KEEP READING
With such miserable and wet winter weather, it’s that time of year to just curl up with a good book and forget the rest of the world. But if you’re a writer, you just might have to write the book first.
On Wednesday, Ellie read us three poems. “Patterns In The Ice” was a poem about the snow scene in her back yard. And “Winter Pond” was another picture in words from the same yard. The third poem “The Best Word ‘Needed’” was about a grandfather going to help his young cowboy grandson build his own home. It was written with a country flavour and spoke of both the older and the younger men needing each other.
Ellie will be doing a public reading today, Sunday, January 23rd, at the Small Ritual Coffee Society (a coffee shop) in White Rock. Jim said he might try to be there to hear her.
Margaret has had advance copies of her book ordered from Georgia, Holland and Scotland. Nice that we have an international author in the group! She also related a personal story of finding the wing of a fly in her marmalade. When she phoned to complain about it, the Asian voice on the other end said he would send her some coupons, but then was adamant that he couldn’t find thirty-second avenue, he could only find three two avenue. Margaret told him to send them to three two avenue and she would receive them.
The next chapter in “Coffin And Dye” that Margaret read, was “Coffin Moves Again”. Dye wants Coffin to do another job for Mr. and Mrs. Lark at Sparrows Bridge, where human skeleton pieces had been found. Dye wants him to go and look at the bones. Coffin doesn’t want to. Dye tells him to ride his bike, it would only take an hour to get there, and to dress warm.
Jim read Chapter 15 from “Coventry Ghosts”. In this chapter, Sara the kitten ghost is told to follow John, husband of the coffee shop owner, to the casino and keep him out of trouble. So she follows him, but once there she is fascinated by the slot machines and manages to get inside one where she uses her powers to line up similar images, thinking it’s a great game, especially when the humans playing it get so excited at their winnings.
Also had Jim read a short story from the series he’s doing for the coffee shop writing contest. This story was an amusing account of what happened when a patron died on the toilet in the washroom. We told him to call it “Men’s Room Memorial”.
Ellie read my novel and had some good suggestions for minor changes in wordage that would add strength to the story. She also suggested “Ignited” as a title. But then we were all discussing topics and Jim said men like to play with fire, telling us how his Dad sets a fire in his fireplace for lighting in the morning. And right then I grabbed the phrase “Playing With Fire” to use as a title.
I read two pieces that were written on the topic of watching a parade of veterans. The first piece was fictional about a woman going to the vets’ parade every November 11th in honour of her son who had died in Afghanistan. After writing it I felt it could have been a little cliched, so I wrote another piece which I called “The Making Of A Soldier”, which was non-fiction, relating things my son told me through the years to illustrate how he changed and grew away from home through his life in the army, and yet was still a responsible person achieving his goals.
Jason wasn’t able to attend last Wednesday, either, due to family responsibilities. He said he has some writing he wants to share with us, so hopefully he’ll make the next meeting.
And our next Meeting will be Wednesday, February 2nd at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. As Valentine’s Day is approaching, feel free to bring any writing you have on that topic that you’d like to share with us. Hope to see you then.
Lisa
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
THE REVIEW
WINTER FORTITUDE
In spite of the inclement weather of Wednesday, four of us still met to honour The Muse.
Margaret read a letter by Danny Halmo that was in the Langley Times on December 31st, thanking the people of Langley for their generosity of spirit to those less fortunate this past Christmas season. It was a good reminder of how difficult the holiday can be for some people.
In further adventures of Coffin and Dye, Margaret read of a stranger sitting down across the table from Coffin at a pub and the stranger telling him about how hard it is to keep tenants when the apartment building he owns is haunted by ghosts. Coffin tells him to just paint the premises and advertise the building as newly renovated. Dye receives a call from Mr. Creeps to tell him not to bother coming to exterminate ghosts, as he’s going to renovate the building. And Coffin is told by his landlord’s nephew that he has to vacate temporarily as his suite is being renovated.
In December I was invited by CBC to enter a flash fiction contest they were running, where the entry was between 100 and 250 words and started with “The snowman grinned malevolently…” and ended with “…buried alive.” I wrote a piece and submitted it, but didn’t win. Without saying who wrote which piece, I read my entry and the winner and two runners up. Margaret picked mine as the best, although the winning entry was also good. It’s nice to know I have a loyal audience.
Jim read Chapter 14 of “Coventry Ghosts” where we see the villain Jason return to his lab in Mexico with his laptop that has captured ghost essences. He’s hoping to resurrect his dead parents and keep them with him forever. This Chapter is setting up the character and his background so we understand what drives him.
Ellie read a piece recently written called “Walking A Winter Picture”. It is a very literary description of a recent walk in a snow-covered field and is a painting in words. You could feel yourself there, too, looking through her eyes.
I want to re-title my novel and was asking for suggestions. Ellie kindly offered to take it home with her and skim through it to see if anything suggested itself from the page. I did purchase the 2010 Canadian Writers’ Market and am planning on submitting to book publishers in Canada. After doing some research, I was quite surprised to find many of them saying they do not accept online queries or submissions, and a number of them even requested submission of full manuscripts in hard copy. Very interesting. That probably cuts down on the number of submissions they receive and have to deal with, n’est-ce pas? And of course that would definitely restrict the number of American writers submitting north of the 49th.
Jason emailed that he wasn’t able to attend the Meeting due to not feeling well.
Bob called to inform me he would not be attending meetings, for awhile anyhow, maybe permanently. He said he had lost interest in writing. I was so sorry to hear that and his presence will be sadly missed.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, January 19th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Sweep the winter blues out of your house and away from your Muse. Think of spring and renewal and write with your longing for life. And then come and read your words on the 19th. Hope to see you then.
Lisa
In spite of the inclement weather of Wednesday, four of us still met to honour The Muse.
Margaret read a letter by Danny Halmo that was in the Langley Times on December 31st, thanking the people of Langley for their generosity of spirit to those less fortunate this past Christmas season. It was a good reminder of how difficult the holiday can be for some people.
In further adventures of Coffin and Dye, Margaret read of a stranger sitting down across the table from Coffin at a pub and the stranger telling him about how hard it is to keep tenants when the apartment building he owns is haunted by ghosts. Coffin tells him to just paint the premises and advertise the building as newly renovated. Dye receives a call from Mr. Creeps to tell him not to bother coming to exterminate ghosts, as he’s going to renovate the building. And Coffin is told by his landlord’s nephew that he has to vacate temporarily as his suite is being renovated.
In December I was invited by CBC to enter a flash fiction contest they were running, where the entry was between 100 and 250 words and started with “The snowman grinned malevolently…” and ended with “…buried alive.” I wrote a piece and submitted it, but didn’t win. Without saying who wrote which piece, I read my entry and the winner and two runners up. Margaret picked mine as the best, although the winning entry was also good. It’s nice to know I have a loyal audience.
Jim read Chapter 14 of “Coventry Ghosts” where we see the villain Jason return to his lab in Mexico with his laptop that has captured ghost essences. He’s hoping to resurrect his dead parents and keep them with him forever. This Chapter is setting up the character and his background so we understand what drives him.
Ellie read a piece recently written called “Walking A Winter Picture”. It is a very literary description of a recent walk in a snow-covered field and is a painting in words. You could feel yourself there, too, looking through her eyes.
I want to re-title my novel and was asking for suggestions. Ellie kindly offered to take it home with her and skim through it to see if anything suggested itself from the page. I did purchase the 2010 Canadian Writers’ Market and am planning on submitting to book publishers in Canada. After doing some research, I was quite surprised to find many of them saying they do not accept online queries or submissions, and a number of them even requested submission of full manuscripts in hard copy. Very interesting. That probably cuts down on the number of submissions they receive and have to deal with, n’est-ce pas? And of course that would definitely restrict the number of American writers submitting north of the 49th.
Jason emailed that he wasn’t able to attend the Meeting due to not feeling well.
Bob called to inform me he would not be attending meetings, for awhile anyhow, maybe permanently. He said he had lost interest in writing. I was so sorry to hear that and his presence will be sadly missed.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, January 19th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Sweep the winter blues out of your house and away from your Muse. Think of spring and renewal and write with your longing for life. And then come and read your words on the 19th. Hope to see you then.
Lisa
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