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