RAM'S HEAD REVIEW

SPRING IS SPRUNG

Wednesday’s meeting saw the faithful trio of Bob, Margaret and myself here to share our writing pursuits.

Bob is going to submit his story “Going Downtown” to the short story contest at the Poetry Institute of Canada. He brought it along and asked for help in re-writing it for submission. So we read the story aloud and verbally edited every paragraph and ended up with a version that satisfied the three of us. Great fun. But that only worked because Bob had brought a hard copy for each of us to look at. Smart man.

Margaret read two chapters from the Peabody collection. Peacock is interviewing applicant number five for the position of his housekeeper. Her name is Mrs. Mousley, but she was scared off when Joey started crying like a cat, a habit he picked up while visiting Marigold. Mrs. Mousley was afraid of cats. But she had suspiciously reminded Peacock of Goldie, as in Goldie and Sylvester, who had bombed the Inn on Guy Fawkes Day. Then Rev. Peasley visits and strongly advises Peacock not to hire applicant number six, as she is Miss Dye, who had talked to the town about the resident ghosts of the area. Peacock doesn’t believe in ghosts. But Miss Dye likes Joey, his parrot, so he hires her. She then asks him to call her by her first name, which just happens to be “Marigold”.

I read a short story by a writer at the Murrayville Library Writers’ Group, about a young girl growing up in Jamaica and staying at a boarding school. The girl and her sister and a friend had to take their dirty clothes and linens each Saturday to the on-site laundry, where they were terrified by the mechanic who looked after the boilers and equipment. This was an actual memoir and very interesting to read.

Last week I sent off a short story submission to Polar Express. Am also organizing things for the next novel I will write, putting together a binder with sections for character development, plot outline, chapter outline, research, and the actual writing I will do. This is something I learned I need while doing the first novel. It certainly simplifies the work process and is a great aid when I can’t remember how I spelled somebody’s name or in which chapter something specific happened. No problem with a short story, but by the time I had over a hundred pages in my novel, it was a real nuisance trying to find something. The chapter outline I did after writing each one became invaluable to me when I did the rewriting.

Hope everybody is enjoying the gorgeous spring weather that has finally arrived. It was sure a long time coming this year. Now we can take our notebooks outside to write!

Next meeting here at my place on Wednesday, June 3rd at 7:00 p.m. Hope to see you then. Happy Writing!

Lisa

THE REVIEW

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER


Since I didn’t write a Review after our meeting in April, I will have to include news from two meetings this time.

On April 1st, Bob and Margaret joined me and Margaret was the only one who read. From the Peabody collection, she read “The Intruder”, which sees Marie come back to the smelly manse after staying overnight at the Inn. She opens the doors and windows to air the place out, then goes to get eggs at a farm. Meanwhile, Peabody gets up to a cold house and calls police to say there’s been an intruder, and the policeman tells Marie, who thinks it’s bad luck because the Xmas tree was removed before New Year’s. Peabody tells her he feels guilty for removing the tree, so then she feels sorry for him and puts the kettle on.

In Seniors Today, there was an article called “Just for Laughs” by Laszlo Tamas, Gemma’s husband.

On May 6th, Bob and Margaret again joined me for another meeting. Margaret brought pictures showing a brass plaque that’s on a pole in Vancouver. The plaque has Margaret’s story “Dinner At Love’s Café” on it. Isn’t that a great way of preserving an author’s work?

Bob read from his jewellery history, about the hub of the business being in the area of Hastings St. and Cordova. There was a very large diamond robbery on 1906, with $8500.00 in rings stolen, and a shot fired at a clerk pursuing the thieves. One thief was caught with 9 diamonds in the butt of a revolver. Bob also read an account of this episode from the Vancouver archives.

Margaret read about Reverend Peacock’s Christmas at Marigold’s in Gretna Green. Unfortunately, he fell out of the hole in the wall bed and Marigold called a vet to attend to his injuries. The vet was more interested in Joey, the squawking parrot. On his return home, he started interviewing for a new housekeeper. He kept praying for another Marigold.

While Sonny and Chantal and baby Grayson stayed with me in April, I asked Chantal to read my novel “Fire”, which she did. She said it was a good read and she really wanted to learn the identity of the arsonist. She also said there weren’t any parts in the book that she felt she had to slog through. This was all very pleasing for me to hear. Chantal is well educated and an avid reader of fiction, so I highly respect her opinion as a reader. After that good news, I sent off my first submission to an agent, which included cover letter, synopsis, and first two chapters.

Now I am getting organized to start another novel. I plan to continue with the same characters in the same setting, but this will be a murder mystery.

Ann is currently taking a course in the History of Africa at Kwantlen, and plans to take a creative writing course in the fall. Her community hosted a talk by Doris Reidwig about having her first novel published.

In yesterday’s Langley Times there was a call for submissions of poetry or short stories to a contest where a lot of submissions will be included in an anthology. You might want to take a look.

Next meeting here at my place on Wednesday, May 20th at 7:00 p.m. Hope to see you then, even if you haven’t written anything.

Lisa