THE REVIEW

‘TWAS A COLD AND FOGGY NIGHT

Yes, Wednesday night was cold and foggy, but Jason, Annette and Charity were all brave enough to venture out and come to the latest Meeting of The Rams.

Jason read his next chapter about Damianos and Kwen. Damionos taunts her mercilessly about her beliefs until she feels faint. Then he tries to comfort her. He also has feelings that she reminds him of someone. She eventually brings out a treasured item and shows it to Damianos, explaining it was something her enemies had tried to destroy, but she still had this rare coin that contained a map to her people’s ancient and sacred home. We really liked the plot twist with the coin being a map.

Annette has re-written all previous chapters in “Within The Tangles”, as she felt she was using too many unnecessary points of view from characters that were not that important to the story. The chapter she read was from the point of view of Janna, the eight year old girl who was abducted. It tells of her being picked up in the middle of the night by a man who smelled different than her father or her brother, and then finding herself locked in a strange room when she awakes in the morning. She saves food that is brought to her through the day, and then puts it in a pillowcase and climbs out a very small window to escape in her bare feet and pyjamas. This is a very strong chapter that keeps readers riveted.

Charity wrote a synopsis of the book she’s writing about Hornby Island and the sea witch. She said it was in response to my saying I didn’t see a plot developing in what she had read so far. The synopsis was very detailed and outlines the story of young Persephone, who moves from Vancouver to Hornby and then eventually back to Vancouver. In between there is some romance, some violence, some murder, and some fantasy with the sea witch. Should be a great story of a young girl trying to find her place in the world.

I read another “Honey” story, this time it was “The Virtue Of Vice”. It tells of my futile attempt to find someone to replace the arborite on my kitchen countertop, when it seemed the consumption of alcohol by Honey and others kept getting in the way.

I brought up the workshop proposal by editor Lynne Melcombe that I had forwarded to everyone. Those who were present were not interested in the workshop but one or two did ask what editing services she provided and how much she charged. I forwarded those questions to her and if I get a reply I will send it out to everyone.

Jason made the comment that since he doesn’t number pages or chapters or name his chapters, he has trouble remembering where he left off reading them to us. That is something to consider, especially when you want to find a specific part of a very long manuscript.

I mentioned how annoying it was that MS Word would always underline in red unusual character names. Charity then informed us that you can add words to the dictionary so that doesn’t happen. Writing this missive, I did just that and the names of Janna and Damianos and Kwen are now part of my Word dictionary on my laptop. Thank you, Charity.

Next Meeting will be Wednesday, January 20th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Whatever the weather, I hope to see you then.

Lisa A. Hatton
Author