Thursday 20 January 2011

RENEGADE WRITERS:19TH JANUARY 2011

Bit of a change of scene. Since they are renovating the Potters - the Renegade's usual venue - we've become itinerant and yesterday Chez Rees was the hosting venue.

It was very nice (horrible word!) to entertain and to be able to have a glass of wine or two without the prospect of incarceration looming. The story telling was good too. Peter C (thanks for the CD!) kicked off with a piece called 'Tumbling Dice' about a hitch hiking psychopath which was interesting but taken, in my humble, at too fast a pace...we need to appreciate more of the psycho's thought processes, especially regarding the influence of the dice rolling around in his head! I think though there's real potential here.

Peter A (thanks for the book!) read 'The Lake' about a Shoshonee holy place which is violated by a bunch of rednecks with dire consequence. I think Peter fell between two stools here: it was too detailed to be a short story and two short to be a novel. The idea is good though and deserves more work.

Finally Jan read 'Lucy Lightfoot' a fictionalisation of a legend of the eponymous Isle of Wight witch. I thought this got off to a cracking start and Jan found an excellent way of doing her exposition without it seeming too much like and infodump. Problem was for a 6/7k story she tried to get in too much detailed pagan stuff: interesting, but it didn't move the story along. The other thing the story is begging out for is a real twist at the end. I hope she brings it back to the group remixed and remodelled.

A good evening.

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