THE RAM’S HEAD REVIEW

May 27, 2007

Five of us met here Thursday to share our love of the written word. Ellie was not well, and didn’t attend. Hope she’s feeling better. And Nathaniel said he had to go up to Kelowna but promises to bring me back my Writers’ Digest magazine next week. However, he did send us the information I had requested so that was good. And Susan says the last time she’ll be able to meet with us will be June 21st, so that will be the day when we wish her a fond farewell and all the best for her return to Newfoundland. And Bob said he couldn’t spend time writing when he has to watch baseball and plant flowers in hanging baskets, one of which fell and smashed and still needed to be cleaned up.

Susan read first, a re-write of the chapter about Barley and Phyllis at Golden Ears park. This time she has Barley attacked by a black bear instead of a cougar. She took inspiration for this scene from Patricia Van Tighem’s “The Bear’s Embrace”, which documents the author being attacked and badly disfigured by a grizzly. Years later the author commited suicide, unable to continue living with only a partial face.

Margaret brought her next chapter in the Peabody saga. But she had drawn a map of Cobble Hill, showing where the graveyard was, and the Manor House and the Hound and Fox Inn. We all applauded Margaret for her map drawing, which we agree is gender specific and makes more sense to women, never mind the graphic equation’s not exact. In this chapter, Douglas and Donald, two organists from the funeral home dressed in their fine clothes, are searching in Square D which includes the Manor House. When they call there to ask if anyone has seen Rev. Peabody, they are mistakenly introduced as royalty attending the gala affair in progress. Hilarious.

Amanda read a poetic story (ballad?) she hopes will become a children’s book. It’s called “Robots Are Rising” and in rhyming verse tells of robots rising from the ocean and parading through town and then returning to the ocean. Striking images come alive that children will love to hear about. We adults were entranced.

I read my re-write of “Sin-dication” which I was finally able to save on disk. My laptop still won’t save this one piece of writing, and the last time I had tried re-writing it, my laptop wouldn’t save it on the hard drive or on disk and kindly erased the whole effort. But now that I have it in the system, I have forwarded it to Sonny for inclusion on our website on the Works page. It’s a piece about my own get rich quick from writing attempt that went nowhere.

Next meeting will be here at my place, Thursday, May 31st at 7:00 p.m. Look forward to seeing you then, and May the Muse be inspiring your writing till then.

Lisa