Meeting Minutes March 21, 2010

First of all, thank you to everyone for their well wishes this past week on the loss of our uncle. It was hard coming to the meeting and concentrating enough to take notes, but it was even harder staying home. I was glad to be with you all and share some laughs as well as meet two new members to the group: Sandy and Ruth. For those of you who missed it, Ruth is also a writer with a piece in the Stories of Prayer and Faith book that Nancy and I are included in and received some copies of after the meeting. (Edited and compiled by our own Gloria Nye!)

Clare led the meeting and had some interesting prompts which I'll post at the bottom. No rushing off ahead to peek, you might miss something along the way!

Jayne warned us about parking in the Organist's spot in the lot. Apparently, she is very "predatory" about her spot. Harry agreed that we definately did not want to "strike the wrong chord with her."

We all introduced ourselves, including Laura who got a "daypass" from her family to attend. She announced that she would write more if Diane would quit writing so much. She is a fabulous editor though and I can never thank her enough. Especially when my books finally get published!

Richard brought up the fact that people don't take the time to comment on blog entries. He has been added to our list of contributors now. We are all glad his writer's block and other issues have been resolved.

Jayne showed us the back cover of the Presbyterian Record (www.prebyterianrecord.ca). Her novel Caught Dead: A Dean Constable Mystery is going to be published on their website beginning April 5. There will be a new chapter every week so make sure to mark it under your favourites and enjoy it!

We also discussed the Anthology that we would like to do. Gloria presented us with a publishing proposal that we will talk about at the next meeting. She had two plan options but Richard suggested a third - that we seek a sponsor to subsidize the book. He will look into that and get back to us next meeting. We decided against a theme for the book since that will limit our creativity. We would just call it something like The Headwaters Writers' Guild Collection. You are welcome to bring any other ideas to the April 11 meeting.

Since the last Brian Henry workshop had very low response, we cancelled it an moved it to Oct 2. The two options we had for topics were How to Make Yourself Write and How to Write for Children. Since a lot of us have no problems with actually doing the writing, we selected the writing for children option. Even if you don't want to write for children, it will teach you how to streamline your writing and simplify.

About half of the group had items to read this time. Gloria gave us food for thought with her short story The Author's Dinner. We had to all rush home to look up words like gelid and sapid. June read more from Death Spiral. Richard read to us from the second book of The Ostiary: Silent Semper (hope I got that right). Caitlyn, who was brave enough to rejoin us after the last meeting, read a wonderfully descriptive piece about a woman visiting a psychic. We can't wait to see what she does with it! Harry read The Garden Tale a great one for the kiddies.

Nancy read a piece about the "R" word and how words have the power to affect people. This led to a discussion of how the meanings of words have changed through history for example: faggot, special, retarded, the list goes on.

The prompts Clare brought were interesting. Laura had a piece about a man humming and cleaning a bloodstain off the floor. Richard had to know what he was humming. Guesses ranged from Hi, ho, hi, ho, It's off to work we go to Zippity-Do-Dah. Nancy read a piece that included the words "blank you". Richard HAD to check to make sure that was what she wrote and not her infamous "f" word. It was!

I found out after the meeting that Laura is going to be published in In the Hills for Kids. Her article is called Bundle of Joy? Way to go Laura! You can find a preview of the story on www.kidsinthehills.ca/blogs/in-the-hills/bundle-of-joy.

Okay, you've waited long enough. For anyone who couldn't make the meeting, here are the prompts courtesy of Clare:
1) A chunk of bologna and gob of mustard fell from his sandwich.
2) Coffee perked cheerily on the back of the kitchen woodstove.
3) The red traffic light sparkled off the icy intersection.
4) Peering into the darkness, she stood with her arms crossed.
5) He was the only customer in the coffee shop at 3 in the morning.
6) "Bonjourno," he clucked, stroking his crop of silver hair. (buon giorno Laura corrected the spelling)
7) I burst out laughing when -------------
8) "HI! I usta be a Wal-Mart greeter."
9) As I looked at --------- all that I could think was ---------.
10) He was nothing more than a smelly old man.

Okay, my work here is done for a day or two. Hope you all enjoy the wonderful rain and keep on writing.

January 24, 2010 Meeting

We had an interesting meeting today. We were glad to see Alex back with the group. We've missed him while he's been in French River and beyond for the past several months.

The meeting started off with a few limericks courtesy of Pat, Clare and Judy, who led our meeting today.

I finally sat down to write
Much to my muse's delight
But I wrote silly stuff
Twas not nearly enough
To cure my writer's block plight.
Pat

And a couple from Judy:

There once was a poet named Harry
Whose talent was extraordinary
His words flowed like milk
from a tongue made of silk
And soothe the bile of the contrary

There once was a woman named Nancy
When she could't write she got antsy
So she talked to God
and he did the job
And she won the accolades fancy

Okay, on with the show! I'll post some more limericks later.
Harry read us a piece he is working on with a fellow poet. They will present it in support of a new art centre in Collingwood - date to be announced.

Nancy's article from the Globe and Mail called I Love to Drop the F-bomb has placed 6th in the Globe and Mail's most popular facts and arguments article of 2009. If you haven't read it, you can find it at www.theglobeandmail.com/life/facts-and-arguments/i-love-to-drop-the-f-bomb/article1262227/ Nancy also reminded us that it is a gift to be able to read your work aloud to others and feel like a REAL writer.

Jayne showed us an article she had published in The Presbyterian Record this month. It is called Ghana: Boogie to the Front and is about her trek to Ghana last year. It is a nice article about the people that touched and inspired her and some of their struggles. It has a few of the wonderful pictures that she took. You can check it out at www.presbyterianrecord.ca. Jayne will have another article in the next issue. The Presbyterian Record also plans to publish one of her novels - one chapter per issue. Congratulations, Jayne!

Clare also made us laugh with a story about an irate nurse with a hypodermic needle in one hand and a suppository in the other.

We also got into a discussion about Haiti which led to Ron writing a thought provoking article that we hope he will finish and submit.

Jayne brought up that she ordered a course from The Great Courses www.getgreatcourses.com. The one she is currently doing is called Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft. We hope she will give us the short version. Today we discussed cumulative syntax. Creating strong sentences by removing conjuctions. Simplifying your work. One of the names that came up as an example was Hemingway.

While on the topic of writers we enjoy, the name Robert B. Parker came up. I had brought a couple of his books along for Nancy to read and someone mentioned that he was dead. I checked it out when I got home and found his obituary online. Robert B. Parker died Janary 20, 2010 at his desk in his home. He died doing what he loved: writing. He was influenced by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Scott Fitzgerald.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7038200/Robert-B-Parker.html

Also a reminder that the Brian Henry workshop has been moved from March 6 to March 13, 2010.

AND our next meeting is February 7, 2010. Richard will be leading.