Wednesday, February 24, 2010

When Last We Met…

On Sunday, February 21, 2010, the Magic City Writers met and reviewed nothing.  Which is not to say we did nothing, but I am getting ahead of myself.  

The meeting was small; just Kathryn, Lindy, and Myself.  Nicole was unable to attend again, though she is hopeful that she will be return to the group in the not too distant future. 

Now onto the food.

Let’s Torture Alex by Mentioning What We Ate

We went for a simple fare this time.  I grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken on the grill while Kathryn made tater tots.  We took advantage of the slightly warmer weather to eat on gazebo and enjoy the garden and waterfall.  As a snack we had ice cream on popsicle sticks.  A very tasty meal with plenty of leftovers for the rest of the week.

An Now What We Did

Since no one had anything ready to submit, we did a variety of writing exercises.  Lindy brought an art book and we took turns picking pictures and writing whatever the images inspired.  Later we listened to songs for inspiration.  

The exercises displayed our propensities,strengths, and weaknesses.  We allowed ten minutes per exercise, which for me is enough to generate a few brief paragraphs at most.  Kathryn  in the same time wrote well over a page.  Lindy was somewhere between the two of us.  My writings and Lindy’s tended to have dark themes, while Kathryn’s were more light-hearted. 

I tried to focus on character development, my greatest weakness as a writer.  I also made special effort to “show, not tell”, i.e. to describe the character’s actions and use dialogue so that the reader discerns their emotional state without being explicitly told what that state is. 

Personally, I found the exercises quite helpful and refreshing change of pace from our normal editing process.

The Remains of The Day

Lindy left relatively early and Kathryn and I retired to watch Juno, a quirky movie which we enjoyed.  Before Lindy left we agreed to meet again on March 7th, and placed the onus of turning something in on me. 

Oh, joy.

I guess that means I need to get off my ass and force myself to start writing ASAP.  Which, of course, is part of the purpose of the group.

Until next time, have fun and party down.

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