THE REVIEW

THE SONG OF SEVEN SCRIBES


There were seven of us again on Wednesday, all eager to meet and share with other writers. Gemma wasn’t able to attend, but Danny Halmo joined us for the first time, so we were still seven in number.

Margaret read first, her second to last chapter in the Peabody series. In ‘The Bishop’, we hear that Mr. Lamb, the farmer, is depressed about the loss of his still. The innkeeper tells him about a recipe that doesn’t require machinery to make, and so Mr. Lamb makes a concoction he calls ‘The Bishop’, and then puts up a sign inviting everyone to come and ‘enjoy The Bishop’. Marie sees the sign and rushes home to tell Rev. Peabody that the Bishop is staying at Mr. Lamb’s farm, instead of with them at the manse. Rev. Peabody thanks God for small miracles, as now he won’t have to give in to Marie and renovate the manse to accommodate such an esteemed guest.

Lynette read us “Who Is Salome?”, a lot of background information she had gathered after seeing the Strauss opera. But we were concerned that Lynette was only recapping what others had done, rather than telling us what she thought the story was really about. And we all encouraged her to write her own version, giving today’s world the female perspective of this character.

Danny read from his autobiography “One Flew Over The Racer’s Nest”. In the year 2000, he had a fight with his brother Tom, at Easter. Five days later Tom was in a car accident and ends up hospitalized. Shortly after that, Danny’s friend Walt was driving, drunk, and also badly injured in an accident. He is hospitalized two beds away from Tom. Unfortunately, Walt never recovered and died a year later.

Danny also read two poems from his book. ‘Les Miserables’ was about being on suicide watch while in jail in protective custody, awaiting transfer to a medical facility. ‘Hey Buddy’ was about finally being able to get over an ex-girlfriend with the help of friends.

Jason read to us a rewrite of his prologue, which strives to give us the context of the world where his novel takes place, an imperative in fantasy novels. As listeners, we thought things were a little slow until the arrival of the dragon and all the fire and action thereafter. I think Jim was the only listener who had read any fantasy, so the rest of us didn’t really know how much validity the change of prologue would have. I don’t know if we were any help at all.

Jim read to us further along in his first chapter, where Joseph sits down beside Daniella at the tennis club. He feels attracted to her and loves the fluidity of her long dark curls when she moves. But at the entrance of his former tennis partner, whom he had hurt, he feels obligated to take her to lunch and gets up and leaves. Daniella heard him admit he hurt the other woman, and is impressed he wants to make amends. She thinks she should ask him out on a date herself.

Bob didn’t have anything to read and nor did I. Maybe next time. Jim and Danny both have said they want to hear something Bob has written about the jewellery business.

I recently had a manuscript printed up down at Staples and found it to be a good solution. The manuscript was an MS Word document burned to a CD, 229 pages in length, double spaced. I took the CD down, and they printed the manuscript at $0.08 a page for that number of pages, which turned out to be less in cost than buying an ink cartridge and doing it myself at home. And the finished product came in a box, something to remember when you need a manuscript box for shipping. They also have a lot of options for binding, as well. So if you are thinking of putting together a publication of your own, be sure to go down and pick up their brochure.

Regarding Susan’s young adult novel on geo-caching, it was interesting to note that an activity now offered by Langley City is a family Saturday course on learning to geo-cache. I still think there’s a growing market for her novel.

Next meeting will be Wednesday, August 19th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Bring your Muse and I look forward to seeing you then.

Lisa