THE REVIEW

UN ET DEUX ET TROIS!


One by one people dropped out of coming to Wednesday’s meeting. I didn’t know whether to cancel, or hold the meeting in case people whom I hadn’t heard from still showed up. As it turned out, Jim arrived on time, and then Jason arrived after 8:00, when he was finished having his son’s picture taken with his soccer team. Margaret was ill, Bob was still playing bridge, and Ellie is busy with renovations and an agility class.

Jim read two short stories from the collection he is writing for the Coffee Shop Author contest. The first story was “The Oddest Coffee Shop” where a female customer in search of a great latte enters a coffee shop where no-one is allowed to leave until they finish their coffee. Meanwhile, the interior of the shop and the attire of the owner keep changing. It’s spooky, but the customer is finally allowed to leave when she finishes her latte, which she says was the best she’d ever had. Jim’s second story was “The Coffee Shop Escape” where a female customer is accosted by a male customer whom she rejected. He stalks her, but she calls for police protection, and thinks she is safe when the stalker is apprehended, but then discovers the policeman is the serial killer. Using her own killer driving instincts with her BMW, she rams the policeman and makes her escape. These were two very interesting short stories I thoroughly enjoyed.

I read the second chapter of “Nigel Wingate Is Dead”, which gives a little more background information on the narrator and about Nigel and his wife. I don’t know whether this could be a novel, or just a very long short story. I did spend some time doing an outline to give myself some direction with it and will see where it takes me, I guess. I did submit my previous short story “Treachery?” to the CBC contest.

When Jason arrived he told us about the time he spent at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference. The critiquing session by agents that he had signed up for was a great disappointment, as he had intentionally arrived early and submitted his first chapter, only to have the venue swarmed by others at the last minute and his manuscript got buried in the pile and not read at all. It should have been done first come, first served, but wasn’t. And he says he probably won’t attend again until he has a completed novel to take with him. He feels there isn’t much more offered to him there that he would find beneficial.
Jason did read to us his rewritten Chapter 2, which is again tightly written with defining action and descriptions that tell us what the goals of the antagonists are and make us want to keep reading.

Ellie said she talked to an editor at the SIWC about her children’s story, and was told if she does a re-write, the editor would take a look at it. That’s encouraging.

Next Meeting will be Wednesday, November 17th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place and I do hope to see you then. Keep writing in the meantime.

Lisa