Attendance and Zoom

20 members attended September’s Writers’ Mill meeting over zoom, while several more tried and failed to get in. We don’t know for sure what went wrong, but we suggest the following two ways to avoid problems getting in to zoom in future:

If you have a zoom app on your computer (or phone, or ipad, or…) please update it.

• Click on the top right circular icon (it may be your image or just a default “head” shape)
• A menu will open up. Click on “search for updates” When it finally tells you it’s found one, click on the big blue “update” button

It’s possible that zoom remembers it’s last response (“invalid link”) before it reads the new link that you are trying to use. If you have tried the wrong link first (say, if I got it wrong in the first email I sent out, for which I apologize), you may have to exit zoom and restart it to get the new link to work.

• First try the (correct) link a couple of times (it sounds crazy, but repetition does work)
• Then try closing the app (if you have the app), then reopening it and typing the meeting ID and password into it (again, repetition does work sometimes)
• Then try closing your browser (chrome, internet explorer, whatever…) and restarting it. Then try the (correct) link again.
• Then try restarting your computer. Eventually something will work. But it all depends how long you’re willing to persist.

Contest Awards, Contests, and how to read the pages

The meeting started a little late, as we tried to help people join. Then Michael announced September’s “School Days” contest awards:

•  Third place: Unteachable by Jean
• Second place: Kitkit goes to School by Sheila
• First place: Just Another Day by Von

Other entries (all of them really great reads – go see them if you haven’t already: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/sept-2021-contest-page/sept-2021-entries-voting-page/):

• ·        A New School Year by Karin Krafft
• ·        How Things Change by Jessie Collins
• ·        Ogre Poo (poem) by Steve Cooper
• ·        One Day in the Future by Judy Beaston
• ·        Scholastic Cetaceans by Peter Letts
• ·        Teachers! by Iain Yuill
• ·        The Day That Once Changed the World by Matthew McAyeal
• ·        The Lunch Table Trade by David Fryer
• ·        Us (poem) by Haylee Ergenekan
• ·        Boy Versus Computer by contest host Michael Fryer

Upcoming contests are:

• ·        October: deadline the end of the first Sunday in October (Oct 3^rd): Topic “All Roads lead to Rome.” Find out more: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/october-2021-contest-page/ Send entries to contest @ portlandwritersmill . org
• ·        November: deadline end of the first Sunday in November: Topic “Adjusting Expectations.” Find out more: https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/contests/upcoming-2021-contests/
• ·        December: deadline end of the first Sunday in December: Topic “Family Gatherings.”

If you need a password to read any of these pages, use September’s password. Please do not ask us to send a separate email containing just the password. That would defeat the object of trying to keep the password secret. We include it in the body of the email so that people who shouldn’t be reading your emails won’t immediately find it. For the same reason we change the password every month. If you want to know the current password you will have to read your emails.

Speaker

Jean introduced our speaker, Deborah Hopkinson, who gave an excellent talk on writing non-fiction for children, defining the different non-fiction genres, choosing your topic, what publishers are looking for, and much much more. Notes will be included in a separate post. (Don’t forget to check our website for useful things like meeting minutes, notes from various talks, and even a schedule for the anthology.)

Critique

Next, Catherin led an excellent critique of Peter’s opening chapters. We looked particularly at “balance”

• ·        Action vs information
• ·        Relationships vs details
• ·        Emotion vs information
• ·        Real facts vs fictional facts
• ·        Premise vs story
• ·        Audience interest vs trying to inspire the audience to be interested
• ·        Author interest vs author intent
• ·        What the author knows vs what the reader doesn’t know
• ·        Hook vs introduction
• ·        Backstory vs action

Anthology and other Updates

Before the end of the meeting, Sheila gave a progress report on the anthology, and thanked the brave submission analysts, content organizers, and pre-editors. The titlers and cover creators have already started tossing around ideas, and Sheila will give them more detailed information as soon as she can (but their deadline is later, and she’s overworked); she thanks them for their patience. The subtitle, “The Writers’ Mill Journal Volume 9” is fixed but doesn’t need to be on the cover.

This was followed by an introduction to the wonders of Word Styles—a topic that came up frequently while Sheila coordinated with the pre-editors. If you’ve not used styles, you really might want to try them. They make life easier for you, easier for anyone else you’re sharing your work with, easier for submitting to contests and anthologies, and … well … just easier. Notes from this talk are under the heading “Help” on our website.

And then… Sheila probably forgot to remind everyone that the next meeting is October 17^th. But she did ask us to email critiques @ portlandwritersmill . org if we want to have something critiqued next month. Please email the same address if you might be willing to be asked to lead a critique. Our critique coordinator, Matthew, has many talents, but probably can’t read minds. And please email admin @ portlandwritersmill . org if you have ideas of things you’d like us to discuss next month. See you then. Meanwhile

Happy Writing!