Wednesday, 6 March 2013

The Ring in a Circle


The last two weeks I’ve struggled to find something to write about, which is why my blogs haven’t been as regular as they could have been. Tonight blogging wasn’t on my to do list, however, I thought I just had to get this done.

About a year ago I went to CrimeFest in Bristol and among others, I met Sally Spedding, and in conversation she suggested that I try my local Writers Circle, she even gave me some contact details, only a problem was, I didn’t get around to using them before my email account threw a fit and deleted everything in my inbox for no good reason and the details were lost.  So on Monday, I was on the internet and for no good reason I looked up Swansea Writers Circle, the link that came up to the council’s website, which linked to Swansea and District Writers Circle and gave me all the details I needed.  The site told me that they met on the first Wednesday of the month, so today I went.

The only other writers circle I’ve ever been to was in Cardiff and probably more than twenty years ago, so I was expecting the same sort of thing, people reading their work and other critiquing it.  But no.

Got there and there was an agenda and a speaker.  I was quite surprised.  The speaker was Melanie Lloyd, a woman who writes about boxing, she had two books out entitled Sweet Fighting Man and Sweet Fighting Man Vol 2.  When I realised she was going to be talking about boxing, I can’t say I was overly enthralled, but she was a really good speaker.  Absolutely enthusiastic about the subject, Melanie was a joy to listen to.  And though she spoke of loads of boxers I’d never heard of, she had interesting stories to tell that I enjoyed listening. Thing was, I’ve been trying to work on a noire flavour book and recently read Choke Hold by Christa Faust, and two of the three lead characters are boxers, so some of the stories Melanie told, seemed very resonant with that book, so obviously Ms Faust and Ms Lloyd have both got a talent for evoking the same imagery, emotions and reactions.

Strangely enough, I entered and won a prize in the raffle, but since I won a bottle of bottle of wine and I’m trying to give up drinking (not exactly working, but I’m trying), I suggested that it be pulled again, and it went to the other first timer there.  Nice that huh?

Anyway, feels good to feel enthusiastic about writing again, so thanks to the Swansea and District Writers Circle for that.


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