07 August 2013

Record of meeting 7 August 2013


Present

Lynn, Jo, Leonie, Jenny, David C, Geoff, David R, Helene, Wendy, Terry

 
News

Leonie fed fish at Lady Denman and will visit Melbourne next week, Jenny went to a good cake party, David C’s daughter visited at the weekend and he will walk in the City to Surf, Geoff has had a quiet week and publicised two events, David R has been planning his trip and enjoying life, Helene went to see her son in Wollongong, Wendy had problems with house insurance as she is in a bush fire prone area, Elizabeth saw some beautiful churches around Camden, Terry caught up with an old friend and will start to play his clarinet soon, Jo has a white tip spider bite and has problems with her internet. Maybe the spider bite made Jo unusually talkative today.

 
Words of the day

Essence, Turpitude, Repine, Manchester, Ersatz, Cornucopia, Drab, Fortitude, Chicanery, Infinite, Élan

This week we wrote our words on the white board and this allowed extra time for an exercise and a quick write later in the meeting. We developed stories from the words about The spy who fell in love, In pursuit of wealth, No depravity, Not glamour, The woman from Manchester, The strumpet, Drab times in Manchester – a great poem from David R, Sharp political comment from Geoff, Tony in a man thong, The standard of manchester and No finery.

 
Reading of homework

We read out our homework stories about

A bundle of joy love to Mum, Impressions of time, Yesterdays news, The birthday - Helene gained great enjoyment from her story, The storm symphony, Missing the group from Garry, Too many yesterdays, Under the purple tree, Today will become yesterday and aromatic information with the dogs from Jenny.

 
Reading

Terry recommended The Perk by Mark Gimenez and commented on the great planning he observed. We discussed the merits of planning a story versus letting the characters and our imagination take over. We also discussed the benefits of research and experience and writing about topics we are passionate about.

David R read out his poem Skeletons based on family secrets and a child's curiosity.

 
Exercise

Jo provided a page of phrases and we produced single words to replace the phrases.

 
Quick write

We used the phrase “Don’t get carried away with yourself” to do a quick write.

We produced great stories about - Too much to do, The black prince, Write without delay, No Mackers here, Hard to write, Beats village gossip from Elizabeth who appreciates attending our meetings, Down in the mouth, Not haughty, In my usual political rut, Don’t get carried away, The slippery road and No smoke to be found.

 
Homework

The tree