Rescue - June 2026 meeting
The weeks whizz by and I realise I’ve not sent a proper update for a couple of months. My notebook is full of stray notes from the last few meetings, some of which still make some sort of sense. The theme for the month, revealed at the end of the last meeting, is “rescue”. But as always please use or ignore this as you prefer.
It was exciting to see and hold a proof copy of Cat’s novel Hidden last month. Hidden is due out soon in all good digital and local independent bookshops (if they don’t stock it, they’re not good and you can tell them that).
Our conversations have covered delayed teenage rebellion and finally getting those tattoos and piercings, Jenny Greenteeth the river hag that drowns children and the elderly, hungry-hungry hydrangeas, chickens, atypical spaniels, rescue hippos that are very protective of their humans, and something very niche about dinosaurs.
On the tech front we’ve discussed Atticus for book formatting, the various ebook publishing options, and ProWritingAid for its help with grammar and spotting repeated words or phrases, but with the warning that you should ignore its suggestions for improvements.
We’ve shared our writing and progress against various projects. Characters have bleached their hair with cow’s urine to escape family associations with witchcraft, argued with an artificially intelligent lemur about eating tomatoes in space, and transformed into majestic dragons soaring above a battlefield. And we’ve discussed changes in characters and how their development can make a story stronger.
The imaginary bibliography (that grand name I give to books that we mention) has grown with a few more entries including Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt, and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
I’m looking forward to catching up again on Tuesday and hearing how your month of writing has gone. See you at 8pm in the Parish Room in the Old School next to Bottesford Library.