Ria Russell attended a dramedy class given by two Hollywood writers at a writing conference, and brought the experience to us all through a news article (ironically an NBC (peacock) article about a “therapy peacock” and it’s owner being refused permission to fly). We all had access to the article before the meeting and everyone had read it, so we were able to go straight into the “writers’ room” to plan our script.
Continue reading Dramedy with Ria Russell, March 2025Category Archives: Writing
Protected: Minnette Meador on Point of View, Character Creation, Plotters vs Pantsers, Writing Tools, Images, AI and more! Feb 2025
Two Writing Classes with Ruth Leibowitz
Ruth gave a talk on Writing Prompts https://www.portlandwritersmill.org/17/the-world-abounds-in-prompts-using-prompts-to-stimulate-and-deepen-your-writing-by-ruth-leibowitz/ back in 2023. She is a very active member of the Writers’ Mill, and also of the writing community at large. This February she will be leading two writing classes over zoom. Highly recommended:
Cats Who Write, with Ruth Leibowitz
Continue reading Two Writing Classes with Ruth LeibowitzHow to Check the recommended reading age
During the meeting in Jan 2025, Sheila read from “A Win for a Child and His Cat” and asked if the story would be suitable for children but also enjoyable for adults. The group seemed to think middle grade readers over age 9 would be right. Readability checkers online were recommended, but some of these require you to create an account or pay after a certain number of uses. They also have lots of banner ads, so users should be careful where they click. :
Continue reading How to Check the recommended reading ageErika Giles on Memoir, Research, Publishing and more – Jan 2025
Nora introduced our speaker, Erika Giles, who is a Writers’ Mill member and author of Becoming Hungarian, a Memoir. Amazon described this book as “a fascinating story of resilience and discovery that will inspire anyone who has struggled with their identity and tried to come to terms with the past.”
Continue reading Erika Giles on Memoir, Research, Publishing and more – Jan 2025Protected: Nancy Linnon on Writing
Writers Mill Minutes 202408
Housekeeping
Writers’ Mill had 10 attendees in-person and 7 on Zoom for a total of 17 at our August meeting. Sheila started the meeting with the usual boring reminders: For online members:
Continue reading Writers Mill Minutes 202408Great Sites for Writing Tips
Find some great sites for writing tips here, and email pages @ portlandwritersmill . org if you have other pages that we should add.
Continue reading Great Sites for Writing TipsHelp your reader get lost in your book, with Walt Socha
We’d all love our readers to fall into our writing and not know how to get out. Walt showed a great graphic to entice us. But how do we get there?
Continue reading Help your reader get lost in your book, with Walt SochaTips and Tricks with Word
Some Neat Tricks
TABS
We told our pre-editors to take out all the tabs (see notes on Style – you don’t need tabs to indent your paragraphs, and you’re really much better off without them). We told you tabs break ebooks. But what if you’re not writing an ebook. What are tabs good for? Well…
Continue reading Tips and Tricks with Word