Oct 4th Meeting

Welcome to our Fall meeting:

Although attendance was better, we still did not have a full house and that’s okay. All who attended came through the recent storm with little or no damage. Hang in there, only another month to go.

Marisa attended this meeting, we haven’t seen her in a while and it’s always good to have her in the group. She’s an excellent essayist and writes about very interesting subjects. She also hosts an open mike program at the Sarasota Brewing Company, 6607 Gateway Ave, in Sarasota’s Gulf Gate Neighborhood the third Wednesday of each month. If you’re not busy attending our meeting, stop by and say hello one evening; take time to enjoy great food and Fantastic Beers while listening to some interesting writers. As might be expected, her presence elicited inquiries about open mike venues in the area. 

Peter mentioned an open mike show aired in North Port, he thinks it's prerecorded and airs Sundays at 3:00 PM. He could not remember the local station so, if anybody has further information, please send me an email at rodshs62@hotmail.com.

Our own Ed Ellis is scheduled to present a mini-course on Creative Writing at the

Women’s Resource Center.

340 S. Tuttle Ave.

Sarasota, FL 34237

Phone: 941-256-WRC1

Dates and Times.

Class #1 – 1 PM to 3 PM Friday October 20th.

Class #2 – 1 PM to 3 PM Friday October 27th.

Call the WRC for more information and who is eligible to attend.

A discussion about character names and how authors determine those names brought forth many thoughts and questions from our attendees.

One question evoked curiosity more than others; "How do you handle names from long ago in different locals? ie. Roman or Greek names from antiquity or Old English names." The consensus was “Research,” do your research and use names from the period.

For names in the modern era, the Social Security Administration’s popular names list provides the most popular names for each year. Remember, many readers have lived for decades and are familiar with names used in past years.

It's probably not a good idea to use multiple names for a single character. William Hartford may be known by more than one name in life; his friends may call him Willie, to acquaintances he's Bill, to his staff and coworkers Mr. Hartford is appropriate, a few old army buddies call him H-man, and there’s always Billy, Billy-Bob, or Hartford. Numerous other nicknames might apply. However, once you’ve introduced the character a single name within the context of your story would be less confusing to your reader. Sure, a derivations are acceptable if a special relationship is clear and consistent.

What do you think?

 As we moved on to the reading portion of our evening, Ed shared a piece which made us laugh as only his twisted, maybe only slightly bent, mind can. We were introduced to Mr. Bacharacharockus whose story takes place at Walt Disney World. Separated from his wife because he wishes only to rest and write a bit while she explores Fantasyland, Ed finds himself at his favorite restaurant. He requests a seat in the bar and a sweet tea. Three young hostesses concur, he must tell them his name before they can seat him. Not wanting to be bothered, and unwilling to use his pen name as he often does, he blurts out the first name that comes to  mind, Peter Bacharacharockus. After spelling it out for the hostesses, he's escorted to a seat where, while sipping on his sweet tea, he writes page after page of prose. All goes well until his wife arrives to retrieve him...

Ernie, challenged by a previous comment requesting more feminine presence in his work, read a chapter describing a bit of female influence in his latest tome. In this chapter, A Town Under Siege, two comely young women, princesses of Roman royalty if you will, bring bread to hungry soldiers on the walls of the city. Having endured an arduous day repelling repeated assaults by the Franks, the men are hungry for more than bread but even the youngest of the pair sloughs off the bawdy invitations of battle-weary troops. Only the presence of Constantine's son, Christmas brings the pair some uneasiness...

Peter enthralled us with the latest in a series of letters purportedly written to a friend. The letter remembers the recently deceased mother of the writer. The vivid memories of his mother and father’s relationship brings a hint of moisture to several eyes as words form descriptions of a mother waiting for a father to return from the hunt and in the final paragraph...  

After an absence of several months, Marisa returned and brought an essay entitled The Storm. Written in the second person, her rendition of an evacuation during the recent storm gave insight as how she and "the one she loved" left their new dream house against his wishes, spent the hours of the storm in another home, and the morning after the storm, their return provides a unique view of a  relationship...

Chapter 15 of Don’s memoir gives us a glimpse of what it was like when a young President, John F. Kennedy, called up military reserve troops, including the Air National Guard, in response to Russia's saber rattling. While making ready to report for duty in France, the Indiana Airmen faced with inept administrators and questionable deployment orders, end up returning home without deployment...

A piece we heard once before came back with many remarkable enhancements as Darienne read Take the Dotted Route for the second time. She and hubby embarked on a road trip this past summer. They wandered west using routes less traveled. Through the high plains of Colorado we enjoyed wonders of National Parks in several states concluding our journey at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Each locale was brought to life with great writing giving us the sense of the land with visual, sensual, and emotional prose. Not only did we see the sights of this glorious country but we met wonderful people with dreams fulfilled as they live in the paradise of their choosing...

Join us on October 18^th at 6:30 for the next meeting. I don’t know what we’ll discuss but I can promise it will be interesting.

Till then, Keep On Writing!

I’ll see you there.

Rod