Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story
WRITER’S MAIL for August 6, 2011

Good Words from Way Back

“Faugh, Shere Khan! –what new shame hast thou brought here?”
The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and dark, oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.
“Man!” said Shere Khan coolly, “I killed an hour since.” He went on purring and growling to himself.
The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper went up that grew to a cry: “Man! Man! He has killed Man!” Then all looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes, and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long.”
–Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) in The Jungle Book (1895)

Fifth Tuesday: Writing Challenge Deadline August 26

Here’s everything you’ve been waiting for . . . yes, our next Fifth Tuesday is August 30!

Chris and Joe Lacey will host us at their country estate out by Cambridge, at 49 London Road. MapQuest says it’s a 37-minute drive east from Barnes & Noble Westside. MapQuest it for a map and directions . . . or just plug the Chris and Joe’s address into your GPS.

Start time is our usual 7:00 p.m. Yes, it’s potluck, so bring food to share. Also bring lawn chairs . . . and pointy sticks so you can roast marshmallows over the flames down at the fire pit.

Here’s your writing challenge: “That is so unlike me!” Write a story, poem, or essay in which the central character is so out of character . . . a pro football tackle who knits, a nun who is a blackjack dealer at Ho Chunk, a four-foot-nine guy who is an eating contest champion or the smallest sumo wrestler in the world. You get the idea. Maximum length: 400 words.

Start writing now. When finished – deadline is Friday, August 26 – email your mini-masterpiece to Pat Edwards.

Reading Recap: August 2 Meeting
Ten First-and-Thirders attended the August 2 meeting at Barnes & Noble East to hear from five authors.

Greg Spry presented Chapter 9 titled “Vis-à-vis” of his science fiction novel Beyond Cloud Nine in which main character Brooke meets the handsome young inventor of the phase drive, a new 24th Century “faster-than-all-hell” spaceship propulsion system. Kim Simmons said that the speech patterns of Brooke’s sister Marie, an ace media reporter who interviews the inventor, are very much like those of the author. Liam Wilbur agreed, adding that at least a couple of other characters could “swap voices.” Jerry Peterson suggested that the narrator’s voice should not be obvious in more than one character. John Schneller recommended that Greg review how he presents the relationship of Marie and Professor Sommerfield in contrast to that of Brooke and U.N. Security Council President Collins. There seem to be parallels: Are the similarities intentional?

John Schneller read from Chapter 7 of Final Stronghold which contains contemporaneous scenes in the mountains, where main character Kotel encounters sentient grizzly bears, and in the foothills where Kotel’s lookalike, Koti, and the blind hermit, Andon, are prisoners of DinShaw, Captain of the Guard. Rebecca Rettenmund noted John’s use of multiple descriptors in introducing a new character. She suggested he try to optimize the “sense impression order” – for example, first sight, then sound, smell, touch, etc. – as a means of informing the reader about the character. Greg Spry noted that the chapter is full of action, but the purpose of the action and the characters’ goals are not clear. If the story is a quest, he said, then it requires an end goal and actions or criteria that move the story toward the goal. John clarified that Kotel and other characters were “trying to find a home.” Also, Greg said, “Every sentence should reveal character or advance the plot or do both at the same time.” Liam wondered why the wording “The ring of sword unsheathed cut through the night…” troubled him. Clayton Gill suggested the issue might be the use of “unsheathed” to describe the sword. The sword might ring while it was being unsheathed, but would it continue to ring after unsheathing? John thought it would still ring. That sound would “cut through the night….”

Millie Mader offered Chapter 27 of Life On Hold in which Penny, the rival of main character Erin, pursues wealthy, attractive Scott despite – or perhaps because of – his attraction to Erin. John liked Millie’s use of dialogue: Quick and pointed. Both Jerry and Greg liked the potential for conflict in the scene at the Montgomery house and suggested that Millie increase the heat: “Erin has it too easy!” The group focused on how the air had escaped from the tires of Scott’s car and the strange, take-command attitude of Scott’s father. The tires should be Scott’s concern without any “easy fix” from his dad. Greg suggested the closing scene of the chapter could develop into a cliff-hanger if the WBAY interview opened new questions about Scott’s plane crash or, “maybe something else.” Millie called on group members to help her estimate the value of a Cessna 172 light plane in the early 1970s. She was going to send Scott to school at Cambridge University in England, but wanted him to pay for it himself, not through his rich daddy. With the plane destroyed, Scott would need money.

Kim Simmons presented a new version of Chapter 1 (“One Voice”) of her fantasy adventure novel The City of Winter which generated rave comments from group members. In the opening scene, main character Ryoko Nefer, a mythical fox-human kitsune creature, flees a dread monster to deliver a human baby into the arms of village priest. “Congratulations!” Greg said, “This first chapter does all it needs to do.” It shows the main character in action; reveals exciting conflict (Ryoko versus terrible monster); and demonstrates a main motivation (saving the baby). Rebecca suggested Ryoko could use more of her magic. Millie wondered about the monster’s eyes: Was it possible for the eyes to be “harsh but soft”? Jennifer Hansen suggested Kim had set the stage well to increase the sense of urgency even further. Everybody liked Ryoko’s “gore-stained” scimitar.

Liam Wilbur brought Chapter 3 of his new story Scott & Rory which takes place in the crumbling, bat-infested house their grandfather had left the brothers. Rory had become his younger brother’s legal guardian and now faced challenges of managing Scott’s education, starting a new job, and making habitable their granddad’s “hovel in the middle of nowhere.” Read comments of First-and-Thirders and leave your own for Liam at our Yahoo! Groups file-sharing website:

Who’s Up Next?
August 9: Andrea Kirchman (?), Rebecca Rettenmund (?), Kim Simmons (?), Cole Ruby (scene, Champions), Carol Hornung (scene, Sapphire Lodge), and Jennifer Hanson (?).

August 16: Pat Edwards (poems), Judith McNeil (?), Randy Haselow (chapter, Hona and the Dragon), Eileen Flanagan (chapter 1, The Seawife), Aaron Boehm (screenplay/part 10, Hell Cage), and Jerry Peterson (chapters 13 and 14, Thou Shalt Not Murder).

August 23: Holly Bonnicksen-Jones (?) and up to five more. Please contact Carol to sign up (chornung88@aol.com).

September 6: Greg Spry (chapter 9, Beyond Cloud Nine), John Schneller (chapter, Final Stronghold), Jennifer Hansen (chapter 2, Shadows of Yesterday), Rebecca Rettenmund (journal entry), Liam Wilbur (chapter 4, Scott & Rory), and Jim Cue (short story).

We Met the Newest and Youngest
First-and-Thirders met the newest and youngest member of our writers group back on July 20. Amber Boudreau brought her three-week-old daughter, Gladys, for a quick “hello.” Gladys slept through the introductions.

Gladys is not the first little kid to become an ex-officio member of Tuesdays with Story. Several years back, Leslie Albrecht Huber brought her new baby to TWS . . . and Leslie went on to finish writing her family history book and published it.

So is having a baby in the family the incentive we need to complete our manuscripts?

Keeping Up on the Old Hands
More from Jaime Nelson, courtesy of Jerry Peterson. You may remember that last month she said she was in a writers group in New York City. Here are the details:

“The group meets in a different place at a different time on a different day of the week every week. I don’t go as much since I moved to Jersey as a lot are on weekdays, but I try to make all the weekend ones. They run for 3 hours on weekdays and longer on weekends. It’s mostly people in their 20s and 30s, and it’s run by this guy: who just got his book, The Baseball, published.

“The group has everything from novelists to short story writers to memoirists to poets to bloggers to journalists. Usually about 30 people show up, but not the same 30 (there are hundreds on the mailing list). People take turns hosting, and sometimes it’s at cool places like restaurants and museums.

“We spend some time socializing, then one hour of silent writing (whatever you want to work on), and then another hour or more sharing and critiquing. Since people don’t have time to read stuff ahead of time, I mostly use it for socializing and writing. I was going to a Montclair writers group that is more critique intensive, but I’m taking a break so I can just have a creative outpour without getting feedback too early on in the process.

“I’m doing first drafts of flash fiction stories, all inspired by Henry David Thoreau quotes. Got 16 so far. Once I’ve had some time away from them, I’ll go for draft twos.”

Promotion, Promotion, Promotion
“I have to be honest that I’m particularly sensitive to criticism when it comes to self-promotional activities. Because here’s the thing about self-promotion: It sucks. It really sucks.”

So wrote Nathan Bransford, a former literary agent and now published author of the Jacob Wonderbar series of young adult novels, in a recent blog post. Thanks to Jerry again, here are the rest of Nathan’s thoughts.

“If self-promotion were an insect, I would squash it with the world’’s biggest fly swatter. If self-promotion were a field, I would burn it and salt the earth so it could never live again.

“It doesn’t feel right to stand in front of a crowd and shout, “Me!”, and no matter how much you try and cloak the self-promotion in elaborate disguises, it can still feel kind of icky. And if you don’t enjoy the spotlight, self-promotion in all its forms can be downright terrifying.
This is one of the hugest drawbacks about an era of publishing where publishers expect authors to shoulder the lion’s share of the promotional activities. No one I know enjoys self-promotion, and no one out there particularly likes being promoted to either. People usually want to hear about new things from enthusiastic and neutral third parties, not the hugely biased person who created the thing.

“And when it comes to social media, the Internet dislikes it when something they are accustomed to getting for free suddenly comes with strings attached, even if those strings are only of the heartstring nature. It’s such a fine line between reminding people about your book and hoping they buy it while not alienating your audience and turning into a shill.

“So basically: Self-promotion = not fun!
Read the full post at http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2011/07/thing-about-self-promotion-is-that-self.html

Writer’s Mail: Duty Roster
We’re recruiting again for editors for Writers Mail. This editor has been out of the Loup but stuck in an oxbow this summer, so here’s an approximation of our roster to date:

August – Clayton Gill
September – Help wanted!
October – Your name’s on this one!
November – Get experience meow!
December – Yep, Clayton again!

There’s are lots of months ahead, so please let this editor know you’ll volunteer: E-mail Clayton. Thanks and write again!

The Last Word: “The Shimmering Stopped”This Writers Mail editor apologizes for a late issue this time and promises that our next issue will include a new book review by Millie Mader. Meanwhile…

“Don’t believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you’ll see the way to fly.”
The shimmering stopped. Jonathan Seagull had vanished into empty air. –Richard Bach in Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) from the library of Sheldon Ellestad.

Please send Clayton content for the next Writers Mail. Thank you!