THE REVIEW

YEAR END

Annette, Kristie, Leah and Jim all joined me for the last Meeting this year. I am scheduled for surgery on December 2nd, and they thought I should just take the rest of December to recuperate.

Annette read first, Chapter 19 from “A Taste Of Wormwood”. While waiting for her father to arrive, Alyssa tells John a bit about their family background. She’s thankful to see her father, but disconcerted that Mike is John’s brother. Mike can’t stop looking at Alyssa and she at him. Working as an undercover cop, he had been hired by her employer to kill her, but helped her to get away instead. John notices the two of them looking at each other and steps between them and puts his arm around Alyssa to assert his claim on her. We can sense there may be a conflict between the brothers coming up.

Kristi read the next chapter in “Jane And The Midnight Daisies”. Jane had tried to kill the daisies with the weed killer her Grams had made, but it didn’t work. They have a lively discussion showing both their personalities. Jane has a nightmare about the daisies eating her Grams. There is good character development in this chapter.

From a Twitter prompt, Kristi wrote a brief piece that had to be under 500 characters but also include the words: sealed, newspaper, advert, rush and snap.

Leah read next, a short story from the point of view of a horse arriving at a farm thinking it will be where his life is ended for him. But through the day he meets a know-it-all cat, an anxious hen, an unhappy donkey and an angry ram who bashes things. He is well-treated, well-fed and at the end of the day content in knowing he has found sanctuary. It is a great little story showing the personalities of several animals in a farm setting.

Jim read Chapter 62 in “Coventry Ghosts – Book II”. Sara manages to get Joel out of the lab safely and they get back to the hideaway where Ji-Young was lying low. She moves both Joel and Ji-Young to a safer hiding spot and then sets out on her own to stalk the Umbra. She tackles them in small groups, sort of lassoing them with a band of energy each time and then throwing them into Drakko. At the end, all the ghosts were sucked into Drakko, including Sara, again.

I read another ‘Honey’ story called “Reluctant Mr. Fixit”. It tells of Honey dealing with a recent hot water tank failure, the oven door not unlocking after self-cleaning, and my wanting him to assemble a new cutting table I asked him to give me for Christmas. He then tells me I’ve reached my project limit of three for the month.

We had some discussion about the Website. Leah said she is ready to receive the links that members would like to see added as resources for writers. So please feel free to send along any that you like to use yourself, be they contest links, dictionaries, markets, prompt generators, inspirational quotes, or whatever you find useful. Let’s do this!

Annette is still working on her novel she must write during November, as well as coping with some recent health issues and chores on the farm. Jim has been dealing with his daughter and granddaughters staying with him at the same time his computer died and the toilet wasn’t co-operating. Lorelie has been dealing with health issues for both her Mom and herself. Jason missed the meeting as he had to stay home with his kids. We hope Wendy is doing okay. Leah has concerns over the health of her ex in Ontario as well as her own struggle to get her business up and running successfully. It doesn’t seem to have been an easy month for anyone. Time for a break.

Next Meeting will be Wednesday, January 7th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday Season and gets to enjoy family and friends and find a renewed connection with The Muse. Am looking forward to seeing everyone in the New Year!

LISA A. HATTON
Author
Published eBooks available at Kobo Books:
FIRE: http://kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=9780991739615
LOVE FOUND: http://kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=9780991739608