Last night was the 7th meeting of the Canvey Writers and what a great meeting. As well as clocking up our recent member’s success with a 2-book deal from Pan McMillan for Fiona Cummin’s psychological thriller, member Margaret managed to crack the women’s magazine market with an acceptance by Women’s Weekly, and Jim managed to have his short story chosen by Gill for the new Bridge House Anthology 🙂 We have lift off now with our successes book. We also welcomed a lovely new member Bob who sees the release of his mystery thriller later this year.
When I think back to my old writing group, we were in a similar position with no successes when we first formed but slowly our members gained confidence and started to get their work out there, which I know is happening with our group. I can also see how friendships are now blossoming and the hope is we go from strength to strength. We are still going strong at over 20 members.
If you get the mix right and above all support one another, anything is possible. I am very proud to be part of this group and always delighted to see everyone.
Great night and thanks everyone.
If you find writing a lonely journey, look up a local writing group. It has to have an ethos of support, no matter the level I believe, and as I said in my first meeting, we leave our egos at the door. This is about support and nurturing, with the hope that as writers we grow and develop by helping one another to…
… see the rainbow
Writerly Debz 
Hi Debz, I really appreciate the group (though I feel a bit like I’m a “spy” because I’m observing the writer’s craft, rather than being one of you!) but I wondered if you knew about “Meet ups” and might want to use the software for the Canvey Writers’ Group? Nothing wrong with how it is, just that I go to a monthly Meetup for Freelancers in a cafe in Leigh, and the communications are facilitated by this. Have a look at meetups.com. And as you say, it’s nice to see friendships building and support being shared! Once I’m no longer getting the side product of office social life, I’m sure I’ll be glad of these local friends!
Janice
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Hi Janice, you are a most welcome member of the group and your contributions are all just as valid 🙂 By the way I am now testing the PerfectIt software. You still of course have to go through each suggestion but so far I am liking that it goes through each type of consistency error rather than it all being down to me and the rather crude proofing tools in Word. I think it’s a useful tool to use alongside usual working practices. Will see how it goes trialing it over this month but have applied it to a client’s manuscript today and it showed me I had captured all but about 3 small things. So a great double check! So thanks for the suggestion. I have trialed others before that just didn’t pick up half of what I do but this seems better!
I know about Meetups but not sure we need it, I am happy to use email as I am. I am in a US writing group, affiliated to the Bangor one in Wales and they use it, they also pay something for it now as well I think.But I don’t think we really need it. But thanks for the suggestion. We don’t really need to increase our visibility as we have enough members and I am more inclined to join NAWG (National Association of Writing Groups) if I wanted to do that. But we’ll see how things go! All good and thanks for the comment:) Debz
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