Our meeting of September 3, was a manuscript evening.

The first to read was Peter who read an old piece 'Cocoa Again', this consisted of the musing of an old lady in a nursing home who was convinced that the inmates were being eliminated one by one. She was convinced that the staff were putting something in the cocoa. She kept a bottle of water in her hand which she thought she could trust so long as she did not let it out of her sight. There was then a discussion about how to write a story like this which is dark and make it more acceptable by including some humour.

Next to read was Denise with a piece which had a working title 'Seaglass'. Clare looks out to sea and scans the beach as she runs her hand over the smooth stone in her pocket and she looks out at the grey/green waves. Then she remembers her youth and the times she tried to capture the image of the sea and flotsam on the beach. Her thoughts drift to the time she found the stone which is now in her pocket. Then she remembers meeting with her partner and the changes in her life. She remembers finding the seaglass in a drawer at home and her attempts to reproduce the unique colour. She decides she needs to return to the sea and she lets the waves wash over the seaglass and sees its radiance restored.

Then Joan read 'Berets, Onion and Bikes'. This told of the Frenchmen who came to England and went from door to door selling their onions. They were a regular sight on the roads and kept their onions in the narrator's uncle's cellar. And perhaps the onion cellars also slept in the same place. It all started in 1828 when there was a surplus of onions in France.

Denise then read a one hundred word story about a festival in Barcelona where there are many people walking round with sticks of fire. Denise then talked about a course she attended which discussed the role of language and customising it to illuminate the actual character rather than giving the characters a voice similar to the narrator.

Our next meeting on September 17, is a talk by Pat about the pitfalls of ghost writing.

Details of our programme can be found online at harrogatewriterscircle.weebly.com. If you want to improve your writing then why don't you pop into the next meeting.