Howdy All - Hope you had a great and relaxing Bank Holiday. True to form the weather was pretty miserable for days out but on the other hand good for writing?

Hopefully this and the week's break will mean a rich vein of manuscripts for review on Thursday.

As the White Hart has its ghost tour on tomorw night we will relocate to the Black Lion. In case the Black Lion is booked for a function our backup will be the Rose and Crown (only a hundred yards from the Black Lion). Keep an eye on Twitter/this page for updates.

Meeting will start at the normal time of 7.30. Usual format: manuscript/WIP review and general gossip. Hope to see you there!

Another useful piece of advice from the folks over at i09. For those of you that are not writing genre fiction it is still relevant.

I especially liked the bit about the usefulness of getting feedback at writers groups - I knew there was a reason I kept turning up week after week!

how-to-sell-your-readers-on-your-storys-main-ideas-in-4-easy-steps

Then try visuwords an online graphical dictionary that is captivating once you start to play with it.

Enter a word in the top right and watch as it gest expanded into a web of synonyms, concepts and attributes. keep clicking on the nodes and more will appear.

Have a go but beware - its so pretty it might distract you from your writing...

Howdy all - he next meeting will be at the White Hart Hotel. Usual time: 7:30 p.m

Format as per normal; manuscript review and anything else you want to cover!

Hope to see you there.

To be honest I find there is no substitute for a personal critique from a respected peer. These are people you trust, hopefully get on with and who have your best interests at heart. Also face to face critiques give you the chance to discuss plot ideas and hopefully get several different points of view on your work.

However, what if you can't make it to a meeting and you don't fancy posting your work online to be critiqued by complete strangers?

Look no further than the editminion. Here you can post chunks of work and it will give you feedback on your use of grammar, adverbs, passive voice and other aspects of your manuscript. Not bad if you are looking for instant editing gratification. And let's face it - we all need that from time to time.

Of course by using this and not turning up to a meeting you are missing out on two-way critiquing, plot analysis, writing encouragement and a fair amount of gossip. Oh and beer.

Rowling that is. Not the lead singer of Jamiroqui..

I stumbled upon another great bog link retweeted by the mighty Angela Ackerman which discusses the way the author of Harry Potter seeds clues throughout her books.

Check it out at the link below - it makes interesting reading. (Even for those of you like me that have not read the books!!)

Harry Potter for Writers

Hope reading it helps you uncover something useful!

Hi All,

Hope all is well with you. This week's meeting will be back at the White Hart from 7.30 p.m.

Normal format of manuscript review and general catchup.

Look forward to seeing you there!

(As usual any last minute changes of venue will be posted on Twitter.)

Modern life is a busy one. We all know how hard it is to find the time to create literary gold but with all the distractions of modern life come some advantages.

One such is the number of generators that are out there on the net. Web pages that will create random names, places, things and even plot points for you. All resources that may inspire or help you on your way with your latest masterpiece.

Web Generation for the web generation. (See what I did there?)

So you need the name of a chinese resteraunt in your story. (Lets face it - who doesn't?). Look no further. Serendipity has one here alongside castle creators, name generators and other world building tools.


Seventh sanctum also has a host of different generators as does Chris Pounds name generation page.

If you want a one line plot point then look here. It might just give you that twist you were looking for.

For those of you who like a visual reference of your character, try these hero generators.
Fantasy heroes, superheroes, zombies and even rockstars can be created for you to add to your novel scrapbook. (Note these need a bit of bandwidth to load up so not sure how well they work on a smartphone. Its also really nerdy.)

Finally another geeky one with a slick interface for creating spells, beasties and places is the Forge.

As always hope you find something useful or inspiring in the above!

Hi there - hope all is well in your writing world.

Fight scenes. Notoriously tricky. I should know as they are a particular weakness of mine.