Unfortunately, there were not a lot of members at our last Magic Pens meeting that was held at 10:30 AM, (although it started quite a bit late,) on March 24, 2007 at the Bagel Stop/Book Nook. Due to the lack of members, and the somewhat short amount of time that was available for Mr. Gifford, we did not discuss a lot of new topics, however, a few good topics were brought up. At first, each person who attended the meeting shared what they have recently been reading and what they liked about it and then gave a short review on what they plan to write about recently. Afterwards, we discussed the following topics.

1. Goals – Now that the play is over, Mr. Gifford would like everybody to return to their goals and to keep up with their writing. He would like to remind everybody that it is all right to talk about items that you have thought about writing but haven’t yet to get help working some things out, early responses and feedback, or even thoughts on how people will like it.

2. Mr. Gifford’s New Story – After watching a television show that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, Mr. Gifford was inspired to write a new story and using his own advice, shared his plans for the unwritten piece at our meeting before he actually started writing it. The new story, The Club is to be about himself and our club of Magic Penians in Minot, North Dakota, however there are some twists. He has already posted the first chapter so check it out!

3. End of the Year Book – The end of the year is approaching fast and we need to start thinking about the collection of writings that we are going to “publish” at the end of the year. Mr. Gifford would like everybody to seriously try to attend our last few meetings before school ends so we can discuss in person what we will be doing for the book. So far, it looks that we will be doing a random assortment of short stories that will each be limited to about 500 words or so. Begin thinking about your best short story to fit this limitation. Another topic on this subject that was brought up at our meeting was who should be priveleged with a spot in the book. Should the book be for active members only or can a member who hasn’t posted for months have their share? Should we make a qualification such as attending a certain amount of meetings or posting a certain amount of writings? There is still a lot of discussion on this subject that needs to be discussed at our future meetings.

4. Hoodies – We have finally decided that the hoodies that we will be getting will be a navy blue color with silver on top for the drawings and writing. Matt’s Thermo Nuclear Warhead will be on the front of the hoodie in a small pocket-size with my Behind the Scroll on the back of the hoodie in a large size. As far as we know, we will be ordering hoodies rather than T-shirts unless there are enough votes for a different article of clothing. If we do happen to change to T-shirts, all who have already paid for the hoodie will be refunded as the T-shirt costs less than the hoodie does. If you are still interested in purchasing a custom Magic Pens hoodie, please see Mr. Gifford by the end of this month.

Although we may not have discussed a large variety of topics as in previous meetings, we still had fun and enjoyed ourselves. After Mr. Gifford left and the meeting at ended at 11:30 AM or so, six of us actually stayed and hung out until 1:00 PM. During this time, we decorated blogs, talked, listened to iPods and such. Too bad there weren’t a lot of members there…*nudge, nudge*