Tuesdays With Story
WRITER’S MAIL for November 24, 2012
“Without chaos, there is no creation. Just look at a kitchen after a feast.”~ Grant Faulkner, Executive Director of the Office of Letters and Light, NaNoWriMo Pep Talk, November 23, 2012
November 20 Meeting
Jerry, “Rage”: We jumped in quickly with a small discussion about Jerry’s piece before the session officially started, and then picked it up again at the end of the meeting. Pat didn’t like that there was no reason why the teacher didn’t like Thad. The rest of the group didn’t agree. Lisa, thought there should be a set-up for the prop, like a chapter before so it doesn’t come out of nowhere. Pat, thought it would have been an hung jury if it would have been with the jury. Michelle didn’t believe there needs to be a reason why the teacher was mean to Thad.
Lisa, Poems: Pat liked the surprise in the first poem, “Reading with Grandma;” it’s not a sweet poem. Judith thought the line with “flinch” could be changed. Michelle wondered why that word was italicized. Lisa explained to emphasize the word “flinch.” Michelle thought the word “Grandma” should be added at the end again. In the second poem, Pat thought the title should be changed to “Smoking with Matt Damon” and liked the “groupie panties” line. Jerry wondered about the “edge of the toes” line and wondered if toes had edges. Susanne thought the word “ecstasy” was the wrong word and preferred the word “calm.” Millie suggested changing the “New Year’s Eve night” line by dropping the word “night.” In the third poem, Pat liked some of the images in some of the lines. Michelle liked use of the singular in the poem and thought that “floors” should be “floor”.
Michelle, “911 Dale”: Millie really liked the first paragraph and thought it was very descriptive. Pat liked the pace once the dialogue began. Lisa was confused about the point of view. Bob liked the opening and thought it felt like a collage. Pat and Lisa didn’t know whether the main character was a man or woman (it’s Michelle). Michelle wanted to know how to write that she was looking at all this stuff from a call center. She also wanted to know how she should put the info in order. Bob and Susanne liked the lack of info. Bob preferred that she doesn’t hold the readers hand as she writes. Susanne suggested playing with voice and tone. Pat suggested she keeps it in order the way it happened. Susanne said to keep the tone and rhythm of what’s in her memory.
Rebecca, “Cheese Logue”: Pat quickly noted the line in Rebecca’s piece about licking the cats butt. We agreed that the line was written incorrectly and came across as if she wanted to lick the cat’s butt.
Millie, “Life on Hold”: Lisa didn’t like the “ample bosom” line. Pat was surprised she didn’t play with the Ouiji board after finding it in the closet. Millie said that this happened to her. Jerry agrees that it would give more reason for her throwing out the Ouji if she played with it first. Jerry thought the clutching her chest was melodramatic. Pat thought the transitions were nice. Aaron didn’t like that each scene starts with a phone call and would rather they just jump to the action. Susanne thought the dialog was good. Lisa wanted more showing and less telling. Susanne said all the images are in Millie’s head, but the reader isn’t and she should write it like we’re in her head.
Pat: Judith and Lisa liked the Godzilla part. Millie liked the quotes and thought she was being too hard on herself. Bob thought it read like a poem, like Rumi. Pat liked that comparison. Michelle, believed Pat’s work is very conversational. We talked about the word “withal.” Pat loved the quotes, but she wanted to edit them down. Millie disagreed. Susanne admitted that she wouldn’t read the quotes and thought messed up the flow. Lisa and Judith agreed but understood the purpose of them. Michelle suggested going 4 pages and then a quote so it shows her voice more. Pat liked the way she’s presenting the book (power point). Lisa wanted to know if the beginning and end are not supposed to match (quick answer, yes). Pat preferred to not have it linear. Pat talked about making a graphic novel. Susanne wanted to know what kind of graphics? Pat said “pretty.” Susanne knows people who can help Pat with the graphics. Judith and Aaron thought abstract art would be good.
Who’s up next. . ./strong>
November 27: Jack Freiburger (poem, “Avibus”), Terry Hoffman (chapter, The Great Tome), Karen Zethmayr (??), Rebecca Rettenmund (The Cheese Logue), Liam Wilbur (Fog-gotten), Michelle Nightoak (memoir).
Note: With the Thanksgiving holiday right before the meeting, a lot of people may be out of town/busy with family. Please try to send your submissions well ahead of time, especially with a full slate of readers, so everyone has a chance to read through them before the meeting. Thanks!
December 5: Wednesday: Liam Wilbur (???), Susanne Fortunato (???), Bob Kralapp (???), Aaron Boehm (film script/part 2, “Whole Again”), Judith McNeil (short story part 4, “The Man with the Broken Heart”), and Jerry Peterson (short story/part 1, “The Santa Train”).
December 18: Lisa McDougal (chapter 9, Follow the Yellow), Liam Wilbur (???), Amber Boudreau (chapter, Noble), Millie Mader (chapter 40, Life on Hold), Pat Edwards (more Soul), and Jerry Peterson (short story/part 2, “The Santa Train”)
Where we are in December . . .
All groups that meet at Barnes & Noble Westside have to go elsewhere in December. The store needs all the meeting space and tables for book displays because this is the B&N’s big sales month.
So, first-and-third group will meet at the Alicia Ashman branch library, in the community room, on Wednesday evening, December 5, and Tuesday evening, December 18. Alicia Ashman is off the Beltline at Old Sauk Road and North High Point Road . . . in the High Point shopping center.
Second-and-fourth will decide on November 27 where they will gather on December 11. The group’s second meeting falls on December 25. Rather than cancel Christmas, the group has cancelled its meeting.
Writer’s Mail: Duty Roster
Katelin is editing for November. Send your story ideas and meeting notes to her at.
December – Clayton Gill
January – Pat Edwards
February – This Could Be You!
March – Sign up today!
January’s Fifth Tuesday . . .
Put it on your calendar now. Make your commitment to be with us on January 29. First-and-third group hosts. While the place has not yet been set, the writing challenge has.
Here it is: You, or a character of your creation, believe the world is going to end on a set date. You or your character get ready for it . . . then it doesn’t happen. What do you or your character do now?
Maximum length? Our ever-popular 250 words.
NaNoWriMo Report!
The worldwide collective 2012 word count as of 10:00am November 24 is 2,396,766,474! At a steady pace of 1,667 words a day, today’s word count would be 40,008. Participants in Madison have written 13,589,648 words with an average of 17,787 per writer. Madison is ranked 80 of 585 regions on the Word Count Scoreboard.
If you or someone you know is madly writing 50,000 words of story awesomeness this month, let us know how the journey is going!
Back up your work . . . back up your work . . .
Got this note from first-and-thirder Alicia Connolly-Lohr who is in the midst of writing her second Lincoln novel: “Had another computer crash last week and won’t know how much I’ve lost until someone working on it [my computer] can say if anything is retrievable. I have some of it [the second Lincoln novel] on a thumb drive but . . . what? my book lost? I’ll go crazy if I think of it now, so I just won’t. . . . needless to say I’m going to have a major delay in getting my book to the group.”
So what are you doing to back up what you’re writing . . . thumb drive, external hard drive, printing out hard copy, saving to the cloud?
If you have to take the action, you can lose stuff, from a few pages to a few chapters to a whole book, if you don’t back up once a day, once an hour, or, better, every 10 minutes. If you can’t force yourself into that discipline, hire a service that will do it for you. Carbonite, for example, will automatically save changes to your computer files every ten minutes . . . automatically.
Great word for the holiday season . . .
From Wordsmith Anu Garg . . .
gemutlichkeit
PRONUNCIATION: (guh-myoot-lish-KYT, -likh-, -MOOT-)
MEANING: noun: Warm friendliness; comfortableness; coziness.
ETYMOLOGY: From German Gemütlichkeit, from gemütlich (comfortable, cozy). Earliest documented use: 1892.
USAGE: “The establishment’s gemutlichkeit is fueled by a low-key, funky decor and the friendliness of the staff.”
Christopher Brooks; Cozy With Comfort Food; The New York Times; Jan 4, 2009.
The Last Word. . .
“The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, ‘Here I am – just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous – take me or leave me.’ And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man’s back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own.”~ David Grayson, journalist and author (1870-1946)
Tuesdays with Story 
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