The start of 2015 saw the start of a local writing group here in Lawton, OK: O.W.L.S. (Oklahoma Writers and Literary Storytellers). Happy dance for everyone--oompa! I had been looking for such a group for about a year and had resorted to traveling a two hour round trip to Duncan, OK to work with their writing group--worth it for feedback. But a ten min drive for a local club, that was much to be preferred. I immediately invited my mom and my oldest son, who both write fiction. After three sessions and an enthusiastic post discussion that began in the car and continued as we entered the house, my second son volunteered to come along next time. We all turned stunned eyes on the sixteen year old lad. This particular child is, what one might call, an extreme introvert. We joke--well, we half joke... actually, we are afraid it might be true-- that he will be our thirty year old virgin living in the basement playing RPG's online and getting paid to hack something. So when he voiced a desire, separate from our prodding, to do anything outside the house, we couldn't believe our ears. We didn't let on, of course. We all played cool and simply said, "Sure. You are welcome to come along." So now our family populates about half the writing group.Each week we read fifteen minutes worth of our writing, current or past work, and then receive about five minutes worth of feedback. My oldest son began a new work a couple of weeks ago and has started running the prologue by everyone. He started reading and immediately we were immersed in a world of gears, steam, rogue scientists and their creations. Our hearts throbbed as the good doctor's creation attacked the people in the lab and shredded them to pieces. The odor, the screams, the urgency, the-- Um. Hey! What's going on? Why did you stop? That's it? It just ends? We want more. Well the author hadn't gotten any further. But we wanted more, darn it all! He had written and read with such dramatic conviction, he had grabbed us all and dragged us into his world. It very much felt like a War of the World's radio production from back in the day. Then the sixteen year old read is very short beginning to an off the wall fantasy that had me laughing out loud.
All of this I mulled over during the following week and then it hit me: wouldn't it be fun to produce a weekly (or biweekly) pod cast with current topics or some fantasy world we create but that sounds librew supply store, I got all the boys (I included the last son (fourteen) because he is a born showman) together on Skype for a conference call and put the idea to them. I sent them a link to a website that has a catalog of the old shows for them to listen to and spur their imaginations. Tomorrow we are going to discuss what we want to do with it. What is so cool is that not one of them mocked the idea, but really sounded interested!
ke the old radio shows? So today, while manning our
I will report as we get our ideas gathered and the podcast recorded.
