If you weren’t one of the 18 people at April’s meeting, you missed a lively and informative discussion, followed by a lively and informative critique. But you probably enjoyed the Sunday sunshine, so it’s all good!
Contest News
In Von’s absence, Judy read out the winners for April’s “The Sea and Me” contest:
1. Karin, “Alone by the Sea”
2. Iain. “I Blame the Moon”
3. Judy. “Waves Kiss her Feet”
Other entries were:
“At Sea” poem by Catherin Violante
“Avoid Crowds” essay by Joanne DeHaan
“Best of All is the Sea!” story by Jessie Collins
“Better Times News” story by Michael Fryer
“Business in Great Waters” poem by Steve Cooper
“Coming of Age” story by Peter Letts
“Glenesslin 1913” poem by David Porter
“Premonitions” story by Robin Layne
“Sea-Legs and Kitkit” story by Sheila Deeth
“The First Thanksgiving Dinner Dishes” story by David Fryer
“The Piper’s Gone” poem by Sheila Deeth
“The Sea Witch” poem by Darrel Boyd
Upcoming contests
· MAY — The Mystery of… hosted by Peter Letts
fictional crime perhaps, but many options for non-fiction and poetry too
entries being accepted NOW and due by first Sunday in May
· June: Meeting My First Stranger – hosted by David Porter
n Another wonderfully open-ended contest theme which you might explore directly by considering a first meeting with someone so totally unlike yourself that “foreigner” doesn’t really fit right. (more thoughts on the website https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-2021-contests/)
· July: “Why the answer is YES…” hosted by David Fryer n Should be a fun one to play with. Maybe dive into what leads up to the answer being “yes” — more mystery perhaps? essay, poetry, character-heavy scene??
News
We followed the contest awards with news:
· Robin has been applying for editorial positions and has had various partial acceptances – maybe on a future project. She sends in applications every week.
· Jean’s novel, A Promise Full of Thorns, has been accepted by Sunbury Press (who also published Maryka Biaggio’s novel https://www.sunburypress.com/products/maryka-biaggio-eden-waits287-333-424-manual ) You can find Sunbury’s historical fiction here: https://www.sunburypress.com/collections/historical and a search for Sunbury on Amazon brings up https://www.amazon.com/s?k=sunbury+press&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
· Robin has been doing NaNo in April, writing weekdays, and is already ahead of schedule despite missing a day. Her goal is to finish the first draft of her novel.
· Jim has been converting/fictionalizing a friend’s diary – The friend was a Baptist missionary in Moscow, ministered to the Reindeer People, was arrested by KGB/FSB, inadvertently entered a nuclear test site… It’s set in 1993-2018 · Joanne has been fictionalizing her grandfather’s letters written in the 30s and 40s. Unlike Jim, she can’t contact the author to make sure what she writes is true to the culture, context, etc…
Discussion
And so began our discussion session, beginning with:
· Writing Historical Fiction: Some of Joanne’s grandfathers comments are definitely not PC: In writing the book, should she include attitudes or words that aren’t now acceptable?
o In a question of honesty and integrity vs acceptability, maybe including more context of the times provides more background to why those words were used.
o Jean’s novel includes non-PC phrases because that’s how people were.
o You can’t erase history, though the Egyptians tried.
o Jessie offered some examples of schools in the 1930s, where a math rhyme started, “Ten little nigger-boys…”
o Steve mentioned the controversy about Mark Twain’s books. Do you change words to make a book “safe” for middle-school readers?
o Matthew mentioned the need for historical accuracy in his Alice chapters. There’s a limit to what you can find even when you’re really good at research.
· Writing Short Story Collections: Sheila asked about her Kitkit stories. Her mum wants her to publish them, but what sort of book would it be – how long? Children’s book or adult’s? Illustrated or just stories.
o https://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/word-count-for-novels-and-childrens-books-the-definitive-post gives some good ideas about word counts for different sorts of books.
o Carl and June (Matthew and the Writers’ Mill) was chronological. It takes effort to order the stories and add the in-betweens to create a chronology https://www.amazon.com/Carl-June-collection-childrens-stories/dp/1978282435/
o Sheila’s Tales of Mystery introduced Kitkit and was chronological: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018Q2UW4C/
o They could be organized by topic instead…
· Organizing a Short Story or Poetry Collection: How would you decide what to include (and where to place it) in a collection (poetry, short stories, the annual anthology etc)
o https://thejohnfox.com/2009/07/how-to-structure-a-short-story-collection/ offers some good suggestions
o Catherin and Iain’s Poems and Poyums will follow a chronology of their relationship
o Mary Jane’s collection follows the seasons of grief, healing, recovery
o Kitkit’s stories could be organized into nine lives
o Robin’s collection is organized topically with sections on the growth of relationship
o David Porter – 40 poems over 40 years gave obvious sequential order
o What was Woody Allen’s format – just natural?
o Left and right-facing pages matter as well when you start formatting the book.
· Titling your Collection: How do you choose title?
o David Porter’s Clearing the Sky of Thickets: He chose a line from one of his poems that describes climbing and pruning a tree in bad weather, clearing the sky being a metaphorical image for life… https://www.lulu.com/shop/david-porter/clearing-the-sky-of-thickets/paperback/product-19epnqg7.html
o Catherin and Iain’s title is a play on words and pronunciation as they talked to each other. Other suggested titles were Between the Leaves (the title of one of the poems), and China In A Bull-Closet
o Jean made lists, and crossed out titles when she found a reason to dislike them. Promise full of Thorns didn’t get crossed out. She likes it because the novel starts with romance: Alice is gardening in ground that has no promise; her suitor says he’ll bring her roses. But roses have thorns and thorns hurt the marriage.
o Steve Cooper’s Don’t eat your seed corn https://www.amazon.com/Dont-eat-your-seed-corn-ebook/dp/B01JK5Z118/ . He feels the title was too long for a childrens picture book and suggests keeping it simple – Seed Corn. But Catherin thinks the original title speaks to parents Don’ts, and it’s parents, not children, that buy books.
o Jean read a recommendation that long titles with lots of keywords are good – Steve pointed out that fishing lures catch fishermen not fish o Sheila used lots of keywords in the subtitle to Questioning Faithhttps://www.amazon.com/QUESTIONING-FAITH-Journey-through-Christian-ebook/dp/B08K88V4PN/
· Would you look for agent, publisher or self-publish
o Querytracker helps you look for agents and has a useful forum for discussions (https://querytracker.net/forum/index.php https://querytracker.net/
o Writers beware is a great resource – don’t be put off by the science fiction header https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/
· How many books might you sell?
o Steve’s daughter wants him to publish so he did some research. The hourly rate works out at around $1.61 – Is babysitting equivalent to writing?
o David Porter’s friend Jeff Wallach writes fiction and sports. His novel, Mr Wizard, is published by a small press, Open Books, https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Wizard-Novel-Jeff-Wallach/dp/1948598302/ . Small presses don’t help much with marketing so he did some research – the average book from a publisher sells 5,000 copies over lifetime
o Jim has been selling his books since 2012. He’s sold 2,000 copies so far, and made it to many good reunions while selling: https://www.amazon.com/Comes-Southern-Revolution-James-Elstad-ebook/dp/B07RBSFFFQ/ https://www.amazon.com/Questions-North-Answers-South-Elstad-ebook/dp/B0194NP6SE/
o Karin made $200 on Chicken Soup, Robin $400 on War Cry, Catherin $2000 from Cirque (for Dementia poem), Robin got $15 for something else, Sheila has been paid one free copy each when she’s had stories accepted to anthologies, and MaryJane was never paid for her articles in nursing but got great feedback. As Steve says, we do it because we love the act of writing.
o Sheila checked the library’s account, and it looks like they’ve made $112.80 so far from our anthologies (but only $2 so far from the latest one)!
· Where can you find writing help besides here at the Writers’ Mill
o Grammarly is free unless you want premium. It’s pretty basic, but can be encourating https://app.grammarly.com/ o Prowritingaid again has free and paid versions, but perhaps it’s best thing is its information on grammar https://prowritingaid.com/en/GrammarChecker
· Where can you find help with book covers?
o fiverr https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?query=book%20cover&source=main_banner&search_in=everywhere&search-autocomplete-original-term=book%20cover but you may not find what you want o Canva https://www.canva.com/https://www.canva.com/design/play?category=tACZChfZug8&type=TABQqvkTd7I offers some great ideas.
Best thing you can do today? Join our Facebook group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/973617269358971
Critique
Next came the Poetry Critique, led by Catherin.
Catherin started writing poetry 15 years ago and was advised: if you don’t bleed on the page you’re not giving your story or poem the credit it deserves. Write because it feels good. Since then she’s learned about diferent kinds of poetry, the meaning of enjambment, sonnets and odes, the fact that … doesn’t denote a pause – it means something’s missing, and the value of artistic liberty – throw everything in the air and see what comes down.
The most important thing? Read your poems out loud to find when you wanted or didn’t want a comma. As David Fryer pointed out, text to voice won’t help with poetry (though it does with prose) since it can’t read line breaks, and line breaks are important in poems.
Catherin guided a wide-ranging discussion of Mary Jane’s and Robin’s poems (sadly we didn’t make it to Robin’s third poem). Things we discussed included…
· What makes something a poem? The poet says what they want, and the reader makes what they can of it. So… does a good poem give readers good food for thought? What matters most is intention – does the poem do what the author wants it to do.
· When the author reads aloud, should author’s pauses coincide with line breaks? It’s a good way to work out if your line breaks are right.
· All line breaks should be intentional. Capital letters give start of new thought, new breath. Don’t widow a preposition– ending lines with in and to leaves them dangling.
· Punctuation should be intentional – comma, period, emdash, or even no punctuation
· Beat and flow and the use of stress and syllable make a poem resonate. But the beat of repeated short words might be harder to read out loud.
· Rhyme and cadence – do you hear the rhyme or just hear similar sounds? Beat helps.
· Flow of theme through poem – past, present to future. Hopeless to hopeful. Flow matters.
· What makes something lyrical? Rhyme and meter – melody perhaps?
· The visual effect of centered poetry: A poem’s shape affects the reader. Do you split lines to look good or to sound good? How important are single line stanzas – maybe they give a speed-reader reason to stop and read. Presentation has many options – centered, tabbed, responsorial, no punctuation, left margin…
· Conversational poems might use italics for response. You can use tabs to guide the reader into hearing the voice change
· Each poem is an entity in itself, so the reader might relate to one, even if not to the next one in book
· How do you titles your poems, and how do you choose which poem comes first in a book? Also how do you choose which ones go on left-facing pages for emphasis?
· Images draw readers in – bench, crossroads, sea, blank wall. Phrases can draw them in too, and how the reader reads the image/word can change how they read the poem
· Where/how should a poem end? How complete should the resolution be? What difference does the place of a poem in a collection make? What if you’re planning to split a poem in two? What about matching stanzas at different points in the book?
· How often should ideas be repeated? What about a phrase or the shape of phrase? What about repeating the first words in a line. Should contractions match across repetition?
· Look for the phrases that stick in the mind of the reader. Choose words intentionally and avoid redundant or misleading words
· What makes us like something? Empathy, sympathy, breath of fresh air, glimmer of hope, personal experience
· Use of personal life to create a poem that echoes in other people’s lives
· Use of poetry to communicate a healing that writing it gives the author
· Use of first person – does it draw reader in or keep them out? Maybe delay the “I” word till something else has caught the reader’s “eye.”
Deadlines
The meeting ended with a quick reminder of upcoming deadlines…
· Next contest, deadline end of 1st Sunday of May, the mystery of…
· Next Meeting, 3rd Sunday in May (21st), need someone to lead critique of Steve’s children’s story
· Next Anthology: Please be thinking about an overall topic that includes our recent contest themes – if you submit something to a contest first, you will already have received the feedback to make it your best. Our current schedule is:
o submission by September’s meeting,
o edits by October’s,
o upload in November, o delivery in December