26 November 2003

Venue: Simon & Pil’s

A cut down Slush group as Simon was away directing in China, Peter M couldn't make it and William was at a CD launch event. But the rest of us — Pil, Karen, Michele, Hugh and Peter G — had a very funny night, beginning with writing some bios for the website, then with an exercise technique stolen from the Slashers. This involved each writing down a noun on a piece of paper, folding the paper over and passing it to the next member, then writing an action and passing it on, then a phrase. Then each of us had to begin a story and after a minute, reveal the phrase and incorporate it into the story, then after another minute the action, and so on. We did this exercise twice with great success. Pil accidently wrote ‘lit a handle’ instead of ‘lit a candle’ for one of her phrases which gave Peter G a difficult moment — he rose to the occasion however with very funny results.

Finally Pil, Hugh and Karen read their contemporary science fiction stories.

Exercises

Quick story writing technique.

The Journey (unfinished)

by Karen Goldrick

Story description here.