WordWatchers (at least a subset - Julian, Abbie and me) had a wonderful evening with Reading Writers (@ReadingWriters) last night.We (as a group), had been invited, to judge and critique their most recent competition. We were honoured and readily agreed. It was only on the way to Reading that the trio had what could be best described as an "Oh..." moment.This is moment was because in WordWatchers critiques have been described as "being mauled by velvet claws" and we weren't sure how our 'style' of critiquing would go down.It was very interesting for us to see how another group works, especially given how much larger Reading Writers as a group is compared to WordWatchers (our continued meeting in our own sitting rooms, is both our strength, but from a size, point-of-view, our Achilles Heel).The evening, however, seemed to go brilliantly (it certainly did for us) and we're very grateful to have been included.Highlights included Miranda who had to hand her story over to Eileen to read because she was reduced to tears by her own prose (as she read it so well with such comic timing that it was a delight to listen to, despite her protests to the contrary), and also, Josh, whose story had him adlibbing the odd swear-word as he squirmed beneath the gaze of the 20 people in the room as he read out his tale of an excitable mouse going on holiday - complete with actions. It was hilarious, despite (or because of?) Josh's obvious discomfort.We certainly hope to work more closely with Reading Writers and we hope our critiquing has not scared them off - we do it because we want everybody who has a dream to write - to get better. We genuinely loved being part of the process and it was a wonderful opportunity to see so many different styles of writing and we really did get a lot out of it.We had a lovely time in the pub afterwards with Julian and Josh (Reading Writers 'voice' on Twitter) talking about children's stories and Abbie and Julie Cohen talking about... well, I would blush if I told you...Finally, congrats to the winners, but thank you to all the participants for allowing us to be part of your competition.
John