I was pleased to hear (and make a note of) your Writing Resolutions for 2019. These targets should help us focus on our top priorities. Sometimes the range of possibilities is so wide that we end up achieving nothing. Many of us are aiming to get our books finished this year, but others wanted to explore new genres or set themselves weekly word targets.

Chantal’s first resolution made us all smile. She’s going to have a more organised writing area, but NOT go over the top and waste time organising her pencils into rainbow order!

For Nicky, it’s decision time: should she revise and complete her old writing, or move on to something new? Heather plans to develop her writing further by incorporating more personal experiences and improving the way she writes dialogue, while Peter even managed to present his resolutions in a poem – now that’s creative!

I was particularly impressed by Bev’s well-thought-out and achievable list of resolutions: she included some goals for blogging, some for her work writing and some for her creative writing. One we all liked was, “Enjoy the journey of writing, and not just the end results.”

One topic which came up during discussion was the Snowflake Method of plotting a novel. There are two well-known methods of deciding your plot: planning, where you make a list of events and break it into chapters before you write, and pantsing, where you just start writing with a basic idea, fly by the seat of your pants and see how your novel turns out once it’s finished. The Snowflake Method starts with a single-sentence basic idea and expands it gradually, building and spreading until you have developed a coherent outline.

A few dates for your diary:

We’re going Yelfing again on Tuesday 29th Jan – meeting up for a few drinks at 7pm at Yelf’s in Union Street. Jonathan will try to get us the Writers’ Room again.

Yvie’s monthly book club, Words, Wine, Wit and Wisdom is meeting on Wednesday 30th Jan. The book under discussion is The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. If you haven’t read it, you can still come – just sip your wine and look intelligent! Contact Yvie through the Island Writers Facebook page for more info.

And the next Island Writers meeting is Tuesday 5th February, 7pm – 9pm at Ryde Library. Our (optional) assignment for next time is The view from a window.

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