Pinellas Writers, Death Cab For Cutie, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

 

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE: I'LL FOLLOW YOU INTO THE DARK

Let me tell you about the authors who participated in Pinellas Writers Zoom meeting tonight (actually Tuesday 11/8):

 

There’s Glenn – who sent me down the first wormhole because I had to find out if Mars is cold or hot. Turns out it’s cold, as Glenn read, and it’s only logical that it would be because it’s 50 million miles further away from the Sun than we are.

 

Continuing with the “competency porn” was David who spun humor from tragedy with his preference for leeches in the morgue-cold hospital where he experienced alien abduction minus the probes.

 

Then there was Eve who was planning strategy for when former Presidents get arrested. I like her thinking. And her fictional president’s name is Schicklgruber – wormhole again – which means “moneygrubber" and now I can’t call certain former presidents anything else.

 

Richard was pursuing a jeweler whose significant other wore panties covered with diesel dust. You had to be there. (Why weren’t you? There, I mean.)

 

And Louise, our dear beloved Louise. There’s no predicting what she will say or do or, in this case, write. The perfect name for a cheating husband – Thaddeus Chenowith III. It just doesn’t get better.

 

Then we come to Tad. He has my full attention immediately because he’s quoting lyrics from Death Cab For Cutie. And he’s using phrases like “superhuman tolerance for tedium” and “traveling makes him feel light”. I can relate. Staying in one place for too long used to make me feel stuck – trapped. And, as usual, there is a word I have not encountered before: agitprop. It means political propaganda, especially in art or literature – wormhole!

 

Susan – also unpredictable – and apparently ruthless, is reading a story in which her heroine is plotting to kill her husband. Quite boldly. With no shame.

 

Of course, Linda writes thrillers, and while her body count is not in the triple digits like George RR Martin, it’s high enough to make this listener cringe while still admiring the prose and the details.

 

Sallie, Phillip and BJ were present. They didn’t read – sad – but they did provide their usual useful critiques.

 

As for myself, my characters Holden Graves and Charlotte Bronte Harrison were enjoying a perfectly prickly road trip until Angelyne the stalker came along – and – as David wisely put it – bonded them together against a common enemy.

 

That wraps up another week of throwing words at the wall to see what sticks.

 

You could be part of things. Join the fun. Tuesday 11/15 – 6pm for technical help. 6:30 to 9PM Eastern time zone. ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM

 

And, as my dad would say, god willin and the creek don’t rise – yours truly will be moderator!!!

💖