Another year is drawing to a close, and our next meeting will be the final gathering for 2025. Traditionally, we take up a collection and present it to the Nokomis Fire Department as a gesture of appreciation for allowing us to meet in their training room twice a month throughout the year. We also encourage members to bring a significant other or a guest to join us in a potluck goodies snackfest. All leftovers will be donated to the firehouse staff.
On December 17th, we will enjoy an evening with conversation, stories, idea-sharing, and readings. If you have a favorite Holiday Story, share it with us as well. Oh, BTW, all calories are suspended for the evening.
Tonight’s meeting began with a roundtable on what’s happening in our writing lives. Dennis Cathcart mentioned keeping a timeline of events to keep his writing in perspective. A number of our writers do this, including yours truly. A timeline helps keep the action and events in a story flowing. Even a short time span can get complicated when a lot of action is happening, especially when numerous characters are involved. Take a look at the action in your household on a hectic day. Your spouse is in the kitchen preparing to cook something; you are in the bedroom, changing clothes; a child is on the patio watching a pet in the backyard; and a neighbor is mowing his lawn next door. What can happen?1.
1. Your foot gets caught in the shorts you are putting on, you lose your balance, and you stumble towards the nightstand bearing your spouse’s grandmother’s Tiffany Lamp, worth thousands of dollars. You yell; your spouse looks toward the bedroom door.
2. Whoosh, flames leap from the frying pan of warming oil on the stove. Where is the fire extinguisher your spouse just had checked at the hardware store? Your spouse yells.
3. The pet outside sees a squirrel and bursts into a sprint in pursuit. Both animals are on a collision course with your neighbor’s riding mower. The pet howls.
4. Your child recognizes the potential danger that the pet could be hurt or killed by the mower and joins the pursuit. The child yells
5. Your neighbor is yawning, with both eyes closed, when the two furry creatures and a child burst through the row of peonies you planted along the property line.
You have to solve all these issues. What happens next, in what order, can you keep it all straight in your head? Did you plan ahead? Are you 'pantsing' it, or do you have an outline or a timeline? What is the most important event? Is the situation tragic or comedic? Are you telling it in real-time, or is this a flashback? Would a timeline help? A timeline might help in any writing situation. Fiction, Memoir, Technical, Short Story or Novel.
You don’t want to have a character listening to a radio broadcast in 1915 on a commercial broadcast station that weren't established until 1920. Could you hear a radio broadcast in 1899? Things move fast in history; do your research and build a timeline. Accuracy establishes your credibility.
THINK ABOUT IT
Of the nine attending writers tonight, six wished to share some of their work with us. Scott Anderson is on a mission to write Haiku. He is not slogging along at an excruciating pace; instead, the muse has him fully enveloped, as he races toward an expanding goal at blazing speed. Tonight, he graced us with fifteen gems, including one accepted for publication. We wonder at how descriptive so few words can be.
Some years ago, Roberta Molaro set out to write a story with a working title of The Reluctant Heiress. Somehow, she got sidetracked. Now that she has become involved with our little group, she has resurrected the story and shares it with us. A young woman, now 21 years old, is confronted by her parents with the fact that she was adopted as an infant. Why did they wait so long to tell her? How did they tell her? Roberta is working to present her story in a unique way and receives a multitude of suggestions with each reading.
Gary Conkol shines as a technical writer, but he has ventured into fiction since joining us at the firehouse. Drawing on much of his knowledge from the tech world, he brings us a story about a group of techno experts calling themselves the Emerging New Age Technology Assisted Utopia, or “ENATAU”. The group has solved the problem of traveling at speeds slower than the speed of light. With that problem solved, they established a colony on Mars and plan to expand throughout the universe. Fun, ain’t it? – We look forward to more with each reading.
Those of you who follow the blog and/or attend our meetings know that Bruce Haedrich has a rich imagination, as shown in his latest endeavor, Nadia. Beginning her life as a humanoid robot, Nadia has evolved into a new lifeform known as a “Terestrial.” Nadia is learning the ways of the humans. The new lifeforms find themselves hunted by humanoid robots employed by governments to eliminate the terestrials. An underground movement has formed, mainly in rural areas worldwide, to protect the terrestrial population, which is growing exponentially. As in many Sci-Fi stories of the past, Bruce’s Nadia seems to reflect on current political movements in government today. Look for Bruce’s publications online and in print.
IT’S HERE – STRATEGIC DECEPTION, by Ursula Wong, has been launched and is available on Amazon. A prolific writer, Ursula has finally allowed her latest book to join her published works. From the wilds of Peru to the boiling turmoil of Soviet Union-occupied Lithuania, her books encompass the world. Now, in independent Lithuania, she follows Grace Urban as she chases Soviet bloc criminals through a maze of lies and deception to save the world from their treachery. Thank you, Ursula. BUT WAIT A MINUTE, there’s more coming. Ursula is working on a new Grace Urban adventure with a working title of Deception Protocol. More good stuff is on the way; stay tuned.
Dennis Cathcart is a world-traveler and expert on
Bromeliads, among many other plants and reptiles. As the owner and CEO of
Tropiflora in Bradenton, he has traveled and lectured in many venues and over
25 countries. Tonight, he gave us a glimpse of standing on the edge of the
world in Argentina. Having published two books about his adventures as a Snake
Hunter, he is turning his attention to writing about his travels around the
world with his lovely wife, Linda. – We look forward to hearing these stories
as he begins a new era in his writing.
Well, that was a fascinating journey, beginning our trip with a taste of Japan in the Hiaku of Scott Anderson, visiting a young woman shocked to find out she was adopted, a trip to the red planet, standing alongside a new species of human, then looking into the world of spies and subterfuge, as we end up on the Edge of the World in Argentina. What a way to go.
Our next meeting will be on December 17th, beginning at 6:30 PM. Join us if you can, and I hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Until we meet again, READ, Read, and read some more, then WRITE, Write, and write more. Then bring it to a meeting and share it with the world.
