What did they all have in common? Laughter, Good Friends, Common Interests, Reading Flash fiction and Same place in Time. Sounds like a movie title to me or even a best seller. Are you still guessing?
They all attended yesterday's meeting of the Wannabe's at Panera. I am sorry that I notified everyone so late in the week. My teaching schedule and work at Cox has my dance card pretty full...just like many of us retirees. For those of you who were not able to attend here is your copy of the
The Wannabe Journal
On March 26th our group discussed the following topics:
Don Q is finishing the final edits on his Santa Stories book. He will soon begin his search for an agent and publisher. He is currently using his Kindle which he received at Christmas to read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Ironically the style and use of southern, ethnic dialogue in this book is similar to the other book he is reading entitled: "An Irish Country Christmas" by Patrick Taylor which is written with a very strong Irish "Ulster" dialect. So strong that the author felt compelled to included a Glossary of words and expressions in the final pages of the book. Don believes that his sudden concentration on dialect is a hidden lesson that he missed during one of Nancy's classes. Someone once said:" When you are ready to learn, your teacher will appear".
Ginger was welcomed back to the group and discussed her current project of writing a short memoir of her dad's life during the last century. She has a treasure load of material on his life in the form of old letters and journals. We discussed the different Web sites where you can gain information on your family history and software programs that can help you store that detail. One program that was recommended was My Family Tree which will help create and store digitally family trees and help organize family history like photo's and stories. This software also has the capability of linking to Ancestry.com which is the main data base that the Mormon Church maintains in Utah for historical genealogy info. It seems ironic that Don P has created a similar project recently so we spent some time helping Ginger finalize how she would get this project off the ground.
Martha discussed the importance of diaries and how they aid our passion for writing. What do you use to journal with? How often do you enter information and who are you creating it for?
Don P: We found out that Don P is a very talented guy who has not slowed down since he retired. And here I thought that the only thing I had in common with Don was our first name and retirement. He composes a monthly newsletter for his model sailboat club and he is extremely interested in Flash Fiction. Writing short stories which are somewhere between 400 and 1000 words. We discussed various software tools such as Microsoft Publisher and Adobe "PDF" Formatting software that you would use to create files in case you pursued self-publishing your projects. Another one of our members: Peter, has published his works on a Flash Fiction web site called East of the Web.
Here is its web address: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/indexframe.html
Here is a copy of Don's short Story entitled:
The Wedding
"Mind if I ask you something" John said. "Do you mind if I don't go to the wedding with you."
With a startled look on her face Joan replied, "But you're the groom. You have to be there. What are you thinking?"
"Well I told you I would rather elope than go through all of this. I still think it’s foolish to spend all of that money when we could use it for other things. We just slip across the Nevada state line, go to Vegas, and have a nice wedding there."
"But all of the invitations have been sent out. What do we do about those? It would make us look ridiculous."
“Maybe, maybe not. Think what we could do with all of that money. I can think of a hundred things. I was talking to Mary, your maid of honor, about it yesterday. She had all kinds of things to suggest. She’s a very smart girl. She is also very pretty. I found her very interesting to talk to.”
“What are you talking about. You just met her three days ago.”
“I know, but we talked like we had known each other for years. She is very easy to talk to. Why don’t we call this whole thing off and make other plans.”
“When you say ‘Call the whole thing off’ what exactly do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I think I need to talk to Mary about it.”
Wow...I just wonder what happened next.....
Don H. who is one our many participants who are instructors at LLI is working a novel on memory. Sorry I can't remember the title....just kidding. As a matter of fact we discussed a number alternative titles for such a book that focused on this interesting topic and suggested: The Senior Fix or Remember Me? Don is going to share the outline of his proposed book at next months meeting in April.
April Seminar's
Mad Anthony's Writers Conference will be held in Hamilton, Ohio on April 16th and 17th. The fee is $125. but that includes lunch and the availability to have someone evaluate your manuscript or ptich your novel proposal to a publisher. Jane Freeman is a main speaker that day and she is excellent. Our own Nancy P us a contributing instructor for this workshop.
The Erma Bombeck Seminar is at UD in April and enrollment is full. Hopefully someone will provide some feedback on that workshop at our next meeting.
Our meeting will be on April 23rd.
Hope everyone has a beautiful Easter holiday with friends and family. For all those snow birds in the audience it is time to start packing and checking Mapquest for directions back to the mother-ship here in Dayton.
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