THE REVIEW

UP AND WALKING

It was good to see some Rams on Wednesday after six weeks of convalescing from my last surgery. Annette, Kristi, Leah, Jim and Jason all joined me to honour The Muse. Kristi had also been recovering from surgery on her wrist, so neither one of us had done much writing, but she did read something of hers.

Jason had to leave early, so was the first to read a very long next chapter from his book. It continued with Gregg being waylaid by his adoptive mom, Laura. She started expounding on her difficult upbringing and her annoyances with her younger sister, Samantha, who was Gregg’s biological mother. Gregg wanted to hear about his biological father, who was not human, and he pressed Laura to tell him. He is afraid he is like his father, able to both harm and heal. But Laura tells him he is her savior because of how much she has come to love him as her own. We saw this as a chapter that foretells of Gregg’s father coming onto the scene.

Annette read the next chapter in “A Touch Of Wormwood”. Alyssa is still at the cabin with her family, and Karl, and Mike and John. The two brothers each vie for her attention. As the brothers go jogging in the morning, her father tells her she needs to choose which one she loves and wants. She speaks to both men, but doesn’t choose either one. We thought the conflict in this situation needed to be expressed more openly instead of so civilly, especially since the brothers are both cops. Annette assured us the conflict was coming.

Kristi read another chapter of backstory she is thinking of using instead of the prologue for “Jane And The Midnight Daisies”. Jane, at six years of age, has a nightmare about a man collecting a baby in a basket. She awakes and sees the red eerie glow up on the opposite mountain. Afraid, she runs to her parents’ bedroom but they are missing. This is a much shorter introduction to the mystery.

Leah had decided to write some classical poetry and brought some examples to share. The first was a triolet, eight lines with eight beats per line. She had written two examples, “Jealous Cousin” and “Fat Child Blues”. In order to more precisely form the required beats per line and the rhyme scheme, Leah had used what looked like a grid from MS Excel in which she placed the correct syllables for each line. Never thought of writing poetry that way. Too funny. The next type of poem was a cinquin, with five lines. The example used was “Beetle”. Next came a villanelle, with 19 lines, and her example was “Do Naught”. This made us all realize writing poetry is just as much work as writing a novel. Rather complicated.

The evening had worn away, so Jim and I didn’t read anything. However, I did mention a new publisher I had found online that has opened in Vancouver. They can be found at www.nonvella.com, and publish short works of non-fiction running from five to twenty thousand words. They publish in print, but also digital copies online at Kobo. I thought this might be someplace to send my “Honey” stories, since they are memoir, and thus non-fiction.

Margaret Moffatt has an article on the history of Richmond, B.C. in the April issue of Today’s Senior Newsmagazine.

Marilyn Sergi emailed me that she had both an article and a poem accepted for publication, but unfortunately, I lost her email and can’t remember which publication she mentioned. But congratulations to her regardless.

The next Meeting will be Wednesday, May 6th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then. Don’t let the sunshine distract you from writing!

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