November Starter Sentences

Choose at least one:

The alphabet game! Write a story about anything. It must be 26 sentences long. Each sentence starts with the next letter of the alphabet. If your story starts with a B: “Being that he was dead, Dracula didn’t require food.” the next sentence has to start with a C: “Considering that, he passed on the plate of bacon offered.” So on and so on with the last sentence starting with the letter that preceded the first one. In this example, that would be A.  

OR  

You are ten years sober and about to take a drink. What lead you to take the drink?

October 16, 2015 Meeting Minutes

East Beach Writers’ Guild

October 16, 2015

Meeting Minutes

Submitted by Sally Parrott

In attendance: Michelle Davenport, Karen Harris, Skip McLamb, Sally Parrott

New Business:

·         Anthology

1.      Available for purchase at East Beach Sandwich Company, SandFiddler, Sun Kiss, Creative Wedge, Tidewater Collection  Please encourage people to go to these places to buy a copy.

2.      Appearances:

                                            i. Book launch write-up and pictures published in EBPL magazine

                                  

Minutes August 2015 Meeting

Welcome Mary Gillespe (a junior in High School and already published) and Skip McLamb, retired school teacher/administrator and OV resident.

Nobody reported any significant writing accomplishments, as all were focused on the BOOK SIGNING and, well, SUMMER. 

Old Business: 

·         Anthology—

ü  What a fabulous book signing event!  Sold 248 copies!  Amazing. Congrats to all!

ü  As of Friday we had sold 29 print copies and 13 ebook copies through Amazon.  Amazon pays 60 days after month end, so we won’t see any of that money until October.

August Starter Sentence Courtesy of Michelle Davenport

“You don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to.”

I glanced up from fussing with my dress slightly shocked.  This was not what I expected to hear.  I expected last minute words of wisdom or more likely some sort of joke.

He repeated himself.  “You don’t have to go through with this if you don’t want to.  We can call it all off.  It’s not too late.  And no one will think any less of you.”

I smiled at him as he tugged at his collar.  The air conditioning would have to go out on the hottest day of the year.  

“Oh but I do Daddy!  I love him!”  I assured him.  I knew what he was thinking.  That I’m only eighteen and I seemed to be rushing into this.  He wanted to be sure I was doing what I wanted and not what was expected.

“All right then.”  He grinned at me as he offered my arm and the music started.  “Let’s get this show on the road.”

I grinned back at him and took his arm.  I could see his smile get even bigger as we walked down the aisle, but I was too busy making sure I didn’t step on the hem of the dress he’d helped me pick out only a month earlier.  The nerves had kicked in and I could feel everyone looking at me. 

“Breathe.  They’re supposed to be looking at you.”

I chuckled.  I knew that, but I wasn’t much for attention. 

“I love you George,” he whispered just before he handed me off to my husband to be.

“I love you to Fred,” I replied with a smile.  I was about to change my last name, but with that simple exchange my dad had reassured me that I’d always be his little girl.

2015 Hampton Roads Writers Conference

September 17-19

Holiday Inn 

Virginia Beach-Norfolk Conference Center

http://hamptonroadswriters.org/2015conference.php

July Starter Sentence Courtesy of Will Hopkins
This month's sentence was actually a photo of the maiden statue that calls East Beach home.

"Wonder who she is?"

"Huh?"

"You and that damn Jumble puzzle, Vernon."

Vernon Yates looked up from the comics page.  He needed a T it looked like.  "Who?"

Ronnie skittered his lighter down the dash and jabbed with his cigarette.  "That gal over there.  Said I wonder who she is."

Vernon glanced through the open passenger window of the paint company van.  They were on lunch break.  "That cement girl?  She ain't nobody, man.  She's dead."

"Nah, dumbass.  I don't mean the statue there.  I mean who was she in real life?"

"Who cares.?  Hey, what word can you make out of D-T-O-G-H-O so that the T comes third?  I need me a T."

"I bet she was a mermaid."

"You need to run that fan higher, Ronnie Lee.  Them thinner fumes is messing with you."

"Yep.  The mermaid of Ocean View," Ronnie said, looking at the sad eyes.  "Use to meet her fisherman love down by the jetty each summer evening."

"Huh?"

"He'd bring her honeysuckle garlands and she'd sing him sweet songs about the sea all night long.  Then he flat quit coming, on account of all these houses gettin' built in here.  Broke her heart and turned her to stone."

Vernon tossed the paper into the back of the van.  "You're one goofy SOB, Ronnie Lee.  C'mon, let's get on back and finish priming.  Cutty Sark's got two-for-ones starting at four."

"The green Bay's my home, and there I roam, my love's gone, gone away."  Ronnie levered into drive, grinning at Vernon who just shook his head and muttered away.

As got rolling down the street, Ronnie couldn't help but look back in the mirror.

May Starter Sentence Courtesy of Karen Harris

I hadn't heard that song in years.  Seal's & Crofts' "Summer Breeze," took me back to an autumn nearly thirty years before.  I turned up the volume on the oldies station, letting it float me out of the carpool lane.  Instantly, I was an insecure college freshman, arriving at my Biology professor's home.  All of his students were invited to celebrate the end of our yeast experiment, proffering our mostly horrible, homemade wheat bread loaves. My mother, who preferred fresh sourdough from the bakery to making her own, had,nonetheless, kibitzed from a stool as I carefully bloomed the yeast and created the dough.  Faithfully following the recipe, I kneaded the life out of that yeast, resulting in a dense, inedible brick.
   I pulled up to a sidewalk nearly covered in star jasmine from the professor's garden, as "Summer Breeze" wafted from the VW Rabbit's radio.  The evening was warm, a last gasp of summer in the fall, and the air was heady with the flowers' rich fragrance.   Once inside their home, my hosts graciously accepted my paltry offering and handed me the professor's contribution to the yeast experiment, his home-brewed beer.  My first college party, first time at any teacher's home, other than my parents' friends, and it was a beer fest!  Our state's drinking age was an unequivocal 21.  Everyone turned a blind eye within their own families, so that many of us had experienced our first hangovers and embarrassing stories amid those who loved to tease us most.  Drinking outside of the family was still a risky business though, as parental consequences were even stricter than the penal code.  Yet, here I was, on the cusp of adulthood, beer in hand, no familial faces in sight.  I took a sip of the rich amber ale.  And it was grand.