14 members attended our end of year Writers’ Mill meeting. In an attempt to improve attendance, and increase participation in the contests, we are trying to ascertain everyone’s interests and needs. Obviously, if you weren’t able to attend the meeting, we do understand; life is busy. But perhaps you could enlighten us about your needs and interests by replying to this email!

Writing interest: Combining results from last month and this month, we have writers/readers working in the following styles:

• 6 drama
• 16 poetry
• 19 essay
• 21 novel
• 22 short story

Writing needs: Again combining results, we have members looking for help with:

• 11 writing skills, grammar, structure etc
• 10 inspiration, writing prompts, contests and encouragement
• 6 how to get published, submissions, query letters etc.
• 13 self-publishing
• 6 marketing (what to do before and after you’ve published your book)

Next month (January 19^th) we’ll ask about genres. Meanwhile, please remember to reply to this email if you want to add your interests to these lists.

Looking at last year’s goals, we found , unsurprisingly, that everyone had achieved something, and many had achieved far more than they realized. In particular:

• 9 entered contests, 7 won, and 4 entered every Writers’ Mill contest of the year! 2 successfully submitted short stories to contests outside the Writers’ Mill
• 6 voted (and left comments) on Writers’ Mill contests – a great way to learn how to read our own work critically (and edit)
• 15 are now writing every day; 1 has even come up with a way to track his writing
• 4 are writing more and 5 editing more. 3 are completing at least 1 short story per month
• 5 have extended their poetic efforts, with 3 learning new poetry forms
• 5 are in critique groups and many more, it seemed, would like to be.
• 8 worked on their novels and 4 finished revising. 7 completed chapters. 6 got to know their characters better through writing
• 2 attended readings
• 9 were published (in our anthology and, for some, in other places too). 1 even published a paper!
• 2 felt they had reached more readers; many would love to

So, where are you in this list? And where do you want to be? Sheila collected next year’s goals and will be happy to hand out more bits of (cat) paper next month so you can add your own. Meanwhile we came up with the following list of Group Goals (again, please reply if you want to add to it, endorse it, complain about it… etc)

• We want to encourage greater participation in contests – writing, reading, commenting/critiquing, and voting.
• We may experiment with splitting into small groups so members can read aloud and see how listeners respond. This might also lead to “mentoring” partnerships between members.
• Most of us like the “dice prompts” for quick writing, but we’ll save them for “once in a while” and “when there’s a gap in the schedule.”
• We’ll have another self-publishing presentation but you may have to wait until November when we upload our anthology (unless someone emails to say a different month would be better – perhaps someone who’d like to bring their own computer and be coached through how to do it in front of the group?)
• We need more talks covering genres and writing skills.

Look at our calendar on the website to see what we already have scheduled for 2020: http://portlandwritersmill.org/schedule/ (and yes, I know it starts with 2019 – that’s so you can see what you missed as well!)

At this point, nearly halfway through the meeting, we paused for a feast, brought by Ria.

Then came some amazing contest awards from Zita – delightfully appropriate framable pictures (in Sheila’s case, one illustrating the well-known Christmas carol: “We three cats of Oregon are.”

1. First place went to Ria for What is Tradition
2.  Second place went to Shail for Kitkit and the Carol Singers
3. Third place went to Karin for Christmas Delight

Upcoming contests are:

• The morning after (due 1^st Sunday in Jan),
• the Bridge (1^st Sunday in Feb) and
• the Storm (1^st Sunday in Mar).

As Sheila pointed out:

1. contests encourage us to write.
2. Comments on contest entries encourage us to write better.
3. Critique encourages us to be brave.
4. And then we can be published, so

Find out more about next month’s contest at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/jan-2020-contest-page/, and see upcoming contests at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-contests/. Don’t forget, you can find that long-lost contest entry by looking at http://portlandwritersmill.org/contests/log-of-past-entries-by-author-names/. Read the comments, polish it, and send it somewhere to see if you can get it published. (Publication on our contest pages does NOT count as publication as they are password protected and only a small number of people have the password.)

Norm led a great critique of Matthew’s long-anticipated chapter, where we discussed questions such as:

• How do you tell the difference between rich and poor people in a story? Maybe dialog style, things that are noticed or ignored…
• How do you convey the time period when a story is set? Historical events, attitudes, word choice…
• What conveys location? To what extent is it okay to leave readers to bring their own preconceptions to an imaginary (but meant to be historical) place?
• Do girls grow up faster than boys? How does internal dialog reflect maturity?
• How do we create a balance between goodie-two-shoes and kidz-rule?
• How do you distinguish between adult and child thoughts, and how might a child perceive what an adult might be thinking?
• How might a child perceive bartering?
• Why it’s cool to end a chapter on a good feeling.

And then, while Christmas feasting continued, thanks to Ria, we continued our Christmas festivities with the BOOK EXCHANGE! Sheila read our first lines for the various books on offer, inviting members to guess the intended audience, genre and style (etc) of the book. We discussed how first lines are MUCH more important for unknown authors, like us, than for famous authors because they’re the place where we establish trust. Will the reader trust their favorite author to take the story to the right place? Absolutely! Will they trust us? Only if we can convince them, IN THE FIRST FIVE LINES, that we deserve that trust.

Then members picked up books to take home with them.

Remember to:

• enter the next contest, contest @ portlandwritersmill . org, deadline Jan 5^th
• read, comment and vote, starting Jan 6^th
• join us, if you can, for our new-year meeting on Jan 19^th, and
• reply to this email with comments, additions, suggestions, wants, needs, hopes, fears etc – or bring them along to the meeting!

Happy Writing!

Happy New Year!