22nd of March

We had another excellent meeting yesterday. We tried a new order of agenda, beginning with reading and critiquing our work: John read from a fiction piece he's working on; Larry read a vignette from his ongoing memoir writing; T read "Dueling Banjos" from his memoirs; and Chaya read from her sci-fi novel.

Chaya presented a wonderful lesson on self-critiquing your work using different colored pens for specific types of editing notations on successive read-throughs. It made good sense, so I'll have to try that when my novel is finished.

Marsha ended with a writing thought from Elmore Leonard: Leave out the boring parts.

See you on April 12, when Marsha' lesson will be on creating characters.

A look at the e-book price-fixing brouhaha

We briefly talked in our last meeting about the pending suit of the U.S. Justice Department against the Big 6 publishers and Apple.

Here's an excellent take on someone's absurd letter about the problem.

8th of March

Despite Marsha's discombobulation, several people showed up to the meeting today and participated in the discussion and writing exercise. Unfortunately, due to Marsha's discombobulation, we didn't have time for reading our work. She apologizes.

The 15-minute writing exercise on the prompt to write in any form or genre about "the last time you slept outdoors" had our participants scribbling madly away for the allotted time and beyond, and quite a bit of good work came from it. Some pieces fell into the category of non-fiction, one was a poem, and others were fiction.

We had our individual arms twisted to give 15-minute lessons over the next few months. Our teacher at the next meeting (March 22) will be the ever-gracious Chaya, who will address "Critiquing."

See you in two weeks!

March

Meetings this month are on the 8th and the 22nd, at 12:30 p.m. We'll stick with Mountain High Coffee Works, in the Swiss Village, until Marsha can check out other locations that have been suggested. Sorry, she's been terribly busy and not in town, of late.

See you later!

February

We're going to have an awesome meeting on Feb 23, hopefully just as fine as the one we had yesterday. Larry will bring the memoir of a family member, and we will get to see what has been done so far to edit and get it ready for printing. We can give him our insights as to what more needs to be done.

Yesterday, we each wrote to a prompt. Since the assignment was to write a letter of resignation, Marsha took the time to write an actual one she will present, while Larry and John's efforts were more in the realm of "just pretend." I think! Ted went into the other room to see if we could get a bit less music filtering into our portion of the building.

Afterward, we read our work: a scene from a novel, an autobiographical essay, a chapter from a personal memoir, and a poem inspired by a recent journey.

We welcome all writers to join us in two weeks. Larry will have the floor for a lesson on editing memoirs.

November 10th, 2011 - the printers revolt.

Today seemed a day of printer problems.  We don't know if they somehow communicated with each other and unanimously decided to go on strike, but some of us were woefully unprepared for the sharing portion of the meeting.

As for my printer, it decided to meditate rather than do its job, frustrating me to no end since I actually had something to share this time around.

For those of you who are unaware, November is the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo) challenge.  For those insane enough, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.  Plotting and outlining beforehand is permitted, but ideally one would start writing on November 1st.

Is there a large cash prize?  No.  But the exercise in futili - er..... rough drafting is invaluable.  So when Mr. Printer decided not to churn out 6 copies of my excerpt, I was bummed.  Oh well, life goes on.

Benevolent dictator Marsha Ward asked each of us what we'd learned about writing in the past year.  After several enlightening responses, we then shared what we hope to learn in the upcoming year.Here are some of them:

• Our beloved man of mystery, Ted, entertained us with a string of government conspiracy theories on technology, dreams, and flourescent lighting (all related to the field of writing, of course), but we managed keep on track.  Ted is a wealth of information.  But like Regan said:  Trust, but verify.  (Love ya, Ted!)
• Writing makes one more conscious of details.  Being able to observe a scene, whether a peaceful nature setting or a city riot, and write about it in any sort of sense later is invaluable.  It takes practice, to be sure!  But like any muscle, the more you use it, the stronger it becomes.
• We also learned about e-publishing, how to address your subconscious to dig up an idea, and various ways to tap into the muse. 

All of us are at different skill levels on this writing journey, and learning new things each day.  Poor Sue was in a tizzy about bringing in an excerpt from a novella she's had on the back burner for 15 years, but this is what the meetings are for:  Bouncing your stories and ideas off of friends and getting good feedback.  The cool thing is, you don't have to accept any suggestions if you don't want to.  The choice to switch one word for another is ultimately up to the author.  So bring in that work for a look-see.  You'll be glad you did.

For our next meeting on December 8th, 2011, please bring in samples of good writing from a favorite author, or some of your own work to share.  (Up to three pages, double spaced, and enough copies for about 7 people.)  Also, be prepared to volunteer to teach something you already know about or something you want to learn in the next year.  (Writing related, of course.  No lessons in motocycle maintenance, please.)

The back room of Scoops in Payson is where we'll be at noon on December 8th.  See you there!

Success seems to be largely a matter

of hanging on after

others have let go.

-William Feather

Stretching Ourselves

Because our Intrepid Reporter, Betty, was unable to attend today's meeting, I knew I had to take good notes in order to come anywhere near her witty write-ups. Those who were able to come were Jaimie, Ce Ce, John, Ted, Chaya, and me, Marsha Ward.

Good news included Chaya's report that she uploaded several of her works to Barnes and Noble through the PubIt program. Hurray! She also has a website in the works, and will be interviewing writers and authors shortly.

Jaimie told us about two Arizona Press Women (APW) workshops coming up: one in Payson, and the second in Phoenix. The first deals with writing life stories and making altered books. The second is a talk about online marketing strategies that work.

I brought in a ton of materials, including a handout with tips for preparing for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which is a writing challenge that takes place each November. Participants endeavor to finish a new 50,000-word novel in 30 days.

Stuart Watkins of Tucson has issued a call for 100 Arizona poets to submit a few of their poems about Arizona to participate in a book he is publishing to celebrate the Centennial of Arizona's Statehood next year. He will choose the best of those submitted. Each poet whose work is included in the book will receive a copy.

We had a lesson about poetry in general and specifically about poetry rhyme schemes, after which we each chose a rhyme scheme from the handout to emulate in a poem. Doing so was out of many of our comfort zones, but stretching ourselves is good for our writing muscles. Once we were finished with the exercise, we read our poems. Jaimie wrote three!

Here's my practice poem, using a short, four-stanza version of Terza Rima:

Snow

The season soon will come of snow.
I hope I won't be cloistered in
and snow-bound where I cannot go

to town, or on a trip within
my car. While I'm a hermit, true,
I need to move. It'd be a sin

if I could not get out, see Su
to give her birthday greetings on
her special day. I'd really rue

lost chance to give the book upon
the nurse's life I bought for her.
Snow can be a real yawn.

Copyright 2011 Marsha Ward

Three people brought work to share or for critiques. John read two of his poems, Ted read part of his memoirs, and Chaya read the end to her short story about two older women on vacation. Betty, you missed it!

I hope I didn't leave anything of great moment out of my report. Thankfully, Betty will be back in fine form next month.

Our next meeting will be on November 10, but during November and December, we will only have meetings on the second Thursdays, that is, once a month. We'll resume our twice-a-month schedule in January, 2012.

If you wrote a poem at our meeting and you'd like to share it, please use the Comments to do so. Thanks!