Connie's Corner

A little under the weather

I woke up last Monday with a terrible sore throat, but by Tuesday I was able to go to my book club meeting and micro fiction class, although it continues to hang on, even now .

The book club get together was fantastic, fourteen of us in all. State of Wonder was the book and a lady who had read Bel Canto by the same author started off the discussion. She did not like this one, thought it was unbelievable with outlandish characters. That got everyone talking...a lot! Differences of opinion make for a lively interchange of fresh ideas. What a good group.

My micro fiction class proved interesting as well, but first I'd like to share a little comedic test I found for distinguishing literary fiction from other fiction. After reading the last sentence of the piece, look in the mirror. If your eyebrows are closer than normal, the answer is "yes". Works for me .

After reading our "Mrs. Jones found her wings" stories, Kaye told us all about Submishmash. If anyone has submitted anything lately, most are using this format for submitting. I do not submit a lot, but I did know about it so my account was already set up. I worked on my bio in the profile section and tweaked a few other things.

I already knew about Duotrope as well but had let it slide when they started charging for the service. They have a massive listing of submission sites. You hone the number down by entering info on what you are submitting...genre, length, etc...still a great bargain at $5/month. So I signed up for that again. Maybe the paying part will make me want to submit more .

Kaye warned us about using negatives in a story as it usually leads to passive voice. Every sentence should move the story forward. Our only homework for next week is to read more Russell Edson and Barry Yourgrau. She suggested we all stay in touch to critique each others work, a good idea I thought. Also, we were told to read The Falling Girl by Dino Bussati. If you're interested, just google The Falling Girl and the entire doc is the first thing to come up. It's a short story with many, many meanings (implications, Kaye calls them). I wrote an entire page about things I got out of the story.

Wednesday, I went to a church group senior luncheon. It was at a place called "Bubbacues" (not exactly receptive to veggies) but the fellowship was good. I sat near a lady who leads an acrylic painting class each week at the church...sounds interesting....maybe. The restaurant did have some yummy collards, but I'll bet they were seasoned with ....... I ate 'em anyway. I did turn down the baked beans because I could see pieces of pork in them.

Yesterday I went to my 'writing your life history' group meeting. I read my story about Ellen, and boy is it a small world. The gentleman sitting next to me has two daughters who attended the University of Delaware (Ellen was my roommate). Isn't that something? We had some sad news. One of our members lost her husband two weeks ago. I hope she feels like coming to our next get together. She's a good storyteller.

Well, I guess that's my life up-to-date other than yard work and regular stuff. Hope everyone is enjoying the fall weather. I hear we have a hurricane (Karen) on the way, but I think it will miss Gainesville, maybe just more rain. Stay safe and...

until next time....c