Writers Groups are so Supportive and Helpful.

 I've been in five different writing groups over the past 30 years. All have been friendly and encouraging, some have been more helpful on a practical level than others but all were/are supportive. I didn't realise how lonely writing is as an activity before I joined my first group, probably 30 years ago. I've moved on but I still remember some of the others involved in the Huddersfield group, and I still have a very good novel, Bad to the Bone, by that first group's leader, James Waddington. 

As a solitary writer long before I joined my first group, in the mid 1990's, it was terrifying sharing my words with others for the first time. Any attempts to read my work to family or friends were largely greeted with indifference. The attitude seemed to be, why couldn't I have a more interesting hobby? Archery maybe, or pottery or baking and anyway if I liked words so much shouldn't I be interested in crosswords? Or playing computer games with my children. I tried all those, some with more conviction than others, but nothing replaced the stories and characters in my head, keening and thumping to get out.

In a writers' group, there are people who can understand this. People who know you need to leave others watching Come Dancing, Breaking Bad or playing Warhammer and go elsewhere to tackle your own battles with pen and paper or Microsoft Word. 

So to my current writers' group, The St Leonards Writers, who help me share my work, stimulate new ideas and, now I'm seven years in, are giving me the opportunity to encourage other writers who are newer to sharing their love of this engrossing and, to normal people, completely crazy pastime. What these 'normal' people will never get is, for many writers it's not a pastime, it's life.

Guliver's Tales and Gulliver's Verse - published

 It's taken nearly a year but I have gathered, edited, designed, collated, constructed and published two pamphlets of creative work from the St Leonards Writers. Pamphlets were first suggested early in 2023, everyone else in the group seemed very happy for me to take on the task, so eventually I did.  Never quite realised how much work would be involved, but here they are. The cover drawing of Gulliver the gull was drawn by multi talented John Ballard, artist writer, musician and a life-member of the group.

Gulliver's Tales is 50 pages of flash fiction, we agreed a limit of 500 words. Stories range from serious to very humourous.  Gulliver's Verse is the group's first ever poetry book and has everything from short personal verse to ballad and Milliganesque comedy.

The St Leonards Writers are the publisher, ISBN's paid for.

We decided to charge £4.50 for the pamphlets. Members get a free copy and can buy others at cost price.

Noir Fiction - a Workshop

 I've joined another writers' group, the Shorelink Writers, who meet weekly on Monday nights, in school term times. Most group members agree to create and run a workshop for the whole group about once a term, I've just delivered my second workshop, inspired by some of the odd and slightly off-key place names in the local area, which I thought would suit a noir-style story. My local area happens to be Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea.

The workshop went down very well, almost every writer chose one of two names, Galley Hill and Goat Ledge. Galley Hill is obviously noir, but Goat Ledge? Of course, the thing with Goat Ledge is that everybody local knows the place. It's the name of a very popular beach café, and originally the name of the reefs of  somewhat treacherous rocks just off the beach, where historical goatherds would take their flocks to feast on the seaweed. 

This is the workshop I delivered:-

Noir Stories

I’ve watched a bit of Scandi Noir and got hooked on watching Shetland on TV, which is very noir. Noir is a category of crime fiction usually involving the police, think of the Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus stories, set in brooding Edinburgh. Maybe noir might even be funny, think of the creepy goings on in Royston Vasey!

 Noir isn’t a horror story, it’s all to do with the place and the mood, feeling dark, a bit threatening. It does seem to me that the place where the story is set plays a vital part in Noir Stories. They’re local stories about ordinary people, not usually involving royal palaces, long distance travel, desert Islands, etc.

Here are some very local place names which sound like they might have a noir story in them. You probably know most of these places. Choose one and write about what might happen there:-

Maze Hill    Pelham Beach    East Ascent    Galley Hill    Combe Haven    Ravenside    Conqueror Road

Bulverhythe    Goat Ledge    Horntye Park    Undercliff    South Saxons