Capital Crimes

In a way, I felt like such a fraud.

Here I was, on a Zoom meeting with 14 other participants, each of them crime writers. Most of them, if not all, were published; some, with several books under their belts.

And here I was, an unpublished, untested, wanna-be crime writer.

I had hoped that the Capital Crime Writers group met face-to-face but apparently, since the outbreak of COVID, meetings are held online, with the exception of dinner gatherings twice a year. The next in-person meeting will be held at a restaurant in December.

For the meeting that I attended, we had a guest speaker. BC writer and former journalist, Pam Barnsley, spoke to us from somewhere in Mexico. Her topic was All the Feels – Crafting Your Reader’s Emotional Journey.

Other faces pixelated for member privacy.

Just listening to her talk about letting the reader fill in the blanks of a character by writing few words, but making those words impactful, gave me lots of ideas and reinforced some of the writing I have done for my novel, Dark Water. Her talk was quite inspirational.

This is the sort of writer's group that I think I need. It's important for me to learn and share in the journey that writers face when crafting a good story. Though I felt like a bit of a fraud in the meeting, listening in to experienced and successful writers, it showed me how I have the potential to grow. I was encouraged by hearing some doubt by these writers, knowing that I often feel the same way.

Some take-aways from this meeting were that I learned that I was in the 'toothbrush stage' of my book, where I'm going through it meticulously, like I'm cleaning a garage floor with a toothbrush. It takes a long time but it's worth it.

As part of the writing process, you have to write 'bad' words to get to the good ones. That is to say that you have to write whatever comes to mind as you work (not using profane or poor words) so that you can eventually get to words that benefit your writing.

I'm currently culling all the words that don't move my story forward, that only serve to make the reader work harder to get to the essential words of the story. I find this stage is taking longer than it took for me to write the first draft of Dark Water.

But this is good.

I don't think I'll join Capital Crime Writers until January. I'll wait until I've established myself in the group before meeting them face-to-face. It's just me but I never feel comfortable meeting people for the first time while I'm stuffing food in my mouth.

With Capital Crime Writers for inspiration and Capital Region Writers for the space in which to focus on writing, without the distractions of home, I think I might have a good couple of communities.

Time will tell.