TWENTY DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Jim, Annette and Charity joined me Wednesday night, twenty days before Christmas, for our last Meeting of 2018. Unfortunately, Cougar was in hospital and unable to attend. But he did phone and ask if anyone would be willing to receive some of his work by email and critique it for him. Charity and Jim both said they would be willing to do that.
Charity read first, the second part of her chapter, “Dead Or Alive”. Trixie has decided to leave her Ma’s “protection”, and wants to return to her Pa’s hideout and search the pool to see if there is any more gold to be found. She needs supplies but can’t get the young boy in the general store to open up, so she breaks in. Her injured leg is still painful and she needs a burro. She has to get moving because the town is waking up.
Jim said his book, “The Hunt For Jason” can be purchased as an ebook anywhere that sells them online. It can also be purchased now from Amazon.ca as a print-on-demand hard copy for $16.00 delivered to your door. However, he was upset that the hard copy version does not have his tag line printed on the cover.
Then Jim read to us a re-write of Chapter One from “Smart Mestiza”. The re-write is much shorter and starts with a great hook that draws the reader in right away. I think it’s a great beginning.
Charity read again, this time a short fairy tale where a King’s stare turns people to stone. The kingdom is saved when he turns himself to stone looking at his own image at the bottom of a silver bowl. The curse is broken and all others come back to life. This is how not to get your kids to finish their meal! Ha! Ha!
Annette often has to write a short story for church, and she read us one of those. It told of her family not having enough money for new shoes when the children lost them in a pond, or got them caught and shredded in an escalator. It ended telling about her pulling Santa’s beard.
I read “Cold Turkey” from my collection of Honey stories. It was the tale of turkey leftovers being stored in a cooler on the back porch one Christmas, and being destroyed by raiding racoons. I still had thirty people to feed on Boxing Day, but Honey saved the day because he had stored the uncut half turkey in the fridge inside. Jim and Charity remember my reading this story before, but Annette said she hadn’t heard it.
Yesterday I received from Polar Expressions my copy of the anthology “The Way Through”. It includes my short story “Grief Or Guilt?” and Annette’s story “Red Charger”.
After some discussion, we decided that the next Meeting in January won’t happen until Wednesday, Jan. 9th at 7:00 p.m. here at my place. And that means the second Meeting will be the 23rd of January. Then in February we will return to having Meetings the first and third Wednesdays of the month. I hope that’s clear to everybody. I will send out my usual reminders.
Here’s hoping everyone will have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! I will be so eager to get back together again in January.
Lisa A. Hatton
Author
