Shameless?

I have criticisms. You'll note the pleural.

At the end of August, I joined a local writers group on a trial basis. A "dark fiction" group. I'm not fussy. I'd have given it a whirl if it was romantic fiction, fantasy fiction, historical fiction, erotic fiction, young adult fiction, any kind of fiction. Actually maybe not science fiction. I think I would find myself distressingly bogged down in the research and become frustrated by my failure to invent, for the purpose of a small scene in the opening sequence of my story, a plausible mechanism for teleportation. But this was a "dark fiction" group. I had to write a kind of audition piece and everything. I wasn't really sure where the bounds of dark fiction lie, so I tried to go dark, but nor was I really sure where the bounds of dark fiction lie, so I tried not to go too dark. I'm still not really sure where the bounds of dark fiction lie, but I worry less.

We meet monthly, virtually, and we actually READ one another our short 350 word homework piece. Then we do a ten minute exercise together and share that as well. I keep forgetting the reading. Once, I wrote a poem instead of prose, forcing myself to, you know, perform it, and another time I got half way through and realised I had never said a particular word out loud and was not entirely sure how.... Still, I have been to four meetings now and no one has sniggered while I read, not even once.

The rest of the group had been working on an annual anthology, when I joined, and were kind enough to ask if I would like to try to contribute a novella. Up to 20,000 words. This was before my RSI got REALLY bad. 20,000 words I thought. I've got about a month to do it, why the blazes not?

Well this week, the anthology was published at last. You can buy it. Really, please, be my guest. Here it is, you can get it on Amazon.

Now, here is where my criticisms come in. They are all about my own story of course. I wont share them, because if you WERE to buy it, it would destroy any hope of enjoying the story. But I have some. Several. Valid criticisms. Alongside some praise, too. And this, my friends, seems like a jolly good thing.

I have never written a work of fiction of 20,000 words before, and I tell you, I have learnt so much doing it! I have learnt about my strengths and how I like to swish them like ruffled silk skirts, and my weaknesses and how I parade about with them under my petticoats. I have learnt about some of my writing red flags, so to speak, and where to have faith in the process. I could go on, but, again, spoilers. Not in the plot sense. In the breaking the fourth wall sense and making it difficult to read the story and not the process.

Suffice it to say I am glad to have done it, and I am keen to do it again, and I am hopeful that doing it again will be another opportunity to learn, and improve, so that I can do it again, and learn, and improve. And I am hoping that someone might actually buy it - if you do, feel free to share your own criticisms. I've read it, you wont spoil it for me.

In the meantime, in the new year, we are meeting together IN PERSON, socially. I'm all for expanding comfort zones, but steady on chaps! Legend has it that before COVID, the monthly meetings were all in person! Can you imagine!