Minutes of the meeting at La Rosa Hotel on the above date.
Present: Adele, Gill, Harry, Ian, Jan, Jenny, Magda.
Apologies: John, Jonathan, Kaz, Laura, Michele, Pip, Suzanne.
Topic: Members’ work-in-progress.
NB: Names and phrases formatted like this stand-in for web-links. See the section: Links at bottom of this page for the actual links. If you are cautious about following inline web-links (and perhaps we should all be…!) then you can either accept this site’s assurance that the link is exactly as shown – and click it; or else type the text of the link yourself into the address bar of a fresh page in the good-old-fashioned way.
Matters Arising
Adele reported Whitby Lit Fest plans for local exposure of authors and groups once suitable venue has been identified.
Members’ Readings
Adele read a candid piece about her thoughts on learning that her ex had died, after a lengthy battle against stomach cancer that metastased to the brain. She expressed shock at how little feeling she had for him – apart from the natural sympathy you might have for the plight of another human being.
Harry distributed copies and read out the closing chapter: Faint Beacons, of his current memoir Sea Wife.
It is 1960. Having visited New Orleans, SS Marwarri is now bound for home in the UK through rough weather. The author, serving as radio officer, has been carefully direction-finding the locations of navigation beacons on the Atlantic coasts. One of the risks of navigating using a single beacon is that of running full speed ahead into the beacon’s lightship, or rock, and the author gives examples of that happening, with attendant loss of life and payment of enormous compensation. Meanwhile the First Mate has been plotting the course of the ship using dead-reckoning, as used by Capt Cook in the 18 cent. Harry and he differ over the ship’s true whereabouts. Harry has been plotting steady progress straight towards the beacon on Mizen Head (southwest Ireland) and is vindicated when the feature duly appears on the radar – fortunately with ample time to avoid it.
Jenny continued reading from her period novel in-progress based on the historical figure of Mary Eleanor Bowes, the heiress of a vast fortune from the Durham coalfields.
Irish adventurer Andrew Stoney has married Mary Bowes and cheerfully changed his name to Bowes as legally stipulated. Their honeymoon is deliriously satisfying for Mary, but a hint of the dark times ahead occur in an incident with a drawn sword held to Mary’s neck.
Mary gives George a pile of legal documents to burn, but it’s not clear whether he has done this, or contrived to preserve them in close secrecy – a secret he’s determined to keep even from his wife Lizzie, Mary’s chambermaid.
Ian used his spot to discuss Goodreads. The point he wanted to make to other authors was that you may choose to ignore Goodreads, but Goodreads doesn’t ignore you. Every book with an ISBN gets a listing on it. Consequently, when someone uses the site to find out what they can about you and your book, they find an unloved page, with no star rating and no reviews. This scarcely burnishes your brand image.
Alone of any published authors in our group, only Harry has a healthy-looking presence on Goodreads. Drawing attention to our group’s byline: a self-help writers co-operative, Ian strongly recommends we do something about it for authors with published books, by taking the trouble to review and rate each others’ books.
The meeting closed at 1:25 PM.
Links
(in order of occurrence)…
La Rosa Hotel www.whitbywriters.com/venue
Ian www.whitbywriters.com/ian-clark
Adele www.whitbywriters.com/adele-duffield
Harry www.whitbywriters.com/harry-nicholson
Jenny https://whitbywriters.com/jenny-burns/
Mary Eleanor Bowes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bowes,_Countess_of_Strathmore_and_Kinghorne
Harry on Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4690639.Harry_Nicholson
Whitby Lit Fest www.whitbylitfest.org.uk/lit-fest-25
Whitby Writers Group 