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.

Meeting Minutes Jan 10, 2010

New Year, New meeting place...
We held our first meeting of the year in our new home. Tweedsmuir Presbyterian Church. One of the things Jayne told us after the meeting was that the church was named for The Lord Tweedsmuir whose real name was John Buchan. He was the 15th Governor General of Canada as well as - ironically - a proficient writer with dozens of books to his credit. His most famous "The Thirty-Nine Steps" was made into an Alfred Hitchcock film.

One of the fun things Clare brought to us were some limericks. Some of the group took on the challenge and allowed me to post them onto the blog today:

There once was a parrot named Pat
Who not only parroted but spat
The owner kept his distance
At the spitting bird's insistence
And then fed parrot Pat to the cat. Harry Posner

I doubt that my new resolution
Will help me to find a solution
The problem is clear
A green-car costs too dear
So I'll have to keep causing pollution. Jayne Self

There once was an author named Clare
Who struggled to keep all of his hair
Sitting next to him was Harry
Whose baldness was sexy not scary
And soon I will also be there. Glenn Lott

There was a cross-eyed cook, Harry,
Whose cooking was real scary
He peered around a lot
Before he found the pot
And that just drove his wife near hairy. Clare McCarthy

Speaking of Clare. He announced to us that the Orangeville Banner has a new website. You can find Clare and past cartoons at www.orangeville.com/opinion/cartoon.

We also discussed updating our own website. No one has posted any new writing lately, nor have some of our new writers been added. If you would like to be added to our website, please send a brief Bio, a photo if you choose, some pieces of writing, and any web links you have to Shirley Bray.

This information has already gone around to the group but there is a Life Story Writing course being offered by The Learning Enterprise from Tues Feb 23 - April 20, 2010. It is from 7 - 8:30pm. The cost is $65 for 8 classes. If you are interested, call The Learning Enterprise at (519) 941-2661.

There was a suggestion from Harry about how to rid yourself of Writer's Block.
"Think about the best moment of your day and write about it."

Clare read a quote from John Smolens from an article that appeared in the Feb 2010 Writer's Digest. "Given time to mature and learn the game, so to speak, an emerging writer will, with discipline, sustained effort and not a little luck, produce stories that are worth reading."

Included with my prompts this meeting, I added a list of "lines to make you smile" which prompted more writing than the prompts did! I thought I'd include them here for everyone to use and abuse as you see fit!

I don't suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it.
I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.
Don't take life too seriously; no one gets out alive.
Earth is the insane asylum for the universe.
I'm not a complete idiot - some parts are missing.
Out of my mind. Back in 5 minutes.
The trouble with life is there's no background music.
Ever stop to think, and forget to start again?

Happy writing everyone. Our next meeting is January24, 2010 and our leader will be Judy.
Hope to see you all there!