Here we are again. It’s already the second Wednesday in July. We’re already past the halfway mark for this year. It’s still hot, and we are facing August and September, the two hottest months of the year in Florida. That is a great incentive to stay cool indoors and write! Our firehouse meeting room is comfortably air-conditioned. Our next meeting is on August 2nd at 6:30 PM at the Nokomis Firehouse. We hope you can join us. Our summer attendance is smaller, which gives us more time to discuss the readings and topics of interest.
To open the meeting, Rod read some excerpts from an article written by Morgan Gist MacDonald. The report listed five things you might need to know before finishing your book. You might want to look it up if you’re ready to complete a manuscript. It might help to read it before beginning your story.
It’s published! Bruce Haedrich presented each of us in attendance with a copy of Gaia, The Living Planet. Thank you, Bruce!
Ernie Ovitz opened the reading portion of our meeting with a continuation of the third in a series of short stories set in the dystopian future of the United States, The Watchtower. Commander Michael Adam West prepares to beard his foe, the FBI Agent who wishes to arrest him, in the Watchtower. Aided by Mr. Woo, he wears his tailored uniform of AAA quality instead of the dirty clothing of a homeless man he’s been wearing as a disguise. He recalls the past as he thinks of his ally Admiral Tom Scott, who took him from the political morass of the Pentagon and transferred West to Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. What will happen? Is this the end of our valiant hero? Stay tuned for more thrilling adventures same time, same station, next meeting.
With maturity comes wisdom and experience. A poet ofttimes uses both to tell their story. Don Westerfield is a master of his art. Harking back to the days of shaft mining coal in The Coal Miner, hard men do a hard job in the earth’s bowels for near-slavery wages. They enter the stairway to hell each day, greeted by a sign, Welcome to Purgatory. --- An opening line, “Where did you go?” sets off Don’s Lament of Youth. Men and women have long asked this question as they search for their youth. An entreating plaintiff of “Come back, come back” drifts on the breeze, only to be ignored by time.
Things that go bump in the night may have elicited a shudder of fright from all of us. Gary Conkol tells of one such experience at two o’clock A.M. noise snatched him from a sound sleep. The thought of taking a firearm with him crossed his mind. No, he thought, I don’t own one. Marching to the kitchen, the sound is louder from the dining room. What kind of criminal makes that much noise? Oh, the title of this little story is, The Night I Shot the Robot Vacuum.
Bruce Haedrich read the last chapter of his short story, The Searchers. A young woman, Marcie has spent years searching for her birth mother. She met the man of her dreams, who encouraged her throughout the process. An obituary in a local paper takes her to a memorial service for a woman she did not know but whose name had appeared in several searches over the years. The only attendees at the service were the young woman and six older ladies seated in the front pew. When the service ended, the women approached Marcie. What did Marcie find out? Wait for Bruce’s collection of short stories entitled The Girl In The Red Shirt to become available.
Short stories are excellent vehicles. A lifetime can pass in the few pages that comprise a short story. Richard Cope tells such a tale in his story, The Girl With The Ball. Lucy Kingston suffers abuse from her peers, especially The girl with the ball. Now a patient at The Cloisters, she listens as a Psychiatrist speaks to a theater of people as she lies drugged and immobile before them. “What is the mind?” he asks, “Is it simply the brain, or is it something we can isolate within the brain?” The teaching lesson is a precursor to Lucy being subjected to ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy), or, as we may call it, Shock Treatment.
Anne Moore is working on crafting an invitation for women turning seventy to enroll in her project of allowing women with life experiences to share their wisdom with others, especially younger women. Anne’s project is entitled 70@70.
James Kelly closed the evening’s reading session with a chapter from his current work, Tremain. It’s 1893, and Tremain is nineteen years old and on a mission to visit the Lakota people of his tribe. Having been raised by a Calvary Officer and his wife, Tremain is encouraged to stay in contact with his people, especially his Grandfather. At the trading post, he encounters a girl nearly his age. Smitten at first sight, a condition noticed immediately by his white mother, the boy stumbles through an introduction. Beth Tyler has a white father and a Lakota mother. She is also the most beautiful girl Tremain has ever seen. Look for Jim’s books if you like historical fiction, especially American Military History.
Well, that about sums it up for this time. We’ll meet again on August 2nd at the Firehouse in Nokomis. Until then, stay safe and cool, and above all, KEEP ON WRITING!
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