Network News: North West Reloading

A Sunday afternoon in December is always a good time for a SCBWI social so that’s what a group of us in the North West did.

We met in the café of the beautiful John Rylands library on Deansgate, more or less opposite the branch of Waterstone’s where many a crit group has gathered before.

This proved to be an ideal venue. Not too busy and a little way away from the bustle of the Christmas markets. Those who fancied a glass of wine could indulge whilst those of us who had to drive could keep safe with a luxurious hot chocolate or a fine coffee.  And then there was cake, of course.  Writers and cake. A common combination.  

A bit of a tea-party?

Creative Writing Exercise

First up, something to get the creative juices flowing. Marie Basting, the new SCBWI-BI Network Coordinator, led a short creative writing exercise:Write or sketch for a few minutes on one of the following Manchester themes:

• A child visiting the Christmas markets for the first time
• A visit to the Manchester United grounds
• An extra on Corrie
• A dog’s view of the greyhound stadium  

This brought a variety of responses, some of them hilarious and others heart-warming - like the picture of the child more interested in the stray dog than all the razzmatazz of the markets. This also broke the ice and allowed us to introduce ourselves as writers / illustrators.

Diverse group

It’s clear that there is a good mix of people in the north west: a balance of illustrators and writers, a balance too of published writers and those still working towards their first publication, as well as some new members and some who have been coming for years. There was an academic slant, too, with several members completing a masters at MMU, some already holding a masters in Creative Writing  and one member who teaches children’s lit and writing young adult novels at Salford University. So, although we were having a bit of tea party this time, it’s quite clear we’re all serious about our writing.          

Goal-setting

We broke out into smaller groups to set some goals. Today these were far-reaching and “bottom-line” goals and perhaps goals for the group rather than individual ones. These include helping each other to:

• write that definitive signature work
• recover from rejection, turning the rejection into a positive
• celebrate success

We also agreed that a more closely defined individual goal-setting routine could be useful. 

Ideas for meetings

We looked at holding regular meetings for ten months of the year – leaving out August and December but perhaps organising something social in December. We might meet from 11.00 – 3.00 and include:

• something new
• a creative writing exercise
• sharing business experiences
• a sociable lunch    
• critique

Critique groups

We’re considering holding regular age-group specific critique groups with limited membership. These would take place at the end of the sessions, so those not involved are free to leave.

Saturday was the favoured day and we’re looking at the John Rylands and the City Library as possible venues.

Scrawl crawls

After the very successful event at the Science Museum in March this year, we’d like to try out some of the other iconic Greater Manchester venues such as:

• the John Rylands
• Ordsall Hall
• the People’s Museum  

A reminder perhaps is needed here that it’s perfectly all right to write. You don’t have to draw.   

So, a few good plans then. It looks as if the North West is really going to buzz in 2015. 

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Gill James is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Salford where she specialises in Children's Literature and Writing Novels for Young People. Her latest novel, The House on Schellberg Street, a young adult novel with a new twist on the 1940s, was published in April 2014.       

Network News: North West Thank You Stephanie Williams – A SCBWI Star

We are feeling a little sad out in the networks this week. Our North West Network Organiser, Steph Williams has unfortunately had to step down from the role due to ill health.

Steph is a long serving SCBWI volunteer. She has been working hard to build the North West network for a number of years now, setting up critique groups in Manchester and Chester, as well as launching the popular North West Professional Series. Before that, Steph was the Editor for Words and Pictures.

If you keep up with the discussion on our SCBWI British Isles Facebook Page, you’ll know there’s been much love out there for Steph this week.  Members have been paying homage to Steph’s hard work and commitment and thanking her for the support she has offered in terms of their own writing journeys.

Here are some of the lovely things our members have been saying:

"Steph has done an amazing amount during the years I've been a SCBWI member. Hers has been a long and genuine commitment. Thanks, Steph. You're a true mate and helped set me on the writer's path."

Marnie Riches

"Steph - you were an ace, hard working coordinator and will be hard to replace."

Carmel Waldron

"Oh my goodness, that's sad to hear. The North West events I went to were always top drawer. Steph did an amazing job."

Louise Cliffe-Minns

On behalf of the Networks team, I’d like to once again thank Steph for her amazing contribution to SCBWI. Steph, you are a Scoobie star. I hope you are back to full health soon, and until then we’ll keep your seat warm at the Manchester critique groups.

Network News: North West – a writer on a scrawl-crawl

@GillJames 

Who would have thought it? Late march in Rainy City (aka Manchester) and warm enough to spend a substantial part of the day outdoors. That’s what happened when the SCBWI North West Network group went on a scrawl-crawl at the end of last month.

Outside in March in Rainy City? 

An intruder? 

I’m not really an artist at all. I tend to shy away from it. My father was a very talented one and my son seems to have inherited those genes. So with so much talent on either side of me I’ve not bothered a lot. I can’t really compete. Okay, so my skater was the only who looked as if he was moving on the frieze in year 3, the man at the Van Gogh museum said I had a talent for colour when I managed to paint a convincing mackerel on a “beginners” (beginners? Even I wasn’t one of them and the rest knew a lot more than I did!) course and at about the same time I became quite adept at sketching portraits. I just don’t put in the hours; I prefer to work with words.

 Body occupied, mind on story 

I did, however, bother to draw that day. I often find some of the best ideas come when the rest of my body is doing something else. I don’t get the ideas for stories and scenes so much when I’m sitting at my computer – the ideas come when I’m doing something physical: ironing, baking, walking, swimming or driving. And of course, in this case, sketching. I remember once, when I was doing my Masters in Writing for Children at Winchester, we were told to go to the cathedral instead of the college and just walk around aimlessly. It felt very peculiar and we thought our lecturers had gone a little crazy. Yet some very powerful writing came out of that for all of us. Now, I actually try to recreate that opportunity. Today offered such a chance.

Sign language and word games 

Playing OULIPO games

 

This is something I’ve always loved. When I was a language teacher I used to take my students abroad and get them to collect the stuff. Words are actually all around us. I spent part of the afternoon collecting words. I then completed a little exercise I think the OULIPO poets might have approved of: I circled every third word, then wrote these out consecutively. I then tweaked it all so that it made sense. This is what I came up with:

The youth on the Metrolink Seeks Roman grits,
 Catalan too.
As a Mothers’ Day gift.

Authority 2744285 has affected the Network on this street.
The Railway line opened with success in 1831.
The people loved it, though it ended.
This road was a station.

If he says the Word he will get somewhere.

Hit by story 

Close to home but a different world

A little strange and surreal my poem. Yet as I wrote these words and as others sketched, the “What If” kicked in. What if a young man, shopping for his mum’s Mothers’ Day present, takes a wrong turn and ends up in a place like Castlefield, in this world of bridges, barges and canals, and columns bedecked with portraits, and finds himself in a time-slip situation? And he can only get out when he finds the correct Word? Which of course he does and returns in time for Mothers’ Day with gems form Rome and Spain? Yes, a little rough still. But there’s the beginning of a story there.

Rusty 

Yes, the drawing’s a bit shaky at the moment and I had to admire the great talent of some of the other participants. I’d certainly do this again though. It allows creative breathing space.

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Gill James is a writer sandwiched between two artists. her latest book, The House on Schellberg Street, came out on 11 April. She is very pleased that her son Ashley James, was one of the three people who worked on the cover art.   

Network News: North West, one member’s resolutions

A delightful email dropped into my inbox the other day. It was the information form Steph Williams, our local network coordinator about forthcoming network events.
There are some great offerings this year:
• A critique group meeting once a month in Manchester
• A Scrawcrawl in the spring
• A meeting with the professionals in the summer


We’re also looking at a writer’s retreat - perhaps just a day long. There will also no doubt be a couple of sociable gatherings where we just get together to talk about writing in general and our feelings of success and / or failure.

 But what has this to do with resolutions? Well I’ve kept my first and everything is in the diary. Here’s my list:
1. Get network meetings in the diary quickly. Hooray. ‘Tis done.
2. Have something ready for the critique sessions.
3. Network.
4. Do something scary and proactive every day. Okay I’ve cheated here and this is from my more general list but the point is that being a proactive network member makes this easier – go on, talk to that agent, or ask the events manager about that book signing whilst you happen to be in town for the critique group or tell your network friends you are going to submit that typescript next week – then you’ll have to!
5. Value your network friends.

Are you a writer? Do you write?                              Then you are a writer. 

But there are other things a writer does. One writerly behaviour is connecting with other writers and this is where our networks really come into their own.

I am published now, and have been for some time, but I still enjoy talking to other writers, sharing their success and keeping my finger on the pulse about what’s happening in the industry.

Resolution 3 is “network”. We’re probably all used to this through social networking and it’s true that if you keep your eyes open and really connect with like-minded people you can get many leads. But as writing can be such a lonely occupation it’s also good to meet people in the real world. Be nice to people. Make friends. Your local network gives you that opportunity.

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 Gill James has been a SCBWI BI member since 2002 and belongs to the North-West network. She was pleased to attend the conference this year ... and managed to win a critique of a YA novel.   

Network News: North West’s Relationship with Waterstones

by Gill James 

It’s incredibly useful that we meet for our critique group in Waterstones. We’re lucky to get the events room for free in the atmospheric Manchester Deansgate branch. It’s part of an older building and Deansgate is a rather smart street filled with some upmarket shops, bars  and  restaurants and some other beautiful literary buildings such as the John Rylands Library  and Eliot House, the temporary home of Manchester City Library. The events room is on the second floor and opposite the very elegant House of Fraser.

The events manager at this branch is quite proactive and some fantastic events are arranged there anyway. Many are free of charge or cost very little and this particular manager is quite supportive of new local writers. So we are able to meet in this room for our Sunday afternoon critique sessions.
    

However, there is a puzzle. If you attend an event the room is elegantly arranged, with audience seating laid out landscape-style, usually facing the window. There is no sign of any clutter. Yet when we arrive on a Sunday afternoon the room tends to resemble an attic full of forgotten furniture and we have to find a floor space, the comfortable chairs and enough tables for the number of people we’re expecting. The climate control is erratic and defeats the Sunday afternoon staff.  So be prepared to boil or shiver. And every so often an “event” takes place on Deansgate- maybe a fun run or a protest of some sort so we experience some interesting background noise. None of this matters, though, because it reminds us we are in the world. That is so important to writers.   

I’ll leave telling you exactly how the critique groups run for another time but I will just say three things now:

•  We run mixed genre sessions (though we are looking at doing some more genre specific sessions) 
• We email work in advance
• We favour the sandwich method – good points, less good points, suggestions for improvement.    

And it does work well in this extraordinary room.

Waterstones Deansgate benefits from a bar, and often members meet beforehand there or grab a hot drink to bring into the meeting. It has a quite big children’s section. One of my own students is in charge of teen titles there and runs a club for teen readers. Most of us check out the books either before or after the session or both and it’s like having a great big reference library to hand.         

I’m always delighted to see books there by SCBWI members and have been known to do a little gentle promotion. Have my own ever been there? Yes, actually. The very first week I was here in 2007. Believe it or not three of my educational books were actually in the window and were part of three for two offer. What a welcome! Alas, never again since.

We writers and other people in the book-producing industry have a strange relationship with Waterstones. They’re a huge chain that may have squeezed the indie bookshop out. They are cautious about small press. They seem to have some control and influence over the market. Yet in the end, with big companies like this, it always comes down to the people working locally. I’d say the ones working at the Deansgate branch, Manchester, are top notch.

We must remember anyway, that books are business. And fanatic that I am I’d still rather visit a bookshop than a fashion store even if Waterstones is the only one available. If you’re in Manchester, do visit this branch. Let me know you’re coming and I’ll meet you there for coffee if I can.      

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Gill James writes mainly for young adults. She is your Network News editor and is interested in news stories about your network. Contact her at networknews at britishscbwi dot org.

Steph Williams is the Network North West coodinator. Contact her for details of meetings at northwest at britishscbwi dot org.