SNOOZE-FEST?
Can’t say whether it was the warm temperature or that our writing was boring, but a few eyelids had trouble staying up on Wednesday night when Leah, Jim, Lorelei and Jason joined me here for a meeting. Hope it was just that I didn’t have the air conditioning on high! Kristi was busy with her son’s fifth birthday, and Annette had been marooned in Princeton with a vehicle breakdown on her way home from Grand Forks. We missed them both.
We discussed how best to indicate to the reader there is a change in point of view within a chapter, and agreed additional space between paragraphs is warranted. However, on looking up the subject, the advice I found was: Change of scene can be indicated with an extra space. Change of POV or timeframe will need either the # or ***, in the middle of the space between paragraphs. Jim uses the # key in his writing. I always start a new chapter when I change POV. Each to their own, I guess. Just don’t leave the reader confused as to whose head they are roaming around in.
Lorelie handed around a print-out of what we all surmised to be an attempted scam via email. This one was very well written but we were skeptical that anybody would still be falling for something like that.
Jim read the edited version of the prologue and first few chapters of “Coventry Ghosts – Book I”. The prologue shows the death of Leanne and the first few chapters show how she is learning to haunt the coffee shop. Also, Judge Jeffreys is introduced near the beginning and he tells Leanne the rules of haunting and that breaking them means being exiled to Drakko. Wanting to communicate her thanks to the ladies who had tried to save her, she appears after midnight to each successive cleaning person at the coffee shop, but ends up scaring them all away.
The writing reads much smoother and Jim likes what the editor has suggested, but is still having problems getting the process to move ahead more quickly. At the rate it’s been going, he could see it taking two years for an edit he would like to see completed in maybe a few months. He did say he needs to speak with the editor. Luckily, he didn’t pay up front for the service.
Since Jason has several times asked me what was happening with “Nigel Wingate Is Dead”, I had pulled out the beginnings of that novel that I hadn’t looked at in a couple of years and at the meeting I read the prologue and first chapter. I thought they still read fairly well and Leah said she wanted to keep going and hear what was happening. Jason suggested I include a little more information on where the Cariboo and Watch Lake are located and Leah had the perfect wording to do that, so I will add that information right at the beginning. Jason also told me not to forget that just because this story is based on a true incident, I don’t have to only write what really happened; that I can make the story more compelling by adding fictional elements. He’s right, as I always intended this to be fiction anyhow. And that is when Lorelei perked right up and took notes. You don’t have to be fettered by only the truth when you write.
I also told Jim that I had managed to group all my ‘Honey’ stories in one manuscript file on my computer, and have also done some formatting so the whole thing is visually readable. Next will come the editing. Someone asked if I had decided what order to put the stories in and I said I had chosen an order for the time being. But I may ask someone, or several someones, to read the order and give me their thoughts on the subject.
The Meetings in June will be the usual dates, the first and third Wednesdays. However, as the first Wednesday in July is actually July 1st, a holiday, we decided to move that meeting to July 8th. And since I will be away the end of July and the beginning of August, there will be other changes, as well. So after discussion, here is the intended schedule for June, July and August.
June 3rd
June 17th
July 8th
July 15th
August 19th
All Meetings will be at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Be sure to mark your calendars. Really hope that you will be able to attend. Happy writing everyone!
Friday, May 22, 2015
Friday, May 8, 2015
THE REVIEW
PROOF POSITIVE
Seven of us were here on Wednesday to prove we’re still writers, although not necessarily still writing. If all this gorgeous weather keeps us away from our computer screens, maybe we should regress to pen and paper? We might be further ahead. But seems to me Kristi already does that.
Jim read first, two chapters. The first was Ch. 66 which is the last chapter in “Coventry Ghosts, Book I”. In it a powerful figure in the country of Honywuan plans to break Jason out of a Mexican jail and bring him to Honywuan to collect soul essences by computer for that country to control the world. And the Umbra ghosts are angry with the ghosts of Leanne and Sara, and also plan to work with Jason for more control over ghostdom. The next piece Jim read is the prologue to Book II and shows the death of the kitten Sara and how she meets up with Leanne and joins her in the haunt of the coffee shop.
When I told Jim I didn’t remember this prologue he said it’s because he just wrote it, after he finished writing the book. And Lorelei perked up knowing somebody else was writing a book out of chronological order. Perfectly acceptable. I suppose I’ve done that with my “Honey” stories, but now I’m having difficulty putting them in some kind of order for a whole manuscript. And since I didn’t plan a book to begin with, I see there is a lot of repetition of background that I’m dealing with. Win some, lose some. Jim says he loves writing the first draft and all the rest is just grunt work. I agree.
I read next, a short personal essay called “The Ring”, which I wrote Wednesday morning just to prove to myself I could still write. It tells of a family ring glittering with many diamonds that intimidated the first two women who wore it. But with the third generation it found a comfortable home. Maybe I’ll send it off to the Polar Expressions writing contest. If it gets printed, it ups my count of royalties paid to me by Access Copyright.
Annette read Ch. 23 and 24 of “A Touch Of Wormwood”. In the first, Alyssa tells her father of the sexual assault she endured and that she doesn’t feel worthy of wearing a purity ring he had given her. But he says her integrity is still intact and therefore she is worthy of the ring. In the next chapter she accuses Mike of cheating at cards. He goes outside, after which George West, the crime boss, comes into the cabin and tells her Mike is probably already dead. As he moves towards her she closes her eyes in terror, and then hears George screaming in pain. She opens her eyes and sees him down and clawing at the floor. None of us were very happy about how submissive Alyssa has become when there are men present. We’ve been very hard on Annette. She doesn’t want Alyssa’s anger to come to the surface and we are all trying to force that to happen.
Kristi read the beginning of a short story called “Three Suns Dance”. It starts with a naked young man and woman in a tent. Even though they desire each other, he must leave by dawn as he cannot have sex with a woman on the day of the dance. Interesting implication that a sexual encounter would not add to his stature as a man. Where is this fantasy world?
Lorelie and Jason did not read, but we thank them for listening to the rest of us. Support of other writers is always important.
Margaret Moffatt has an article on the history of Steveston, B.C. in the May issue of Today’s Senior Newsmagazine.
The next Meeting of The Rams will be Wednesday, May 20th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then with your collection of written words. Happy Mother’s Day to those who qualify, and if anyone goes to the Cloverdale Rodeo, don’t get stomped on!
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
Seven of us were here on Wednesday to prove we’re still writers, although not necessarily still writing. If all this gorgeous weather keeps us away from our computer screens, maybe we should regress to pen and paper? We might be further ahead. But seems to me Kristi already does that.
Jim read first, two chapters. The first was Ch. 66 which is the last chapter in “Coventry Ghosts, Book I”. In it a powerful figure in the country of Honywuan plans to break Jason out of a Mexican jail and bring him to Honywuan to collect soul essences by computer for that country to control the world. And the Umbra ghosts are angry with the ghosts of Leanne and Sara, and also plan to work with Jason for more control over ghostdom. The next piece Jim read is the prologue to Book II and shows the death of the kitten Sara and how she meets up with Leanne and joins her in the haunt of the coffee shop.
When I told Jim I didn’t remember this prologue he said it’s because he just wrote it, after he finished writing the book. And Lorelei perked up knowing somebody else was writing a book out of chronological order. Perfectly acceptable. I suppose I’ve done that with my “Honey” stories, but now I’m having difficulty putting them in some kind of order for a whole manuscript. And since I didn’t plan a book to begin with, I see there is a lot of repetition of background that I’m dealing with. Win some, lose some. Jim says he loves writing the first draft and all the rest is just grunt work. I agree.
I read next, a short personal essay called “The Ring”, which I wrote Wednesday morning just to prove to myself I could still write. It tells of a family ring glittering with many diamonds that intimidated the first two women who wore it. But with the third generation it found a comfortable home. Maybe I’ll send it off to the Polar Expressions writing contest. If it gets printed, it ups my count of royalties paid to me by Access Copyright.
Annette read Ch. 23 and 24 of “A Touch Of Wormwood”. In the first, Alyssa tells her father of the sexual assault she endured and that she doesn’t feel worthy of wearing a purity ring he had given her. But he says her integrity is still intact and therefore she is worthy of the ring. In the next chapter she accuses Mike of cheating at cards. He goes outside, after which George West, the crime boss, comes into the cabin and tells her Mike is probably already dead. As he moves towards her she closes her eyes in terror, and then hears George screaming in pain. She opens her eyes and sees him down and clawing at the floor. None of us were very happy about how submissive Alyssa has become when there are men present. We’ve been very hard on Annette. She doesn’t want Alyssa’s anger to come to the surface and we are all trying to force that to happen.
Kristi read the beginning of a short story called “Three Suns Dance”. It starts with a naked young man and woman in a tent. Even though they desire each other, he must leave by dawn as he cannot have sex with a woman on the day of the dance. Interesting implication that a sexual encounter would not add to his stature as a man. Where is this fantasy world?
Lorelie and Jason did not read, but we thank them for listening to the rest of us. Support of other writers is always important.
Margaret Moffatt has an article on the history of Steveston, B.C. in the May issue of Today’s Senior Newsmagazine.
The next Meeting of The Rams will be Wednesday, May 20th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then with your collection of written words. Happy Mother’s Day to those who qualify, and if anyone goes to the Cloverdale Rodeo, don’t get stomped on!
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
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