Between 16 and 20 members joined us for our “Mystery in July” meeting, and enjoyed a fascinating insight into a real-life mystery, provoking much fascinating discussion of might-have-beens and how those might-have-beens might be written. But first Sheila asked for some shows of hands before handing over to Lyndsay to share this month’s contest results.
WRITERS READ!
For those who weren’t there: 8 people raised their hands, claiming to have read this month’s contest entries, 7 left comments, and 8 voted. But why should this matter?
When Sheila asked, “Who wants to write?” we were pleased to see everyone raised their hands. And as everyone knows, if you’re going to write, you first have to read. As Sheila pointed out, one benefit of membership in the Writers’ Mill is we get access to a free literary magazine every month, in the form of contest entries. If you read them, you will be reading excellent writing in many different genres, and your own writing will benefit.
The next question of course is, “Who wants write well?” and most hands were raised again. If we want to write well, we have to be able judge our own writing with an eye that’s both kind and critical. And if you’re one of the people who writes, then reads what you’ve written, then says, “This is awful/boring/worthless; no one would ever want to read it,” you are not reading kindly, and your writing won’t benefit. But reading the contest entries and the comments left of them (if there are no comments, just go back later) allows you to both experience what kind criticism looks like, and practice your own skills in critique in a gentle fashion. This will help you improve your writing.
Now Sheila asked who would commit to “trying their best” to read, comment and vote on next month’s entries. 15 hands were raised. For those of you who weren’t there, please raise your hands too. Please read, comment and vote on the entries in our FREE literary magazine, known as the Writers’ Mill Contest.
Some members commented that with 15 contest entries it can be hard to read them all. Helpful suggestions included:
1. Read two entries a day and keep a list with comments on each entry, so you can remember what you’ve read.
2. Read for half an hour then get up and walk around or make a coffee before continuing. (Jessie, aged 94, spends an hour at once reading the entries.)
3. Start reading the entries as soon as they are posted. That way you have almost two weeks in which to read them all. Procrastination will leave you with a massive amount of reading and no time to enjoy it.
4. Maybe restrict members to sending in only one entry (though only one member sent more than one entry, so this wouldn’t have made much difference this month—please note, members are restricted to two entries per contest, with any additional entries being posted as “not for voting.” We might change this, but we haven’t changed it yet!)
CONTEST RESULTS and UPCOMING CONTESTS
Lyndsay announced the results of this month’s Only Time Will Tell contest, and commented on how many different and fascinating ways the prompt was interpreted.
1. In first place, a piece contrasting the prophesy of an older generation with the individualism of the new, Matthew took first place with Awaiting the End (and we’re all eagerly awaiting more chapters of this tale).
2. In second place was a poem that hits at the mechanical malaise of our clockbound lives; Robin Skinner with Time is not the Measure.
3. In third place, a dystopian mother’s story searching for the truth about her son: Judy with Will We Meet Again.
Other entries were:
· “Granddad” by Jessie Collins
· “Greetings From Ephesus” (poem) by McKennon Heath
· “Infant Total Recall” by David Fryer
· “Politics is Not a Hobby” by Gary Romans
· “Tell” (poem) by Sheila Deeth
· “The Detective Club” by Michael Fryer
· “The End of Time” by Sheila Deeth
· “The Nature of Becoming” (poem) by Judy Beaston
· “The Spring Festival Prize” by Robin Layne
· “Time Tells Sherman” by Von Pelot
· “When You Grow Up” by Peter Letts
· “Only Time Will Tell” (poem) by contest host Lyndsay Docherty
Upcoming contests have:
· deadlines at the end of the first Sunday of the month,
· word-count limits 1,200 but 6 word stories are great too,
· genre any – just don’t be deliberately offensive
· entries send to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org.
And the contest topics are:
· August: A Gardener’s Tale or Too Many Zucchinis – We have the new password to go with the new contest, so please check your emails regularly
· September: POV, which means “point of view.” This is a chance to write something from the point of view of something or someone non-human – a cat, a Roomba, a river, a tree, a dragon, etc. and consider what’s the worst thing about being a… whatever.
· October: Imagination – just go wild! Enjoy
SPEAKER
Our speaker this month was David Porter, a Writers’ Mill member who has been missing in action for a while, quite literally, as he’s been writing a mystery based on real life. His fascinating and entertaining story of the mystery he’s writing had us all glued to the screen, then closely engaged in guessing and suggesting both what might have happened and how the story might be told. For more notes on the this see https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/07/the-joys-of-a-real-life-family-mystery-from-david-porters-talk-20220717/
ANTHOLOGY VOLUNTEERS NEEDED
When all the questions and suggestions were done, we discussed this year’s anthology. Last month we put out our first request for volunteers, and I promised to repeat it here:
- writers – we’re all writers, but what do you want to get published this year? Start sending submissions (see rules below!) to anthology@portlandwritersmill.org and…
- include your name, your email, and a few key-words with the heading to your entry.
- E.g. For a “Kitkit looks at the moon” story, I might include key-words “Cat,” “Moon,” “tree at night,” etc.
- stylists – can you use Word style to turn entries written in different formats all agree with each other? We will need someone to compile all the entries into one (really big) file and set formats that are consistent throughout. For useful information on how this is done, see:
- editors – can you apply some basic rules and interface with authors to fix typos, confusing paragraphs, etc? Edits will interact with the authors (using those email addresses, above) to get approval for changes. We can easily send the big file to several people, with instructions to edit certain entries, so the more the merrier.
- illustrators – do you, or does someone you know have a great library of photos that we can use to illustrate our book (including the cover illustration)?
- tinyurl.com/2022anthology will take you to the google drive folder where you can upload your images
- https://tinyurl.com/2022FormAnthology will take you to a form where you can fill in the information about your image: Things we need to know – Your Name, Your Email (so we can contact you), the Filename of the Image, Image Attribution (who we should credit for the image), What story it might go with (optional), Additional info (e.g. a picture of Mount Hood with spring flowers in front of it).
- titlers – do you know how to tell what book title is more likely to attract readers? Are you willing to learn, and practice what you’ve learned?
- Cover creators – if you have the software and the knowhow, it would be great to have a sophisticated cover. But we can always use Amazon’s cover creator during the November meeting if we need to.
- play-list creators – This job is almost as important as Zita’s job. How would you put all the entries into a well-coordinated list? Do your talents lie there? It’s easy in Word – just use those links above to see how. You would be given the unedited file to work with as you plan how you want it to look, then you would move the entries around to match in the edited file.
- Formatter – this one is Zita. She did a fantastic job last year, just using word. This year, using more sophisticated software… well, this could be our best anthology ever!
- uploader – We’ll upload the anthology to Amazon KDP at November’s meeting. Do you want to be the person pushing the magic buttons? If you’re thinking of self-publishing anytime soon, this is the perfect way to try it out.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
This month the focus was on RULES, otherwise known as submission guidelines.
1. The anthology is open to all members of the writers’ mill – all recipients of our newsletters.
a. No more than five entries per member.
b. No more than 5,000 words in total (over all the entries you submit) per person.
c. Illustrated entries are welcome – just send the illustrations with the entry.
d. And send all your entries to anthology @ portlandwritersmill . org
e. Sheila will send replies to confirm receipt of entries. If she doesn’t, please email admin @ portlandwritersmill . org to remind her (but give her a bit of time first).
2. The call for illustrations is open to anyone connected with the Writers’ Mill. If you have a grandchild, grandparent, neighbor, best friend … who has some good pictures we can use, please upload them (see above) and fill in the information requested in the form.
3. ALL written entries will be accepted:
a. It’s easy to get your writing rejected. We want to give you the experience of being accepted, which means
b. You should send your best (and best edited) work, because you don’t want to overload your volunteers, and
c. You should expect to work with one of our editors in getting your work polished.
4. The deadline for written entries is end of the first Sunday in September.
5. No deadline for images (yet). We will choose the ones that best fit the empty spaces in the anthology.
CRITIQUES
The schedule of our upcoming meetings is on the website at: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/schedule/ You’ll notice no group critiques have been scheduled, though we could very much like to schedule some. PLEASE, if you are willing to have something critiqued in the group (always a very valuable experience for all of us), contact critiques @ portlandwritersmill . org
Also, if you’re interested in joining one of our critique groups, or would like to add your critique group to the list of groups connected to the Writers’ Mill, please contact groups @ portlandwritersmill . org
CONTACT INFO
You can find all these contact email addresses by going to https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contact-us/ on our website. If you find you are not getting a response to your emails, you can contact Sheila at admin @ portlandwritersmill . org, but please be patient as neither she nor anyone else can guarantee to reply to an email straight away.
Our next meeting is on August 21st. Elisabeth Christison will speak to us about middle-grade fantasy, writing a series, getting published, and everything in between.