Southampton Writing Buddies met at The Art House. Attendance was a little down on the usual level, as a number of Buddies had other commitments that day. Jimmy chaired the meeting in Penny's absence.
Filming is about to start on Mo’s short story, which is exciting.
Janet continues with her nursing-based stories; she has about five on the go at the moment.
Karen is forging ahead with her novel, but she has been struck with inspiration for a new story and a new direction for her writing. The group looks forward to hearing more about this.
Tessa has downloaded a programme called Kinstant for conversion purposes, and has published her novel Spellbinderfor kindle. Her Knitted Quilts and Flounces is now available. She is also working on a mystery novel, and suggested two possible titles to the group who showed a clear preference for one of them.
Jacob is working on the text for a game-based site, as well as developing his own board game.
Paul is looking for people who would read and comment on his pieces of short fiction. He is not yet sure how to categorise them in a single genre. He has had work published on Ether books.
Jacqueline has had two of her tweets published in the June edition of Cook Vegetarian magazine, and a book review printed in Self Publishing magazine. She is working on a short story for a competition, and planning how to publish her children’s ebook.
Jimmy’s preschool stories are nearly ready but still need adjustments to language. He is nearing completion with Not a Guide to Southampton, commissioned by The History Press. He has nearly the full quota of photographs, and has agreed a larger word count with the publisher. Councillor Royston Smith has agreed to write the foreword. Jimmy is also considering ways of publishing his Sundance Gang and fantasy novels.
Discussion topics included copyright issues for photographs, setting up and maintaining blogs and web sites, formatting and publishing ebooks, pricing and returns for ebooks, and Amazon’s Creative Space for self-publishing books.
The next meeting will be on Friday May 18th at 2pm, as usual at The Art House, Above Bar, Southampton. Anyone interested in aspects of writing will be very welcome.
Blog notes by Jacqueline Pye
