the pen is mightier than

so I haven't blogged about our Texas writing group yet. we've met three times now, and our fourth get-together is scheduled for this friday evening. tomorrow!

Melanie and I talked about starting a writing group long ago in September, and after cautiously plotting the select few whom we would invite to join us, we held a very important what-kind-of-writing-group-do-we-want-this-to-be meeting.

much of the standard set-up from my Utah writing group (which I miss most dearly. Jen, Bekah, Mara... I hope you are carrying on tolerably despite my absence!) has carried over to this new one: monthly meetings, alternating submissions of 5 to 10 pages, rotating hostessing responsibilities. pretty basic. but there were new suggestions too-- what about snacks? and Shelley suggested including a short writing game at every meeting. in January we threw in a delightful dinner and a movie. it's been most fabulous, so far.

so we settled the logistics. and then we turned our minds toward picking a name. shall we model ourselves after some famous writing group? or pick a fantastical mascot of some kind?

hmm. we've got Amelia, Melanie, Rebecca, and Shelley. look at how conveniently those initials permutate into words. we couldn't decide on 'arms' or 'mars' or 'rams' or--okay, those are about the only real words we've got to work with--but instead of deciding which of those might most excellently embody our goals and ideals as a fledgling writing group, we in the end decided to use them all. I think it was Shelley (such great ideas that woman has, don't you think?) who created the thoroughly hilarious combination: Rams in Arms on Mars. (R.A.M. for short).

I know. it's probably not as thoroughly hilarious as I like to think. but honestly we did laugh very hard as we accepted the obvious fact that Rams in Arms on Mars was going to be our name.

and then of course we scheduled our first proper meeting, at which Mel and I presented the first ten pages of our stories. (yes, I'm still working on the aliengirl.)

and then of course, I threw together this ridiculous logo/mascot/whatever/thing:

don't be too astonished. I know it's awesome. but it isn't really that awesome.

last month, for our writing exercise, Rebecca (woah. I just realized, there was a Rebekah in my last writing group too. there must be a theme there. or good luck charm?) we talked about dream sequences in stories, what makes them work (or not), when they might be appropriate to use (or not), and then had us write a dream sequence. I used the characters from my aliengirl work-in-progress, and this is a small chunk of what I came up with in the six or so minutes we had to write:

‘You know where to look, green-hair girl?’ This time it was Fro speaking. His face looked normal but the rest of him seemed melted. ‘You lost him. You find him. You lost him....’

The city looped itself into the sandy wooden platform and the same wind blew through both the streets and the flat empty space. She saw the oil district shops and the defunct streetlamps. Instead of her own face on the posters it was her mother, her aunts, her sisters. Raylia and Ilia blinked at her, watching her walk past the oil district shops and the flat empty space and the streetlamps and alleyways, the sand-strewn platform and the oil district shops and the streetlamps, the alleyways, the oil district shops and the sand-strewn platform. Dad? Are you okay, Dad? Her telio was missing. her... antennae...

and I am in charge of our writing game this week. in preparation, I have made use of this digital curation of inspiration, and this simple site full of bizarre six-word stories. what will we all come up with on friday? hopefully something useful. whatever happens, it'll be an awesome meeting.