Glass of milk at writer’s workshop with Russell Rowland

Please forgive me.

October 12, 2015

Tonight’s first meeting: Rick Murchison is a woodworker, does sales writing, used to be a singer-dancer for 10 years, vaudeville style, I suppose. He brought cookies. Russell gave me a glass of milk. Rick is a baker and handy cook. He wrote and read a tale of one who flies into town, then goes to a cabin and starts a fire for warmth and comfort in the snowy night. He has high charisma.
Vicki Williamson just finished a draft of her novel, is working on a second. She sent her manuscript to eight readers for criticism. Her practice writing was fiction, set on an ocean pier, with her sailor boyfriend leaving forever after a breakup.
Carina Cooper is an artist. She was costume designer for two locally produced films. One of her children is severely autistic and she is writing a novel that is partly autobiographical. She told a tale of an encounter of the heart that was punctuated by a spider.
Peg Hart just retired from more than 30 years with the Job Service. She is fascinated by the Missouri-to-Montana migrations, so she wants to write historical works, perhaps partly or mostly fiction. She told a story set when her children were teenagers.
Don Woerner is a veterinarian from Laurel. (He and I once explored the Crow reservation with Porgy Lande perhaps 20 years ago, over by Pryor. Porgy showed us where the Bozeman trail went. I took pictures and made a cassette tape.) Don wants to write short stories about the changes to the Billings area he’s witnessed since 1968 when he started as a veterinarian. His tale was a glimpse at what a snowy night can be like for a veterinarian who takes care of calving. Don’s little finger was crushed by a bison recently.
Russell Rowland facilitated our group, but remains enigmatic. At least one of us disciples attended his writing group at least twice before. He had us read from Stephen King’s book about writing a memoir.
Rhonda Whiteman wants to write about her Crow-Irish grandmother and another topic as well. She studied filmmaking at New York University for 2 and 1/2 years. She wrote and directed 13 films. She had to quit for health reasons. Now she plans to attend school again, but wants to work on her two writing projects. Her warm-up writing was of wearing a pink rain coat in Sweden, amongst the many who wore black.
Jacque Swiesz plans to write a fictional memoir from a 17-year-old male accident victim’s viewpoint. Her story took us to the night she lost her cocker spaniel, “Blondie.” She remembered how her grandpa gave her the animal years before, and how she named it.

What does Pagan mean?

Next week I am supposed to bring 15 to 20 pages of writing to class to share. Ten copies.

In our free writing exercise, I wrote:

The thing I remember most about that night is the awareness of every crick and pop of the floor. No. The sound of the bed springs as I carefully rolled toward the edge of the bed. Then, like I said, the floor squeezed. Loudly. To my ears, pounding from pulse, couldn’t be helped. Slowly, barefoot, no pants, I pushed the door. Then unlatched it. Across the stair landing. Her parents asleep?
Took me, like, an hour but I made it across the landing. I pushed open her door.
Darkness within and without. Then I realized she had decided after all, to sleep downstairs in her brother’s room. I turned and walked heavily back to my room, to bed.