Spoken Word Night

Well group. Are you ready to go public with your pieces?

I spoke with Pierre and he's happy to host us on a Friday night. He just needs notice.

Because there are so many of us and consensus might be difficult on a date, I will post some options. If you have a preference of one of these dates let me know and if you cannot make any of them let me know in the comments section of this blog entry.

Friday May 21st

Friday May 28th

Friday June 4th

If any or all of these dates are good for you, let us know (the next meeting is Tuesday May11th) or you can place your vote on the poll to the left.

Library Renovation

If you haven't already heard about our wonderful little library undergoing renovation, you've heard it now. During the course of the makeover we will be unable to access the older titles. They are, however, letting patrons take out books from the old sections and asking that they do not bring them back until the renovations are complete.

That means you can seriously stock up with all the books you want to read this summer and take your time doing it. So if there's a pile you've always wanted to read, and not have to worry about overdue book fees, now's the time. By the way, I think the last day is today, April 28.

Ideas from the sole

Last night was proof that even the smallest suggestion can result in the biggest idea. Heather was our facilitator and the writing warm up was a great as ever. Heather brought with her an array of unique items, all no bigger than what you can fit in one hand and each with distinct characteristics. We were to choose an item and write. Simple and creative. Many of us were coming off of poetry mode after a week of getting ready for the poetry contest on the 30th. Even Mike wrote a poem, more to his own surprise than anyone else's.

For the main event Heather's idea was simple, "shoe on the road", and from it all members that turned up came with varying ideas and some of the best writing we've heard to date.

Nola started us off with her first person journey from the shoe's comedic perspective. Susan weaved her story of a satin Italian hand carved heel through three generations of shoe wearers until it met its fate. Nicole (I) made the shoe the victim of a sour relationship that ultimately panned out on a city freeway. Margaret inspired us with an uplifting Father/Son piece. Heather continued with three shorter pieces one in particular that dug deep with feelings of grief. Mike was so inspired by the prompt he completed the first chapter of a new mystery novel that involved several fingers of Highland Park Single Malt.

There was plenty of applause and much hootin' &hollerin'.  I'm particularly proud to say that we're are slowly inching our way into a more critical mind frame. Heather had some suggestions for critiquing one another's work; I think we should try this at our next meeting.
1. What would you like to hear more of?
2. What did you appreciate?
3. What would you have approached differently?

I think this meeting has definitely inspired me to keep the prompts simple more often than not. With simple prompts the imagination opens a gate to a huge garden of possibility. What fun!

See new "writing prompts" in the column to the left...

The next meeting will be Tuesday May 11th. I will be loosely facilitating (I'll just bring a warm up exercise). We'll be changing the format slightly for this meeting. Many of us have been working on larger manuscripts and so this will be an opportunity to bring print-outs for everyone to look over or take home. Alternately between now and then we will also be emailing one another with our writing. I know all those in attendance last night will be happy to read, edit and give feedback so let's get those pieces circulating!


Nice work everyone!

Shoe on the road...

O.K. folks. I'll agree to facilitate the next meeting and let's save the personal items for critique for another one if that's OK with everyone. As I was driving to Cranbrook awhile back, I noticed a shoe on the road. I thought that would be a great item to build a writer's evening around. So the assignment is this: write something in whatever format flows from your pen about a shoe in the road. That's it. I don't want to lead into this with any details but leave it wide open for you to explore. However, you may want to think about who's shoe it was, what kind it is and how that reflects on the wearer, how it got to be there on the road and the steps it's 'walked' to get there. Have fun!

Next meeting

I have a proposal.... since we don't have (to my knowledge) a facilitator, what about if we bring in personal projects for our next meeting and have a constructive critique. We could bring in our poems/stories too, and then something that we would personally like some help with. What do you think?

The Secrets

I have recently acquired a new toy that has opened up a little world for me. This toy is called an ipod (don't laugh at me, I'm what marketers call a laggard) and although I don't need it to do all of the things I'm doing with it, for that the Internet is availbale to me, I find the portability fantastic and have taken to looking for and listening to podcasts.

Now if you've never listened to a podcast before it's basically an internet radio show. There are podcasts out there for EVERYTHING. One of the most popular podcasts in the writing category is called "The Secrets" and I am quite excited after listening to a couple episodes... so whether you have an ipod or MP3 player or just access to a computer, sit back and listen to the tried and true methods from Michael A. Stackpole at stormwolf.com


Click here for a list of podcasts

Also, you must promise not to laugh at me for bringing your attention to the obvious, and if it's not obvious hop aboard the podcast train; destination: "seeing-your-name-on-the-spine-of-a-book".

Life of Pi

I was looking at Nicole's profile and one the books she sites as a favourite is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I decided to pick it up at the library. After reading a few chapters, I became curious about the author. I googled him. He has his own website, and then one that he calls What is Stephen Harper Reading? This is an excerpt from that website; it speaks for itself....

Who is this man? What makes him tick? No doubt he is busy. No doubt he is deluded by that busyness. No doubt being Prime Minister fills his entire consideration and froths his sense of busied importance to the very brim. And no doubt he sounds and governs like one who cares little for the arts.

But he must have moments of stillness. And so this is what I propose to do: not to educate—that would be arrogant, less than that—to make suggestions to his stillness.

For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on a Monday, a book that has been known to expand stillness. That book will be inscribed and will be accompanied by a letter I will have written. I will faithfully report on every new book, every inscription, every letter, and any response I might get from the Prime Minister, on this website.