SUMMER SLUMP?
Wednesday’s meeting was sadly lacking in attendees. Where is everybody? Well, Gemma was saying goodbye to her beloved but ailing dog, Heidi. Ellie was overwhelmed with looking after a distant and ailing aunt and her aunt’s aging poodle. Jason just disappeared. Bob phoned to say he wasn’t well. Anne Berrie emailed to say she was involved in helping her sister.
But Jim showed up recovered from his fall, and Sharon Robinson joined us for the first time. Sharon owns Today’s Senior Newsmagazine and wants to do more of her own writing. Welcome to the Ram’s Head Writers’ Group, Sharon.
Jim read Chapter 3 in the second novel of the Coventry Ghosts series. He called the second novel “Search For Jason” and it is from the point of view of Sara, the ghost kitten. The 3rd chapter tells how Sarah died when she was chased by a dog and then hit by a car. It was a sad chapter.
Recently Jim submitted a romance novel to Harlequin and they sent him acknowledgement of same, and said response could be anywhere up to 24 weeks. He is also a judge in a published book contest in White Rock and has admitted he personally dislikes some of the entries. I won’t say which ones.
Margaret had some interesting news. Her publisher wants to set up an interview for her with the paper in Quesnel, because the bookstore owner wants her to have some notoriety before she does a book-signing there. Also, Margaret’s article, “Happy Birthday Vancouver!” is in the July issue of Today’s Senior Newsmagazine. Margaret had sent me three more chapters in “Coffin And Dye”, but I only read the first one which was “To Wagnal Manor”. This is where Coffin proceeds to the manor and is compelled by Mr. Sours to dress in the clothes of the murdered Madam Wagnal in an attempt to rid the manor of her ghost. After losing his patience waiting for Mr. Sours to return, he wanders the halls in female attire, looking for Mr. Sours and proceeds to terrify all who see him, including Tootsie who was there meeting the Commissioners about her dog, Arthur. When she was driving home, Coffin passed her at great speed in the Rolls.
I had spent some time re-writing for the 3rd time the beginning of “Nigel Wingate Is Dead” and read that. I had gone back in time and using 3rd person, wrote about the death of a child in 1969 that starts the mystery rolling. I started with the point of view of the child’s grandmother, but there will be a number of points of view used in this novel. Jim and Sharon said they both wanted the story to continue and are eager to hear what happens next. So I guess that’s a good start for a mystery.
Sharon read us a published personal story from when she took her children, younger then, to Halloween night at Potter’s Nursery. It’s called “Potter’s Haunted Potty” and tells of the predicament when her young son needed a bathroom but absolutely refused to use the haunted outhouse that night. Hilarious. Sharon was also trying to write some serious personal things that were full of emotion for her and we encouraged her to do so. And we sincerely hope Sharon will return to many more meetings with the Rams.
Since the last time I wrote a Review, I have played some more with my eReader. After many frustrating attempts I was finally able yesterday to transfer correctly to my eReader an ebook I downloaded onto my PC from the Digital Library that the Fraser Valley Regional Library belongs to. By ‘correctly’, I mean in such a way that I was actually able to have the eReader open it so I could read it. No small feat this, and I only have about 10 days left to actually read this novel as the lending period was only for 21 days. I assume it will self-annihilate when the time elapses. Can’t have that with hard copy now, can we? And I won’t have to drive the digital file back to the Library.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, August 3rd at 7:00 p.m. at my place. Hope to see you then.
Lisa
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
THE REVIEW
HOCKEY HIATUS FINALIZED
(The Canucks Lost)
The Rams finally met again on July 6th after a seven week break for hockey finals. The games kept falling on a Wednesday.
Gemma, Bob, Jason and I, and Margaret by proxy, met last Wednesday and since I did most of the talking the meeting ended early. Barinder has moved to Kingston and is doing her psychiatric residency at Queens, but asked to still receive emails from the group. Jim had a bad fall and was recovering at home. Ellie was interviewing someone to housesit and dogsit while she goes on vacation. Don’t know where Anne Berrie is.
Gemma arrived with her book “What Heidi Knows” which she has self-published with Xlibris. I will email to you a scanned copy of the card she gave me in case anyone would like to order her book. Sadly, Gemma’s dog Heidi is very ill and she has been tending to Heidi constantly. It is only a matter of time until Heidi passes on, and Gemma felt compelled to see her story in print.
Bob is the only one who completed the assignment of writing 500 words about hockey. He wrote 458 words about the Canucks bid for the Stanley Cup in 1982. A friend acquired three tickets for Bob at the final game, and so he was able to watch the Canucks lose to the New York Islanders. He’s only been to one NHL game since.
When Margaret was trying to send me her latest chapter in “Coffin And Dye”, she tried emailing it a number of times and then finally emailed “I’m okay!” She had been sitting at her computer in her kitchen as two of her sons tried to unplug the drain under the kitchen sink. They had removed the piping when third son arrived and wanting to check things out, he turned the water on. Margaret’s letter about it all afterward was hilarious, so I read that first, and then her chapter “The Complaint”. In it Tootsie has received a letter from the Commissioners requesting her and Coffin to attend their office regarding the disappearance of the dog. Coffin didn’t want to go, so he told Tootsie Arthur had been seen in their own neighbourhood and he would search there for him. Meanwhile, Dye starts briefing Coffin about their next assignment regarding the ghost at the manor of Baron Willis Wagnal, who was rich from processing jute from India. The Baron had married a local immigrant from Ireland who was found murdered when he returned from a trip to India. The murder was never solved and her ghost haunts the mansion. Dye told Coffin he could drive the Rolls when he goes to investigate.
I discussed my search for online character charts to print and use when starting a story. I found some that were very long and detailed. They’re great for main characters for a novel, but are way too long for minor characters or for characters in short stories. So I compiled one of my own that’s only one page and handed it out. Then I admitted that while organizing my online files for writing projects, I realized I have the beginnings for four different novels, but haven’t really progressed with any of them. I did re-write the beginning of “Nigel Wingate Is Dead” in third person instead of first. The prologue I started with was intriguing, but the following chapter was not. So I have to re-think the whole concept of what I am writing. It is based on a true story and I think I need to let go and write fiction only using the original event as a starting point.
Online I had found a site explaining briefly the Snowflake method of story building. Jason said it is a method he has used and it helped him find problems that needed attention in his story structure. I haven’t used this method as I don’t know if I can be that detail oriented about what I want my story to be before I actually write it. If anyone else has used this method, please let us know about your experience with it.
Jason didn’t get to read and was quite happy to call an end to the meeting. He could hardly breathe through his nose after having been hit by a stick while playing hockey himself. Ouch. Jason gets to read first next time.
And the reason I am late doing this Review is that I received my birthday present (I’ll be 60 on the 15th) from Sonny on Friday. It is a Pandigital eReader. My weekend was very intense trying to get started with this device. I charged it and tried to read the books already loaded on it, but the pages wouldn’t turn. Saturday I spent time with Pandigital tech support and had to reset the system to factory defaults. Because the Pandigital is a wireless device, I was then faced with trying to go wireless with our internet in the house. My brother gave me a used wireless router which I brought home. Bryon hooked it up for me and we had internet access on our computers, which were still connected by wire. But my brother never gave me the original CD for setup so after hours and hours of unsuccessful attempts to get into Cisco Connect to change security settings for the router, I went out and bought a new router with its own CD. After Bryon hooked that one up, we didn’t even have internet. That meant talking to Shaw tech support several times. By then it was Sunday afternoon. After shutting down my computer and restarting several times I finally got into the internet and downloaded a Windows Service Pack that took about two hours. After that I was able to register the router and set security. Then I was able to access the Kobo bookstore through my eReader. I downloaded several free books, old classics, and went to bed to read some Stephen Leacock with my backlit eReader that does not require any bedroom lights to be on so I can read while Bryon sleeps. But by then I was so tired I went to sleep while he was still watching T.V.
Today I went to the digital library that the Fraser Valley Regional Library belongs to, to download a good book to read, but everything is on hold. You still have to put your name on a waiting list to borrow. So why in heavens name do you have to wait to read a digital book from the library? That I don’t understand. I still don’t have a digital book I actually want to read.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, July 20th at 7:00 p.m. at my place. Hope to see you then. I’ll show everyone my new toy.
Lisa
(The Canucks Lost)
The Rams finally met again on July 6th after a seven week break for hockey finals. The games kept falling on a Wednesday.
Gemma, Bob, Jason and I, and Margaret by proxy, met last Wednesday and since I did most of the talking the meeting ended early. Barinder has moved to Kingston and is doing her psychiatric residency at Queens, but asked to still receive emails from the group. Jim had a bad fall and was recovering at home. Ellie was interviewing someone to housesit and dogsit while she goes on vacation. Don’t know where Anne Berrie is.
Gemma arrived with her book “What Heidi Knows” which she has self-published with Xlibris. I will email to you a scanned copy of the card she gave me in case anyone would like to order her book. Sadly, Gemma’s dog Heidi is very ill and she has been tending to Heidi constantly. It is only a matter of time until Heidi passes on, and Gemma felt compelled to see her story in print.
Bob is the only one who completed the assignment of writing 500 words about hockey. He wrote 458 words about the Canucks bid for the Stanley Cup in 1982. A friend acquired three tickets for Bob at the final game, and so he was able to watch the Canucks lose to the New York Islanders. He’s only been to one NHL game since.
When Margaret was trying to send me her latest chapter in “Coffin And Dye”, she tried emailing it a number of times and then finally emailed “I’m okay!” She had been sitting at her computer in her kitchen as two of her sons tried to unplug the drain under the kitchen sink. They had removed the piping when third son arrived and wanting to check things out, he turned the water on. Margaret’s letter about it all afterward was hilarious, so I read that first, and then her chapter “The Complaint”. In it Tootsie has received a letter from the Commissioners requesting her and Coffin to attend their office regarding the disappearance of the dog. Coffin didn’t want to go, so he told Tootsie Arthur had been seen in their own neighbourhood and he would search there for him. Meanwhile, Dye starts briefing Coffin about their next assignment regarding the ghost at the manor of Baron Willis Wagnal, who was rich from processing jute from India. The Baron had married a local immigrant from Ireland who was found murdered when he returned from a trip to India. The murder was never solved and her ghost haunts the mansion. Dye told Coffin he could drive the Rolls when he goes to investigate.
I discussed my search for online character charts to print and use when starting a story. I found some that were very long and detailed. They’re great for main characters for a novel, but are way too long for minor characters or for characters in short stories. So I compiled one of my own that’s only one page and handed it out. Then I admitted that while organizing my online files for writing projects, I realized I have the beginnings for four different novels, but haven’t really progressed with any of them. I did re-write the beginning of “Nigel Wingate Is Dead” in third person instead of first. The prologue I started with was intriguing, but the following chapter was not. So I have to re-think the whole concept of what I am writing. It is based on a true story and I think I need to let go and write fiction only using the original event as a starting point.
Online I had found a site explaining briefly the Snowflake method of story building. Jason said it is a method he has used and it helped him find problems that needed attention in his story structure. I haven’t used this method as I don’t know if I can be that detail oriented about what I want my story to be before I actually write it. If anyone else has used this method, please let us know about your experience with it.
Jason didn’t get to read and was quite happy to call an end to the meeting. He could hardly breathe through his nose after having been hit by a stick while playing hockey himself. Ouch. Jason gets to read first next time.
And the reason I am late doing this Review is that I received my birthday present (I’ll be 60 on the 15th) from Sonny on Friday. It is a Pandigital eReader. My weekend was very intense trying to get started with this device. I charged it and tried to read the books already loaded on it, but the pages wouldn’t turn. Saturday I spent time with Pandigital tech support and had to reset the system to factory defaults. Because the Pandigital is a wireless device, I was then faced with trying to go wireless with our internet in the house. My brother gave me a used wireless router which I brought home. Bryon hooked it up for me and we had internet access on our computers, which were still connected by wire. But my brother never gave me the original CD for setup so after hours and hours of unsuccessful attempts to get into Cisco Connect to change security settings for the router, I went out and bought a new router with its own CD. After Bryon hooked that one up, we didn’t even have internet. That meant talking to Shaw tech support several times. By then it was Sunday afternoon. After shutting down my computer and restarting several times I finally got into the internet and downloaded a Windows Service Pack that took about two hours. After that I was able to register the router and set security. Then I was able to access the Kobo bookstore through my eReader. I downloaded several free books, old classics, and went to bed to read some Stephen Leacock with my backlit eReader that does not require any bedroom lights to be on so I can read while Bryon sleeps. But by then I was so tired I went to sleep while he was still watching T.V.
Today I went to the digital library that the Fraser Valley Regional Library belongs to, to download a good book to read, but everything is on hold. You still have to put your name on a waiting list to borrow. So why in heavens name do you have to wait to read a digital book from the library? That I don’t understand. I still don’t have a digital book I actually want to read.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, July 20th at 7:00 p.m. at my place. Hope to see you then. I’ll show everyone my new toy.
Lisa
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