TEMPTATION OF SUMMER
The first day of summer seemed to hold more allure for members than a meeting did! I was here alone Wednesday when Cougar Brenneman, a new member, showed up to check out our group. We sat and chatted for a while and then Annette arrived a little late. She had been babysitting. Cougar is an experienced freelance journalist who is now writing his first novel.
I read first, another new story about life with Honey. It’s called “Copycat” and tells of three incidents where I did something very foolish, and Honey came along behind me and did the exact same thing. And I still don’t know if that was because he didn’t believe me, or because he didn’t want me to feel alone with my stupidity. Annette laughed and said she won’t be able to look at Bryon the same way ever again.
Annette read from another story in her collection about the descendants from characters in “Pride and Prejudice”. This story was about Elizabeth Gardner and Maxwell Duncan, in the 1920s. Elizabeth is a young woman whose father took in Maxwell Duncan, a wounded soldier from World War I, and allowed him to live in their home. Maxwell is disabled and in a wheelchair, which Elizabeth finds repugnant. Her father wants her to go to a dance with Maxwell and introduce him to her friends, and she really doesn’t want to, but finally agrees. On reaching stairs at the entrance, she doesn’t realize he needs help to enter the building, but two young men she knows arrive and automatically offer their help, leaving her nonplussed at how accepting and helpful they were regarding his predicament. This is an interesting comment on how judgemental we can be of another’s disability.
Cougar said he wrote the first draft of his novel with one plot line, and has since decided to add another. So he is in the process of mixing it all together. He’s doing that by re-reading things and deciding to keep portions, or write portions, only if they really grab his interest. This is a logical approach, because if the writer isn’t interested in his own story, how can the reader be interested? Cougar’s novel is set in Iceland and includes elf magic, and he says he is using that magic himself in writing the story.
He read to us an exerpt from Chapter 5, “The Chess Tournament Blows Up”. Nineteen year old Erik accompanies Elfa and Ilya as they enter a large hall where a chess tournament is being played. Ilya is one of the players, Elfa is his girlfriend, and Erik is the outsider who wants Elfa to be his girlfriend. As Ilya plays chess, Erik and Elfa are supposed to use elf magic to boost his mental perception so he can win. They find a back corner to perform the magic from, and become entranced as they do so, but are suddenly stopped from performing by security guards. The whole scene is written sort of tongue in cheek, and along with the teen angst there is lots of humour. This would be a very interesting read and I hope we’ll get to hear more of it.
The next Meeting will be July 4th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. I hope to see everyone then. In the meantime, write on!
Lisa A. Hatton
Author
Friday, June 22, 2018
Thursday, June 7, 2018
THE REVIEW
GENDER EQUALITY
Last night’s Rams Meeting had a quorum of two men and two women, a balance of genders for a change. Annette and I were fine, but Luke sported an injured knee and Jim had sliced the tip of his thumb off at work. Charity had said her daughter was ill and needed her attention, so she was unable to attend.
The evening started with some discussion about various opiates and then about the symptoms of ADHD and how debilitating they can be for the person experiencing them.
Luke didn’t read, but instead gave us the outline he had made of all the work he needs to do on his manuscript before submitting it to the agent he met at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference who had asked to see it when it was completed. Luke listed what he needs to do to finish his world building by determining the rules of his society, maps, locations, calendar, technology, religions, foods, magic systems. With writing, he needs to work on character details, scenes and sequels, transitions, plot progress and emotional progress of characters. With editing he wants to cut where necessary first, and then add to the remainder to make it better. And he wants to break up some of the dialogue sections. He’s given a lot of thought to what needs to be done, and with such a comprehensive overview, he at least knows where to start. His approach to this is very organized.
Annette had comprised a family tree of characters based on “Pride And Prejudice”. She wrote a series of short stories killing off these characters. Last night she read to us about Jane Darcy and Ronan Kinsella. Luke said next time he wanted her to read about the character who died of cholera.
Jim gave us all copies of Chapter Two of “SMART Mestiza” and asked us to read it on our own and then give feedback as it was 14 pages long. It tells of Emilia going to her first meeting of SMART, Self Management and Recovery Training, for those recovering from addictions. She meets Mosi, the facilitator, and listens as the meeting gets participants to list the pros and cons of addictions. Emilia feels safe at the meeting, and relates to many experiences of others as they are mentioned. She realizes that with their help, it might be possible for her to stay clean and sober. This chapter contains a lot of valuable information about recovery, much like a brochure on the topic, so I had to ask Jim if he wanted his focus to be on distributing that information, or if he wanted to focus on developing the story, which is supposed to be a romance. He said he thought he would condense some of the information.
Jim also showed us the book cover and the blurb for “Hunt For Jason”, the Coventry Ghosts Book 2. He said it has finished being edited by his publisher and has now gone to proofing.
By then it was 9:30, so I didn’t read my latest “Honey” story. Maybe next time. I told Luke that with his in-depth list of work to be done on his novel, I didn’t think I wanted to tackle another one myself! He thanked me for telling him how uninspiring he had been. Too funny.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, June 20th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Till then, Write On!
Lisa A. Hatton
Author
Last night’s Rams Meeting had a quorum of two men and two women, a balance of genders for a change. Annette and I were fine, but Luke sported an injured knee and Jim had sliced the tip of his thumb off at work. Charity had said her daughter was ill and needed her attention, so she was unable to attend.
The evening started with some discussion about various opiates and then about the symptoms of ADHD and how debilitating they can be for the person experiencing them.
Luke didn’t read, but instead gave us the outline he had made of all the work he needs to do on his manuscript before submitting it to the agent he met at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference who had asked to see it when it was completed. Luke listed what he needs to do to finish his world building by determining the rules of his society, maps, locations, calendar, technology, religions, foods, magic systems. With writing, he needs to work on character details, scenes and sequels, transitions, plot progress and emotional progress of characters. With editing he wants to cut where necessary first, and then add to the remainder to make it better. And he wants to break up some of the dialogue sections. He’s given a lot of thought to what needs to be done, and with such a comprehensive overview, he at least knows where to start. His approach to this is very organized.
Annette had comprised a family tree of characters based on “Pride And Prejudice”. She wrote a series of short stories killing off these characters. Last night she read to us about Jane Darcy and Ronan Kinsella. Luke said next time he wanted her to read about the character who died of cholera.
Jim gave us all copies of Chapter Two of “SMART Mestiza” and asked us to read it on our own and then give feedback as it was 14 pages long. It tells of Emilia going to her first meeting of SMART, Self Management and Recovery Training, for those recovering from addictions. She meets Mosi, the facilitator, and listens as the meeting gets participants to list the pros and cons of addictions. Emilia feels safe at the meeting, and relates to many experiences of others as they are mentioned. She realizes that with their help, it might be possible for her to stay clean and sober. This chapter contains a lot of valuable information about recovery, much like a brochure on the topic, so I had to ask Jim if he wanted his focus to be on distributing that information, or if he wanted to focus on developing the story, which is supposed to be a romance. He said he thought he would condense some of the information.
Jim also showed us the book cover and the blurb for “Hunt For Jason”, the Coventry Ghosts Book 2. He said it has finished being edited by his publisher and has now gone to proofing.
By then it was 9:30, so I didn’t read my latest “Honey” story. Maybe next time. I told Luke that with his in-depth list of work to be done on his novel, I didn’t think I wanted to tackle another one myself! He thanked me for telling him how uninspiring he had been. Too funny.
Next Meeting will be Wednesday, June 20th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. Till then, Write On!
Lisa A. Hatton
Author
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