Grind Writers 2020 schedule at Sept 4, 2020

Grind Writers 2020

Because of the Covid19 pandemic, the in-person meetings of The Grind Writers Group are on hold until further notice. For more information, email: grindwriters at gmail dot com or find our group on Facebook. 

Stay safe, be well!

2020 schedule Grind Writers Group

Grind Writers Group
2020 dates
Please email grindwriters at gmail dot com
before attending the first time for details of location, times, etc.

Jan 18	June 06
Feb 1	June 20 LRC
Feb 15	July 4
Feb 29	July 25
Mar 14  LRC	Aug 15
Mar 28	Aug 29
Apr 18	Sept 12
Apr 25	Oct 3
May 9  LRC	Oct 24
	Nov 7
May 23	Nov 21
	Dec 5 LRC
***Note: Please check your email the night before/ morning of (especially during winter) for any cancellations.

Updated meetings schedule

Please email grindwriters at gmail.com 
before you attend for the first time.

Grind Writers Dates 2019
·  Sun Apr 28 Elizabeth McLean: "She's Terrible, and I Love Her:  'Unlikable' Female Characters."	·Sun July 21
	·Sun Aug 11
	·Sun Aug 25
·  Sun May 5  date changed to:	·Sun Sept 08
·  Sat May 11 We’re at WriteOn Vancouver Fest,  VPL downtown 11-4	·Sun Sept 22
	·Sun Oct 06
·  Sun May 26	·Sun Oct 20
·  Sun June 09 Susan L Greig, Journal Lady	·Sun Nov 03  DST ends
·  Sun June 23 Karen Schauber - "The Marvels of Flash Fiction"	·Sun Nov 17
·  Sun July 7 Elizabeth McLean: “Interiority in Fiction - How to balance internal narrative with action”	·Sun Dec 01
	·Sun Dec 15, 2019

Ke Tou: The Ancient Sound of Respect

Several years ago, Bonnie Nish the long-time executive director of Pandora’s (literary art) Collective came to The Grind Writers Group to do a mini-workshop with us. She brought along her Pandora’s Box full of 3D writing prompts. I had also attended a regular evening her co-ED Sita Carboni hosted called Word Whips* where people got together and wrote to a prompt she brought. Sita set the timer for 15 mins. and gave us a prompt (a coat-hanger).

She explained to us a Pandora's tradition that, since these were free-writes we were welcome to read our output but we would not be getting feedback on what was read, since it was material we had just written – or, what local writing coach Sylvia Taylor amusingly calls a “barf draft” or a “shaggy first draft.” Anne Lammot (Bird By Bird)  calls first output “shitty first drafts.”

It’s important that distinction be made.

So many non-writers (including some friends and family members) seem to think that the Writing Greats just sat down and poured out War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice, or The Grapes of Wrath in one go. And the first thing most of those people ask even a fledgling writer is, “So, have you published anything?” as if good writing just rolls out like sheets on a roll of paper towels.

Sita explained at Word Whips that night that when someone finished reading we would just tap the table with two fingers (softly, because we were meeting in the library) to indicate our support and admiration for one of us having had the courage to share their first-output material to a bunch of strangers. And that’s what we did. In turn, we have carried on that fine tradition at The Grind Writers Group.

Nothing new here. Except today I was reading a book, All the Tea in China: History, Methods and Musings (Wang Jian). And I came across this “lovely ancient Chinese Tea Story” Jian recounts:  

One day, the emperor Qianlong visited the Dragon Well tea area in disguise and took tea in a small tea-house where the attendant, unaware of the emperor’s identity, gave him the tea-pot and asked him to serve his entourage.

Unwilling to divulge his identity the emperor poured tea for his followers. This frightened his entourage out of their wits and, in their anxiety they began to tap on the table with their fingers bent to show that they were “kneeling on both knees ke tou continuously” (ke tou—to knock one’s head on the ground in obeisance).  

This story later became wide-spread and “tapping the table in respect” became part of the etiquette of drinking tea even up to the present day. When the host presents his guest with a tea bowl and pours water for him the guest slowly and rhythmically taps the table with the bent middle and fore fingers of the right hand in a gesture of respect to the host for having been served tea.

I don’t know if Sita or Bonnie had ever heard this ancient story. But now we’ve got a name for the tapping and I am totally down for giving ke tou to people who’ve had the courage to share what has just rolled out of their pens.

________________

*Word Whips carries on to this day meeting regularly at various locations. 

©2019 Margo Lamont

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All the Tea in China

Goodreads review:“I love tea and bought this small book while at the Ai Weiwei According to What? exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario today. The book was written in China and translated and beautifully presents the history of the use of tea in China through a long list of dynasties, describes the different types of tea, where they are from, when they are picked, how tea is prepared, the tea rituals and spiritual significance of drinking tea - even recommending with how many people tea should be enjoyed. Poetry, brushing drawings and stories tell the story.”—Nancy

2018 Grind Writers meeting schedule

Before you attend, please email:  grindwriters [at] gmail [dot] com
We sometimes meet elsewhere; meetings may be cancelled.

Please come and join our Facebook group - search "The Grind Writers Group" (Make sure you put that "the" in the search words because there are two groups, one defunct.)

2018 Grind Writers Group schedule (skips holiday weekends)
Sat Jan 20	Sun July 8
Sat Feb 10	Sun July 22
Sun Feb 25	Sun Aug 12
Sun Mar 11	Sun Aug 26
Sun Mar 25	Sun Sept 9
Sun Apr 8	Sun Sept 23
Sun Apr 22	Sun Oct 14
Sun May 6	Sun Oct 28
Sun May 27	Sun Nov 18
Sun June 10	Sun Dec 9
Sun June 24

Christmas - A Writing Prompt

At our last Grind Writers Group meeting before Christmas, "Christmas" was the season's organic prompt and I want to share the Christmas card I wrote to our members.
_______________________

Grind Writers – December 17, 2017

Prompt:  Christmas 

Christmas is not all about presents. It’s also about presence. 

In this group it’s about your managing to get yourself here—putting it in your calendar; getting your writing gear out, maybe a piece printed to share; and getting here by whatever way you travel. Some of you come by car, some by bus, others cycle here, others walk. One of you comes all the way rom Surrey, another from UBC, another the West End. We draw together for this endeavour of writing, whatever it is. 
Christmas—the giving part—the sharing part Christ taught: “Do Unto Others” – is about you sharing your time to be here, sharing your work, trusting us to be supportive (there’s that “Do Unto Others” thing again), and being supportive yourself. 

Supportive isn’t just saying, “Oh, that was nice” or “That was good.” It’s really listening to a piece and trying to be that writer’s ideal reader. It’s trying to see where they are coming from—and doing what you can to help them get there through your feedback ("Love One Another”?) and via your encouragement, your cheering on the sidelines.  

It’s about making that effort to turn out to others’ readings. About taking the time to give them a boost review on Amazon or the VPL. About sometimes being their beta reader. All of which take time and give of yourself and your energy. 
So – thank you all for giving us all the gift of you all year as the we head into our 12th year in 2018. 

Merry Christmas! 

______________________________ 
Margo Lamont

Grind Writers today

I’m glad, really glad, I went to the Grind Writers group today. But I wasn’t feeling that way when I woke up.

I am not a morning person. 

For a 10 o’clock start, I set my alarm for what I consider to still be the middle of the night: 7:30am. "No! -- I don’t want to write at bloody ten o’clock in the morning, why did I get myself into this?” 

Need coffee. Strong. But only one cup because I’m going to need to order a nice big fat artistically-topped almond milk café latte (was that enough detail for you?) at the coffee house where we meet.

Oh, um. But. That’s two hours down the line. One go-back. Just one go back to bed, trying to avoid hearing those raindrops smattering down my window, harbingers of today’s predicted monsoon bringing 70mm of what makes Vancouver so dreary and damp in November.

\\\

Fast forward to 12:30 when the group is over. 

I'm so glad I went. And I’m so grateful to the others who trudged out in the rain by bike, transit, and car to the café to join me in that inexplicably magical activity of writing.

Magic with laptops. Magic with pens. Magic pouring into dogeared coil notebooks or into fancy leatherbound journals and everything in between. 

Getting it down.

Getting what down?

Well, we're all in this huge existential cave. And we writers are standing on piles of rocks, with a pointy flint, scratching out things  on the cave walls. 
Scratch-scratch-scratch: I noticed this. Scratch-scratch-scratch: That was weird. Scratch-scratch-scratch: wtf was that all about?    Scratch-scratch-scratch: That experience drained my soul. Scratch-scratch-scratch: This was fabulous; this made my heart sing; that hurt, this was bad; I learned thus and such……….

Our experience. Here. Now. In this place, this consciousness, this experience of life. Ours each our own. And all so different, but overlapping in variously-contorted Venn diagrams.

We’re getting it down. Whatever it is to each of us. If we tell the truth, we’re not even necessarily getting it down for others. We’re getting it down (whatever it is) for ourselves. It keeps us sane.

\\\

Today I brought my pseudo-Pandora’s Box. It’s an homage to Bonnie Nish’s Pandora’s Box. She’s the ED of Pandora’s Collective, a creative  literary events-generating group. Bonnie brings her Pandora’s Box to writers’ groups. It’s full of many and varied items, 3D writing prompts. She hands one to each person. It could be anything.
Then you write.

Sometimes I actually agonize over the writing prompt. What will call forth those deep moments of reflection and revelation that sometimes, if we’re lucky, happen? I try many forms.

Writing prompts are completely unpredictable. 

Sometimes the most mundane item will bring forth a cascade of deep and meaningful writing. And another you've laboured over is meh.   

My pseudo-Pandora’s Box never lets me down. Maybe it is magic. It has, like Bonnie’s, a collection of objects from this world. Everyone reaches in the box and chooses an item without looking. The whole idea of free-writes is to not have too much time to think before plunging right into the writing. Writers have a propensity to overthink, well, everything and we can get stalled that way. We call it 'block' but it's just fear. The free-write pushes you past the fear. It gently forces you to, as the late Dr. Claire Weekes, advised: "Wait on no mood."

So we have our prompts and start to write for 15 minutes. The table goes silent. We hear the soundtrack of the jazz that Aperture’s owner Ryul collects.

We write. It's a special kind of silence.

The timer goes off. Too soon.

People volunteer to read. And by the end, I am very, very glad I didn’t give in to my hygge-proneness today and that I got myself to that coffee shop. So we read, our raw unedited output:

T. got a Tarot card, The High Priestess—didn’t like it, but nevertheless wrote a moving piece about aspirations. 

I. got a little jewellery box with keys inside, and wrote a 3rd person POV piece about someone getting that prompt in a writing group and what happened.

Of course you rarely can finish something in 15 mins., so we don’t know where that is going, but the point is, it was a start. The pump was primed.

G. shared some personal struggles, beginning with a question I think we’ve all had at some time or other as we were poised to read: “How much do I want to tell these people?”

I got the top of an IBM corporate souvenir, a Selectric® paperclip holder, which took me back to my days working for the world’s most corporate corporation.

J. got a little plastic superhero figurine.
M. drew a hand-inked envelope that had  been re-addressed many times from which she spun an intriguing tale. 

N. wove a narrative about his relationship with the train and cars from an old Translink transfer card and how they affected his career at times.  

And B. looked at that egg slicer and embroidered a tale about a women’s encyclopedia of inventions in Canada.

And that was just the stuff that fell out of our pens and fingertips in a free-write. 

It is so relaxing and encouraging to be with fellow writers who understand, who don’t expect their cohorts to spit out Pride & Prejudice, War & Peace, or Ode on a Grecian Urn on a first go at it -- as the uninitiated, and friends and family, are sometimes prone to.

\\\
Later people read the work they had brought from home. More polished. Feedback before submission. 

I am again so glad I turned out and got there:  T. read us a long and powerful poem bringing us right into the pain she endures on a daily basis struggling to become who she is, with powerful emotional obstacles.

I got to hear N.’s poem, “Romantic,” which spurred a lot of conversation and feedback. And N.’s draft for a magazine piece that left us angry for all the right reasons. And another chapter in the wonderful experimental novel from M., who is such a keen and amusing observer of human traits and our 21st century culture.

Oh yes. It was worth it. It always is. Every time. Some times more than others, and this was one of the STMTOs. 

And worth it to have all that conversation, exchanging all those ideas about everything from the difference between romance and romantic; the #MeToo phenomenon; stigma in the workplace when employees do disclose their mental health issues; the deep anger that sours the soul in an emotionally-abusive relationship;  tender reminiscences; personal histories and self-acceptance, and much more — as people took a chance on reading something close to their hearts or risked reading something not yet as perfect as they would like; as others took flights of fancy into the past, into the future; and still others perhaps marked up on that big cave wall how it was going in life today, maybe notched off how far they had come towards something.

Tears held back. Laughter shared. All grist for the mill—our messy, contradictory, incomprehensible, wonderful mill of human experience here now or then when.  

_____________________________

Create your own Pandora's Box. You can put anything--small--in it. Common everyday objects or arcaneries. Then, every day just pick something out, and write. As Bonnie says, "Take the challenge. See what you can whip up."

Around Table Round Robin

A little bit of fun we have at Grind Writers with spontaneous writing Round Robins.  The paper that goes around is folded accordian-style, so you only get to see the previous person's added bit. Hence a certain amount of disjointed comedy, POVs changing, etc. And thanks to Beth for reading it aloud at the end. 

Feel free to add your bit in the comments.

Unhanged, Debut Dagger, and Canadian mystery writing

At a recent crime writing workshop with Vancouver mystery author Merrilee Robson, she told us about some mystery writing places you might like to look at if you're a Canadian writing in that genre.

1)  Unhanged Arthur Ellis Award: for Best Unpublished First Crime Novel

("You have not had a novel, or novel-length work of fiction (50,000+ words), of any kind published commercially, whether: in print or electronically (i.e., e-book or published on the Internet) or selfpublished in any genre, including literary fiction under your given name or a pseudonym, and/or written alone or jointly with another author"). 

Info about it is here. Note: there are various Arthur Ellis competitions and the deadlines are different. Be sure to read the several pages of submission guidelines.

2) The Debut Dagger Award (UK) here.

3) Organizations Canadian crime writers should know about:

• Crime Writers of Canada - here. They have a free newsletter you can subscribe to. 
• Sisters in Crime (SINC) - Canada West - here.

____________________________________________

Merrilee Robson is the author of Murder Uncooperative, (North Star Press 2016), set in co-operative housing in Vancouver, BC.

She's currently working on a historical mystery. This work in progress--Summer Smoke--was a finalist in the Freddie Award for Writing Excellence, sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.
____________________________________________
I asked Merrilee which mystery writers she reads:    

There are so many good mysteries around these days; it's hard to choose.

• For Canadian authors,  I love what Louise Penny has done with her series set in Three Pines. I bought Deadly Appearances, Gail Bowen's first novel, on the recommendation of staff at People's Co-op Bookstore on Commercial Drive and I thought her description of political events was dead on (so to speak.)  I've read every one of her books.

• Iona Whishaw is a local writer who writes a series set in BC in the period following WWII. 

• Among British mysteries, I've enjoyed Elly Griffiths Ruth Galloway series, set in Norfolk, Jacqueline Winspear's Misie Dobbs historical series, and Anne Cleeves' books set in the Shetland Isles.

• Of course there are the classics, Dame Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, and a number of Golden Age Mysteries are being re-released in print and e-books. I just found out that Mary Stewart's romantic suspense novels are now available as e-books, many for only 99 cents.”

.......................................

Margo Lamont