maureen was constructive in her criticism, she still managed to be motivating about my writing and ambitions and offered excellent industry advice about publishers that would be interested in my chosen genre.

Despite coming away feeling like I had a lot of work to do, I felt really confident and positive.  I know I am one step closer to my dream.

The general feedback was regarding my tenses - a known problem.  It was interseting to find that I over explain some things.  Her insight on what information was important at the start and what wasn't was useful.  We discussed how I could include the removed parts later on if they were important.  She suggested that the story needed to make it more clear that 'Fern isn't your average girl' and we discussed ways of doing this without slowing the pace of the story.  Sometimes it felt like brainstorming.  My head was buzzing by the end, with so many ideas that I almost didn't attend the evening social. 

I would definitley have a one-to-one with Maureen again.  And, I would definitely recommend her to other serious writers.

No homework set for this fortnights Scribblers challenege which is a blessing.  Instead we each have to take four words, which we drop in hat.  Then we draw fours random words out and have a few minutes to write a piece using those words.

I drew:

At first the words seemed extremly daunting.  Two of them, I don't think I have ever needed to use in my entire life!  After some thought, I managed to write them all in just one paragraph:

"The Rhododendrons created a marquetry of patterns up and down the banks of the highway as Dan's car roared towards his freedom."

I felt a little like I had cheated so, then spent the rest of the ten minutes writing a longer piece.

The Scribblers fortnightly writing topic this time was 'Opinions'.  This brought up a number of interesting pieces as every had a different opinion.

For my piece, see:  Short Stories>Gob Shy