Here’s Craig’s rundown of the events at our last meeting of 2018.
Present – Abbie, Aileen, Colin, Craig, David C, David F, Ray, Richard, Sue and George
Apologies – Fiona, Roddie, Rosie
We started by welcoming along a new face to the group, George, who had come along to see what we do, and who we all hope will be able to join us more regularly in the new year.
Our first piece of writing for the evening was Craig’s submission for the Scottish Book Trust’s monthly ‘50 Word Fiction’ contest. The theme for December is ‘A Winter Feast’, and Craig’s piece, in the form of a festive menu with ‘unconventional’ additions to the dishes, was well received by all. David F said he had found it particularly amusing, and with just a few minor suggestions for tweaks, it was ready for submission to the competition.
Next up we heard Richard’s as-yet-untitled villanelle on the perils of following the herd, even when it can be seen that it is likely to do you more harm than good. We all liked it a lot, and the relevance of the subject matter to current political events was clear to see.
We then moved on to discussing group business.
First up was the signing event we had planned at Waterstones for the following evening. This turned out to be well attended by group members, and resulted in us selling the remaining stock of 50 Shades of Tay to Waterstones. (Copies are still available in-store, but are now in very short supply!)
We then started to look forward to our next project. David C gave a run down of the currently agreed ideas, which are that it will be short stories, of approximately 2500 to 3000 words, and that agreeing to some overarching theme would be desirable. We had hoped that this could be done in time for next year’s Book Week Scotland, but Abbie thought this might be too tight a timescale to allow for the additional editing, layout and design that would required for longer pieces, in comparison to the short pieces in 50 Shades of Tay. To perhaps assist with deciding on the theme, Craig agreed to contact Steve Finan from DC Thomson, who had attended one of our previous meetings, to discuss the possibility of a visit to the DC Thomson archives early in the new year. It was agreed, however, that once a theme had been decided upon, a period of three months for each of us to write the stories for inclusion seemed reasonable.
Craig also drew the group’s attention to the Dundee Rep’s ‘The Rep – Stripped’ call for new and work-in-progress scripts for possible presentation by the Rep Ensemble, and he forwarded round the details by e-mail after the meeting.
We also took a vote on the suggestion that each member should pay £20 for the room hire charge that we now incur from Dundee University, and it was unanimously agreed.
We ended with a small writing exercise, provided by Abbie, which produced some amusing results, involving fish, pianos and trips to the local A&E!
Our first meeting of 2019 is on Wednesday 30th January, in the Dalhousie Building, and we’d love to welcome along any interested new writers.