THE REVIEW

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

There was a very interesting Meeting here last night. Charity was unable to attend. Annette became ill and we wish her a speedy recovery. Luke is probably still packing/moving house. And Chris is stuck in a bi-weekly parenting schedule that doesn’t sync with our schedule for Meetings. I wasn’t able to reach Darlene to tell her it might be just the two of us, so she arrived. Thankfully, Jessica Taylor also arrived at the door. We first talked about a year ago, but this was the first time we met. So the three of us spent two hours filled with readings, discussions and lots of laughter.

I have been working on my collection of ‘Honey’ stories and am two thirds done this final edit. After discussion at the previous Meeting, I decided to re-read some of these stories at Meetings. Last night I read “The Best Thing”, the first story in the manuscript, but probably the last one I had written. It’s about how I met Honey (Bryon), and how we became a couple. Darlene said it sounded polished, and that’s most likely because it was one of the last stories I had written over a twenty year span. When I put all my stories together, I needed something to start the book and let the reader know what to expect. One would hope my writing had improved after twenty years!

Darlene read the next section of her story “Watering Restrictions”, about wife and husband, Ethel and Ralph, having different views about a recent local by-law that limited watering. We hear they have reached Phase 3 of the restrictions, which means hand watering only, and Ethel is still watering beyond the restricted allowance and Ralph catches her at 3:00 a.m. Somebody hangs signs on the city’s dying trees decrying the restrictions. Then Ethel discovers fines for defying restrictions tied to her trees. There are water outages at City Hall and the administrative staff all walk out and Council has to find a different venue for meetings. Ethel complains to a TV news crew and Ralph gets mad. Ralph and Ethel stop talking. One day he hears her voice, but only from the TV. We were all laughing by this point. I see shades of Desi and Lucy, or Ralph and Alice, in this depiction of marital disagreement. Very funny.

Jessica didn’t bring any of her writing to read, but gave us verbally her own background story about falling in love at first sight and then eloping to marry an American Marine. In true military fashion, they have detailed plans for how to proceed so they may eventually find themselves living together in one country, without the prospect of deportation for one or the other. Jessica says a lot of her writing has been personal memoir about lessons learned through living, and she hopes to improve her writing abilities, as do all of us. If she can write a story as engagingly as she tells one, she is well on her way.

So after considering what was read and discussed last night, it was apparent most of our writing was based on personal experience, usually with our significant other. That’s when I said the adage for writers might be true: Write what you know!

We had some discussion last night about changing dates for Meetings. We were thinking that instead of meeting the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of the month, maybe we should meet every other Wednesday, and pick the be-weekly schedule that would coincide with Chris’s parenting schedule. What do members think of that? Let me know what you think, and we’ll discuss this some more at the next Meeting.

The next Meeting will be Wednesday, April 4th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Hope to see you then!

Lisa A. Hatton
Author