There were eight attendees in person and eleven on Zoom for a total of 19 at our September meeting. Two new members joined the group at the library. Welcome!
Sheila started the meeting with some reminders:
For online members:
-Consider using speaker view (top right)
-Use captions (bottom center or find it under the three dots – “more” – at the bottom.)
-Headphones will increase the volume a lot.
-Chat (bottom center, or hidden behind those three dots) is a good way to leave comments that we will try to notice in the room.
-When the screen is shared, you might want to change the “view” option to “side by side” so the images of people don’t hide the screen.
-Remember to mute the microphone if your room gets noisy.
For in person members:
-Speak toward the microphone so that you can be heard clearly.
-Try not to talk among yourselves as you will still be heard by everyone, just not very clearly.
EZINE/CONTEST NEWS
SEPTEMBER CONTEST RESULTS
Judy announced the “TRUTH” entries that were the most popular with voters
—MOST votes went to Gary Romans for “Washing the Pig”
—SECOND MOST was a tie between Lyndsay Docherty for her poem “What is Truth?” and David Fryer for “New Year’s Resolution”
—THIRD went to Sheila Deeth for her poem “The Hunt”
Other Entries this month were:
—A Learning Curve by Jessie Collins
—Digging Below the Surface by Judy Beaston
—Honest Musings? by Mark Knudsen
—Veritas by Peter Letts
Judy also noted that Gary Romans shared how he has found the use of AI generated images beneficial in inspiring his writing. No AI was used to do the actual writing, only to inspire. For more information, contact Judy by way of a note to CONTEST @PortlandWritersMill.org
Want to join the writing fun? Check out our UPCOMING THEMES…
Deadlines are the end of the 1st Sunday of the month – usually 2 weeks after our meeting. WORD COUNT LIMIT as short as you like, but no more than 1200 words. Any genre –just don’t deliberately offend people.
OCTOBER Deadline October 6th. THEME It came to life! HOST: Lyndsay Docherty. “IT” could be an idea, a goal, an item, a situation, animate or inanimate.
NOVEMBER Deadline November 3rd. THEME On the Other Side of the World. HOST: David Fryer. Where you live, where others live,where you travel, where events are happening – or NOT happening…
DECEMBER Deadline December 1st. THEME The Spaces in Between HOST: Lyndsay Docherty
Between October and December 31st, many of us may be seeking ‘space’ between events, family members, work-play-writing, a place away from celebration gatherings for a bit of quiet. Where do you find ‘spaces in between’ events—days—family—or fantasy adventures?
JANUARY Deadline January 5th. THEME What IF The OTHER Person Won? Could be about love, war, Scrabble, or jockeying for position to get to the front of a line. Or even about politics (but keep it nice!)
November Possibilities for Writers at Cedar Mill Library
November is a month for writing. Nationally—and around the world—there’s NaNoWriMo but it’s also an opportunity to practice what we learned at our September meeting: JUST WRITE. While the library isn’t doing anything formally NaNoWriMo related, they are interested in providing dedicated writing spaces for individuals or small groups who just want to write and/or share writing with others. Here’s what has been suggested—
– Write from a prompt and share what you’ve written
– Write whatever you want for a set time and share what you’ve written
– the library could just provide space for individuals or small groups to write
– OR perhaps make this a space to share something you’ve written—maybe to just listen like we did with Nancy Linnon at the meeting.
If you would like more information, contact Will McCall (WillM @wccls.org)
Guest Speaker, Nancy Linnon
Find notes from Nancy’s talk, and links to her handouts, at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/21/nancy-linnon-on-writing/
Next month, and thanks
Sheila then closed the meeting by announcing that the next meeting will take place on the third Sunday of October – that’s the 20th of October, 1-3 pm, with the same zoom address as usual.
WITH THANKS to Karin Krafft for taking notes during this month’s meeting which were used to generate this month’s minutes newsletter