I belong to a reading/critique group in America where five of my best friends gather every month to alternately discuss read books and critique writing attempts.
We’ve just started an annual writing retreat in a cabin up in the mountains of New Mexico. We go for a whole week of uninterrupted composition, walking, reading or just plain napping. We share the cooking and spend our evenings in leisurely pursuits such as Scrabble and talking. Blissfully wine-filled.
We have a Christmas party with husbands, which flip flops between the two English members of the group.
We go out for dinner in January to have fun and choose our books for the next year.
Oh yes, and of course we meet at each other’s houses every month to discuss the assigned book or offer constructive criticism if anyone has written, which I usually have.
We read about six titles a year and write about five pieces, three of us are published. Two of us are wannabe published. We are optimistic that with enough shoulder rubbing the publishing charm will eventually rub off.
I was going to skype in for the book discussion this month but I found out about the date too late and have only just got half way through the most exquisite book I’ve read in a long time.
“The Night Circus,” by Erin Morgenstern.
I was reading the emails going back and forth about the meeting and my possible Skype attendance and one caught my eye and had me and my daughter howling.
One of us was listening to it on CD in her car. She is getting very confused with the jumping around, which, like “The Time Travellers Wife,” this book is prone to. After a few days of utter audio chaos she sent out a plea for loan of the book in its hardcover print form,
“Because,” she finally realised, “my CD player was programmed to ‘Random!'”
Didn’t I say in an earlier post, we old folks are dangerous around new fangled things?!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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