Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story
WRITER’S MAIL for September 2, 2010
by Kim Simmons

Fifth Tuesday: Excuses Galore!
Seventeen members and guests of Tuesdays with Story attended the Fifth Tuesday potluck supper and reading on August 31 at the home of Cathy Riddle in Middleton. Ten writers met the Fifth Tuesday Writing Challenge deadline. Plus, a couple more members came with late-but-welcome writing, along with a zesty home-garden spinach salad and an amazing Wisconsin apple crisp.

In case you snoozed through the challenge of the Challenge, this was the setup: You oversleep. You get to work late, and the boss is in your face about it. You’ve got to say something to get yourself out of trouble – in 400 words or less.

Those who met the Challenge: Jen Wilcher (“An entry from Seto Kaiba’s Journal”), Judith McNeil (“I’m late because…”), Millie Mader (“Truth is stranger than fiction”), Andrea Kirchman (“Cooper’s tale”), Jerry Peterson (“Checkmate” read by Shel Ellestad), Clayton Gill (“Introduction to induced oversleep”), Amber Boudreau (“A trip on LSD”), Randy Haselow (“Voice mail message for ‘the boss’”), John Schneller (“Death and destruction”), Alicia Connolly-Lohr (“Detour”).

Brandy Larson brought her written excuse (“Tardiness”) to Fifth Tuesday, as did Chris Maxwell (at this writing the title was unavailable, but might have been “Lameness” considering its treatment of intergenerational conflict over punctuality).

Altogether, this Fifth Tuesday Writing Challenge contributed to the creative thought bank of oversleepers and shirkers everywhere. Thanks very much to Shel for organizing and Cathy for hosting!

Our Next Fifth Tuesday
Block it off on your calendar now! Our next Fifth Tuesday is November 30. Second-and-fourth group hosts. Send your challenge ideas to Carol Hornung.

Who’s Up Next?
September 7: Greg Spry (short story, part 4, “Goodbye Mars”), Cathy Riddle (chapter 6, Beer Crimes), Jen Wilcher (chapter 1, “first original novel or short story”), Amber Boudreau (chapter 15, yet-to-be-named novel), Pat Edwards (poems), and Millie Mader (chapter 20, Life on Hold).

September 14: Dan Hamre (short story, last 5 pages, “Tractor Jockey”), Annie Potter (a memoir), Kim Simmons (chapter, The City of Winter), Holly Bonniksen-Jones (chapter, Coming Up For Air), Carol Hornung (section, Sapphire Lodge), and Andrea Kirchman (?). Carol notes, “We have a bit of a backlog on September 14th, so some folks (Jack Freiburger and Elijah Meeker) will be on stand-by. If you are scheduled but cannot get your piece to the group on time — or don’t want to read on the 14th — then let me know so I can shuffle things around! If you wish to read on September 28th or October 12th, send me a note, too.”

September 21: Chris Maxwell (?), Judith McNeil (radio play, part 4, “South to Sunday”), Aaron Boehm (film script, part 2, “Hell Cage”), Patrick Tomlinson (short story, part 2, “Any Port in the Storm”), and Jerry Peterson (chapter 1, Thou Shalt Not Murder).

September 28: Kim Simmons (chapter, The City of Winter), Anne Allen (chapter, Homecoming), Terry Hoffman (scene, The Journal), Jen Wilcher (new story), Holly Bonniksen-Jones (chapter, Coming up for Air), and time for one more (let Carol know).

October 5: Randy Haselow (chapter 3, Hona and the Dragon), Clayton Gill (chapter, Fishing Derby), John Schneller (chapter 2, Final Stronghold), and time for three more (let Jerry know).

October 12: Put your dibs for reading at the October 12 Second-and-Fourth meeting to Carol.

Fifth Tuesday Stories
With help from a few handy writers, including the awesome Pat the Poet, we bring you the link for the Fifth Tuesday challenge stories. You may read them all at your leisure. Enjoy!

Here’s the link:
https://tuesdayswithstory.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/tws-writing-challenge.pdf

Writer’s Mail: TWS Newsletter Duty Roster
Following Kim Simmons, who edits Writer’s Mail for four weeks in September, it’s Pat Edwards for October. Thank you Kim and Pat!

We need more editors for Writers Mail: One issue per week for a month, almost any month. A growing group of newsletter editors are ready to help. Join us? How about for November?

September – Kim
October – Pat
November – editor needed
December – Clayton
January – editor needed

Gathering Leaves by Robert Frost
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

From the Wordsmith: Cooling effect
From A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg, a noun: “Decolletage” or “décolletage,” pronounced day-kol-TAZH or day-kol-uh-TAZH, meaning a low neckline on a woman’s dress.

Origin: “From French décolleter (to expose the neck), from de- (away) + collet (collar), diminutive of col (neck).”

Usage: “If you order The Proposal (as an in-flight movie on Saudi Arabian Airlines), you get a blurry blob over Sandra Bullock’s modest decolletage, and even her clavicles (sic).”
–Maureen Dowd, “A Girls’ Guide to Saudi Arabia,” Vanity Fair, August 2010

More at http://wordsmith.org/awad/about.html.

From Word Spy: Back to nature
A while ago Paul McFedries’ noted “rewild,” a verb, pronounced REE.wyld, meaning to return an area to a more natural or wild state or to return a captive animal to its natural habitat. Also used is “re-wild” and the present participle “rewilding.” McFedries offers numerous citations – here’s the earliest:

“[The Earth First!] forebears are the earnest hippies who, 20 years ago, emerged from the first celebration of Earth Day with plans to do some recycling, switch to non-phosphate detergent and donate $25 a year to the Sierra Club. Today they are eco-guerrillas, radical environmentalists who have turned to outrageous — and sometimes illegal — tactics in their war against ‘greedheads’ and ‘eco-thugs.’ Militants vow not just to end pollution but to take back and ‘rewild’ one third of the United States. –Jennifer Foote, “Trying to Take Back the Planet,” Newsweek, February 5, 1990

For more: http://www.wordspy.com/words/rewild.asp

The Last Word
“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.” ~Don Delillo

Thanks very much: All Tuesdays members who contributed to this issue of Writers Mail. Please send your news, ideas, and odds and ends for next week to Kim!