Oct 13, 2006
THE RAM’S HEAD
REVIEW
Excellent meeting last night
with 8 of us here to share our love of the written word. And Lynette
brought some pound cake to share as well.
Lynette told us of having gone
to the Body Worlds III, to see all the human forms that have been preserved
through plastination. She was amazed at the utter complexity of
the human body.
Susan brought a brochure for
the Vancouver International Writers’ and Readers’ Festival which
takes place next weekend, the same time as the Surrey International
Writers’ Conference. Nathaniel and I just shake our heads and
wonder at the folly of organizers who put these events on at the same
time, so there is no way any interested party can attend both.
That’s not a very successful marketing strategy from our point of
view.
I read first last night, a
short piece called “Turkey Two Step” which tells how being a guest
at a turkey dinner ended up with me agreeing to sew two bullet proof
vests for a friend.
Susan read some more of her
rewrite for “Select Availability”. In Chapter 1, we see how
Barley dislikes Newton’s penchant for anything Scottish. Since
he’s busy with his geocacheing competition, he really doesn’t want
to help Newton. In Chapter 2, Susan has changed to present tense
to see how it reads, and we all agreed it made the story seem more immediate,
and that it involved the reader faster. She tells of Barley’s
Mom lecturing him on what’s right and wrong, and Barley finally agrees
he’ll call Newton.
Nathaniel’s next chapter
in his novel showed Lochland in the sweat lodge, weak, remembering the
past. We learn the Orkney school where he taught was closed and
he was being sent to start the first school in Red River. Then
the Indian who stabbed him comes in and minsters to his wound.
The next chapter sees the brigade back on the move. At one camp,
Alexander and Rose fight. He’s jealous of Declan and upset that
Rose seems to be drawing away from him. And she’s worried about
her father and totally disillusioned by the hostility of the new land.
We were all glad to get Lochland’s background and now understand why
educated people such as he and his daughter are now on this trip.
Ellie read some more of what
Syvald was noticing, that no children were being born and that a deep
fear permeated the environs. She told of the Shamud who had been
very frightening invaders of the past, remembered only in rumour and
myth.
Lynette read a paper she had
written for her course in the Alexander Technique, and we learned it
was founded as a way to find relief from pain, and to do so relies mainly
on the alignment of head, neck and back.
Unfortunately, Margaret had
to leave before she had a chance to read. She told us earlier
she had written a piece of fiction. I asked if she found she had
to find a different mind-set to write fiction when she had written non-fiction
all her life, and she said you still need the facts to be correct in
fiction if you want your readers to believe the story. And we
all sat there nodding our heads in agreement. So next week we
will get Margaret to read first.
Gemma joined us last night,
too, recovered from her illness. And Bob came along with a number
of newspaper clips he handed out and his own bio he had put together
for our website.
Next meeting will be here at
my place on Thursday, Oct. 19th at 7:00 p.m. Happy
writing till then.
Lisa