Creative Endeavors

Yesterday, I attended a Creative Endeavors' meeting, which ended up as usual being filled with humor, catching up with friends, and complete with interesting presentations associated with history primarily.  This meeting is held at the Bayliss Library and its purpose is to provide support and encouragement for writers and artists.  A woman, who happens to be extremely creative in several venues, was sitting knitting while listening to a poem prepared by a person who wants to use this poem as part of the tours he provides for the public.  Other people were present, an elder who is a author of children's books, a man who is a photographer and writer, one highschool student (writer), and myself (writer, artist, musician).  Normally, the meeting usually has more people in attendance.  Two other members decided to read to children at another library.  We were not sure what the other members were doing.  The members, who were not in attendance, are also very talented.  One has a great sense of humor and he is a writer and the others are artists and writers. 
The photographer presented pictures he had taken of birds, and other interesting things such as boots hanging from a wall.  Various foliage was planted in these boots, very colorful. This picture was taken near my home.  The woman who provides these interesting displays of foliage is a neighbor of mine.  Her yard serves as one of the focal points during community garden tours.
This photographer likes to take pictures of unique things.  There was a picture of a battered chair sitting by itself.  Some of the bird pictures portrayed waves of water behind the birds that resembled the waves behind a boats as they travel down a river, or other form of water.  One of the members commented that she likes to see movement, so he decided to present a water story with his pictures.
The highschool student informed the group that he was writing a story about WWII.  He was focused on what happened during the war in the Pacific. This sparked the interest of the photographer who was attending the meeting.
He has a great start with his project and was directed by his English teacher to attend our group to obtain feedback. His teacher presented a picture in class of a man lying on the beach with a ship in the background and ask the class to write something associated with this picture.  Kudos to that teacher for creating such a stimulating project for the students. 
This student received very valuable input.  He learned the proper usage of the term "sir" and the type of actions that occurred on the islands in the Pacific during wartime.  There was a discussion about what the pilots were referred to and one member stated that the term was coxswain. 
He wants to set up a personal touch with his story.  He is going to set up a scenario that involves a husband and wife and how the war effected their relationship.  His writing was commendable and he brought you into the scenes literally.  He stood up to demonstrate positions of the men when they were in battle and participating in patrols.
It was pointed out that the elder attending the meeting could give him insight.  She stated that there were food rations during the war such as sugar rations. That was the first time women went to work outside of the home.  She painted little knobs for cars and since she was willing to do it by hand she was paid an extra 5 cents per hour.  She couldn't remember what job her sister took; however, since her sister was working she decided to do so also. 
This student has read alot of books about WWII and has interviewed elders to receive their input.  He is well on his way to creating a very well written book.  It was nice to see such a young person so dedicated to his project. 
The meeting is held from 10:00 to 12:00 on Saturday per month and it was quickly approaching 12:00 so I chose not to present some of the information I learned when I attended the Erma Bombeck Humor Writing Conference in Dayton, OH.  I was going to present information such as participating in the writing process versus writing to achieve an outcome.  In later blogs, I want to provide my readers with more information from the conference.  Tune in for the rest of the story.