Writers’ Mill Minutes – 21^st Jan 2024

There were only three attendees in the library meeting room this month – perhaps not surprising given the recent weather. Many thanks to Christine for setting up there, and to Matthew for being in charge. Meanwhile we had ten members online – a smaller meeting than usual, but a lively one! We celebrated achievements of 2023 and discussed our goals, both personal and group goals, for 2024.

If you’ve not yet given your input on topics for 2024, the poll is still online at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/10/topics-for-2024/, so please help us help you by leaving your votes. Please help us know what genres interest you most by responding to the other online poll at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/23/what-genres-can-we-help-you-with/

Other interesting links mentioned during the meeting are Dame Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: the Man who Pays the Rent: https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Man-Who-Pays-Rent/dp/1250325773 It comes out in in the US in April, and the audible version (already available in the UK) is really good. And Let Shakespeare Serve The City: https://www.pdx.edu/news/let-shakespeare-serve-city-psu-and-partnering-arts-organizations-celebrate-400-years-bard

Writers’ Mill Monthly Ezine

Lyndsay gave us our ezine prompt for January, and the response was amazing. Lots of great pieces. If you’ve not already enjoyed reading them, go to https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/jan-2024-ezine-contest-page/jan-2024-entries-voting-page/ and follow the links to see what you’ve been missing.

1. MOST VOTES went to Sheila Deeth for the poem “Then Sings My Soul”
2. SECOND place was tied:
   1. Francis Kohler for “Betty May”
   1. Judy Beaston for “Good-Bye My Son”
3. THIRD place was also tied:
   1. Zita Podany for “Leaks, Caulk, and Ladders”
   1. Karin Krafft for “My Best Friend Sophie”

OTHER ENTRIES were:

• Escape! our 6-word story entry (YAY!!!!!) from Darlene Forsman
• Happiness in a Name BY Jean Harkin
• Henku BY Ria Russell
• Joy BY Mark Knudsen
• Kitkit Grows up Happily on a Cold and Frosty Morning BY Sheila Deeth
• Lovely Conflagration BY Robin Layne
• Oh, Happy Days BY Peter Letts
• The Art of Machine Learning BY Clayton M. Davis
• Times That Are Special BY Jessie Collins
• Yes, I Can BY Judy Beaston

UPCOMING WRITING PROMPTS (for contest/ezine):

Send all entries of 6 (or fewer) to 1200 words to: Contest @ PortlandWritersMill . Org (remove spaces)

• February – Deadline is Sunday, February 4th
  • THEME provided by Elizabeth: When I’m Daydreaming I…
  • A fascinating follow-up to our January “Euphoria” Theme, whether you wrote for that theme or not. Here we pump the brakes, stop the train, act like ATLAS and hold up the world… And then let our inner muse step off onto a pristine beach, or a quiet, isolated country trail, meandering all the special sights in Europe—but in your imagination (daydreaming).
  • Dive in – or take a walk into adventures – and compose a story, vignette, essay, poem and then do share it with us.
• March: Deadline is Sunday, March 3rd
  • THEME provided by Judy: Season of Mystery
  • Inviting all mystery writers AND mere lovers of the mysterious inherent in the season of Spring.
• April: Deadline is Sunday, April 7th
  • THEME provided by Nora: What Have I Done?
• • Oh, dear! Tangled circumstances have run amok!
  • OR have they? Could this be taken in a positive light?

Celebration of Achievements

Each year we write our goals on pieces of paper (or Sheila writes them for us if we or she are not present in person). Goals are anonymous and generally take two forms:

• This year I’d like to…
• But I’d really like to…

So, for example:

• This year I’d like to write something for a few Writers’ Mill prompts, but I’d really like to submit something every month
• This year I’d like to work more on my novel, but I’d really like to finish it
• This year I’d like to collect my cat stories together, but I’d really like to self-publish them too.

Goals are kept anonymous, and the aim is not to see yourself as a failure for not meeting your own goal, but rather to celebrate that we’ve all achieved something that someone thought worth setting as a goal during the year.

GOALS FOR 2023

Sheila took the papers out from the box (an attractive red and green box made for us by Becky Lovejoy’s mom back in 2007!) and read the goals, then asked for a show of hands for who had achieved them. Results, just from members present at the meeting, were encouraging!

• Develop previously drafted ideas into complete pieces: 5 people had managed to develop at least one idea.
• Play with writing nearly every day: 6 people achieved this!
• Find a critique group that works for me: 4 of us (in the meeting) are in successfully critique groups, and one had succeeded in finding a group during the year. (Please email groups @ portlandwritersmill . org if you’d like to join a group. If the email bounces or doesn’t receive a reply, please email admin.)
• Complete a draft of a novel or novella: 2 had completed novels, 3 had completed novellas. Yay!
• Complete a short story, or a book of short stories: 7 had completed short stories, but books take more work.
• Branch out into less familiar genres: 1 member succeeded here (and in style!)
• Take at least two writing workshops: 1 is taking a workshop currently, 1 had taken two. We hope to have a writing workshop at one of our meetings this year, led by Nancy Linnon in September
• Restart a novel / novella / book: 2 members did this last year.
• Sell at least 10 copies of my debut novel: 2 members achieved this (Yay!) and one had sold a few copies of a few books.
• Enter every Writers’ Mill contest / write for every prompt: 4 of us had managed this, and 9 had entered at least a few.
• Submit at least 5 pieces to literary journals: If you count our anthology as a literary journal, 8 people succeeded here. But if you don’t count our anthology, we still had 5 who had submitted at least 5 pieces!
• See my book released / get something released: 8 got something released, and 1 had a novel released last year (Yay!)
• Get an agent / work with an agent: One member has been working with an agent. We hope to have a talk this year about agents, editors and publishers; how to find them; and what they do for us.
• Work out which short stories to include in a novel: 1 member succeeded in collecting together paper files and ordering, adding to, and including them in a novel.
• Finish something: Yay! 1 member has done this, though you might say any of us who’ve submitted entries for our writing prompts have also finished something.
• Write more: I think we all wish we could do this, but only 1 member felt they had.

GOALS FOR 2024

We went around the room introducing ourselves and setting our “think I can” and “wish I could” goals for 2024. These goals will be hidden away in the green and red box for the end of the year or the beginning of next year.

Writers’ Mill Planning for 2024

Some of you have already taken the online poll at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/10/topics-for-2024/ to help us choose topics for 2024. We took a poll during the meeting as well, on the grounds that people who are present in a meeting should be awarded additional influence. The in-meeting results are below, but please continue adding your votes to the poll if you haven’t already done so. We will refer to it as we look for speakers, and also as speakers ask us what we’d like them to talk about.

• Using Word efficiently to style, format, edit, etc: 8 members would like help here
• Other writing, editing, word and image formatting programs: Experience has shown that “free” programs can be less user-friendly than ones that we pay for. 1 member would be interested in learning more about free programs. 4 were interested in more expensive programs such as InDesign and Photoshop, etc.
• How to find and work with an agent, editor, publisher… and what do they do for you anyway? This one was popular with 8 people expressing interest. We have a speaker lined up, but haven’t chosen a month for this yet.
• Grammar, spelling, writing conventions: 6 members would like to learn more here.
• poetry types and conventions: 6 members were interested here. Poet Carolyn Martin will return to speak in April, National Poetry Month. She has been a very popular speaker at our group in the past (and not just with poets) so don’t miss this!
• More group critiques: We had very few group critiques last year – we used to enjoy them regularly in the second halves of our meetings (with speakers being given the first hour). 7 of us were interested in reviving them, but we will need volunteers to give us writing for critique, and volunteers to lead critiques. Please contact critiques @ portlandwritersmill . org to be added to our schedule.
• More writing prompts during meetings: This one was less popular, with only 4 votes.
• What do “real” writers do? How do they get published / sell books / become famous…? We’ve had several “real writers” speak to us in the past, and this is a question we often ask them. 5 people voted for this.
• How can we become visible as writers – websites, social networking, newsletters, blogs…? Only 4 people voted for this, but in later discussion there was more interest expressed in how to get a blog or website working.
• Writing advice: plotting, story arcs, and/or writing without a plot: This one was popular with 8 votes. Some of these writing advice topics might be covered in Nancy Linnon’s workshop in September. Sheila’s been taking some classes too and would be willing to talk sometime.
• Writing advice: creating believable characters and character arcs: 9 people would like help here.
• Writing advice: world-building. We’ve had speakers talk about this in the past, and we’re trying to get one for this year. 6 people expressed interest.
• What about playwriting, scenes, monologues, songs… other writing formats? We got 2 votes for playwriting, 1 for scenes, 3 for monologues and 3 for songs,
• Writing realistic dialog: This got 6 votes, clearly something we should work on
• Creating settings, places, and spaces for scenes to take place: This got 8 votes.
• Research: We added this topic. Sheila will add it to the online poll. But she forgot to count how many people voted for it.

One book was highly recommended as we discussed these goals: Dame Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: the Man who Pays the Rent: https://www.amazon.com/Shakespeare-Man-Who-Pays-Rent/dp/1250325773 It comes out in in the US in April, and the audible version (already available in the UK) is really good.

Also of interest is Let Shakespeare Serve The City: https://www.pdx.edu/news/let-shakespeare-serve-city-psu-and-partnering-arts-organizations-celebrate-400-years-bard

What Genre are You Interested in?

Next we discussed genres of interest to the group. Select your genres from the online poll at https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/23/what-genres-can-we-help-you-with/ if you who missed the meeting:

• Fantasy (2)
• Romance (2)
• Historical (6) – Maryka Biaggio has spoken to us in the past. A local author, she writes about real people, recreating the reality of lives behind the facts in the historical record. We will try to get her back. Donna Fletcher Crow might be another possible speaker, who writes about historical characters and events, with some mystery and some inspirational books.
• Inspirational (2)
• YA (3)
• Action-adventure (3) Walt Socha is a former member. We’ll see if we can get him to speak on historical writing, research, action-adventure, sci-fi, and more.
• Mystery (2)
• Children’s fiction (1)

Other Goals for 2024

Other goals for 2024 include

WEBSITE:

• We’d like to get rid of the error message and delays on the website, and ensure that our emails get through. Please remember to check the website itself in case you are missing emails (Sheila always posts the minutes, and Judy has lots of info on contests on the site). A quick show of hands indicated that, of Sheila’s three newsletters containing the link to today’s meeting, one member only got the third, most got the first, and only one or two got the second. (Sheila received the first and second but not the third. Judy missed the first, and Sheila didn’t recieved Judy’s email about the contest!) One possibility is that we have too many names on our list. Another is that the website has too much history stored on it. Nora might be able to work with Ron.
• We can’t put the meeting link on the website (or we’ll get zoom-bombed). Make sure you have the link (if you need it) well before the meeting. And if you don’t have it, please email admin to ask for it. But don’t wait till the day of the meeting because your admin will be busy that day! Remember, at present it’s the same link every month.
• We can’t put the password on the website, as we want to keep your writing private and unpublished. If you don’t have the password, check your emails. If you still can’t find it after checking your emails, email admin. But please check first.

ANTHOLOGY:

• Do we want a topic for the anthology, or should we just collect together any writing from the group, as we’ve done most years?
  • Advantage of topic is it makes collecting and ordering pieces easier and maybe makes a more enticing collection.
  • Advantage of generic is it makes it easier for everyone to take part and maybe creates a more eclectic general-interest collection. We voted for generic, same as the last few years
• Timing:
  • We usually ask for all submissions by end of 1^st Sunday in September.
  • We used to make a pdf copy available to everyone for at least 1 week before release at November’s meeting, but we haven’t been able to do that in the last few years.
  • We decided to ask for submissions by the end of the 1^st Sunday in August, bringing everything forward by a month, so the pdf version will be made available to members after October’s meeting.
• Tasks:
  • Coordination is possibly the biggest task:
    • Collation: collecting entries into one file with consistent styles and formats, probably includes pre-editing according to whatever rules we’ve chosen (see below). Sheila would love someone to help with this.Editing: see below. This is done by a team of volunteers, but someone needs to act as buffer between editors and authors to provide consistent communication and results.Sorting: like a musical playlist, we need someone (or a team) to choose the order of the entries.Illustrations: how many do we want? How do we want them chosen? This needs someone to coordinate again, and again, Sheila would love some help.Formatting – ebook (Sheila at present) and print (Zita)
  • Coordinator might be in charge of collation, pre-edits, putting it all back together after it’s reordered, etc. Or we could have individuals do each task but… the more individuals, the more places it can fall apart.

Topics we didn’t have time to discuss, but which are worth everyone thinking about, related to the anthology:

• Illustrated or text only
  • Advantage of illustrated is it looks really, really nice and Zita does a fantastic job!
  • Advantage of text only is it’s easier!
• Editing standards:
  • Use of ellipses, quotation marks, double spaces, etc
  • “Rules” of format – new line for new speaker etc. How strict do we want to be?
  • “Rules” of “best” writing – again, how much editing do we want?
  • major edits vs minor edits
    • Major edits
      • Advantage: provides consistency of style and content
      • Disadvantage: discouraging, takes lots of time, and who chooses what should be consistent?
    • Minimal editing –
      • Advantage: fast, encouraging to writers, it’s standard for non-famous anthologies, it lets each person’s style shine
      • Disadvantage: maybe it doesn’t look quite as professional or literary (but who defines that?)

Next Meeting

Topic to be announced later. Next meeting is on the 3^rd Sunday of Feb, Feb 18^th. And don’t forget to write for the “When I’m daydreaming” prompt – deadline Sunday, Feb 4^th.