Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays With Story
July 30, 2013

Writer’s quotation . . .
“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” – Harlan Ellison

Who’s up next . . .
August 6: Lisa McDougal (chapter, Tebow Family Secret), Rebecca Rettenmund (???), Andy Pfeiffer (novella/part 1 rewrite, Pilleum), Pat Edwards (poems), and Amber Boudreau (chapter 17, Noble). . . . One open slot. Shoot a note to Jerry Peterson if you want it.

August 13: Ray Woodruff (“Fringe Benefits”), Erin Syth (essay), Terry Hoffman (synopsis rewrite), Rebecca Rettenmund (chapter, Hales Tales), and Carol Hornung, (scene, The Ghost of Heffron College).

August 20: Lisa McDougal (chapter, Tebow Family Secret), Bob Kralapp (???), Millie Mader (chapter 46/part 2, Life on Hold), Judith McNeil (chapter 3, My Mother, Savior of Men), Amber Boudreau (chapter 18, Noble), and Alicia Connolly Lohr (novella, scene, Lincoln’s Other War).

Fifth Tuesday . . .
We returned once again to Panera’s on University Avenue for an evening of fortunes and misfortunes drawn from those slips of paper you find in Chinese fortune cookies. You can read the resulting stories on our website and our Yahoo group.

Planning ahead, second-and-fourth group hosts our next Fifth Tuesday which will be on October 29. Block that evening out on your calendar now.

News from our alumni . . .
Jean Van Rensselar, president of Smart PR Communications . . . Jean was with us a decade ago. She now lives and works in the greater Chicago area:

So happy that the writers’ group continues. Well, I do have a lot of advice for anyone who would like to make a lot of money writing (learned the hard way). I’m not sure how much of this you know, but in an attempt to find any way to make money at writing, I actually started a eulogy writing business in Madison and continued it when I moved back to Chicago in 2004. It was not a moneymaker (big surprise), but I did learn a lot about marketing. From there I went into freelance corporate writing and did well – one person really believed in me and threw a lot of business my way. I was still stuck in the $20-$40 an hour thing, though, and really wanted to break out, so I started going into public relations, which I learned doing freelance writing for a few PR firms. The holy grail for PR is getting monthly retainer clients (that’s where the big bucks are). I did get a couple of great clients right away and business has been steady since. Public relations is 90% writing, so it’s a natural fit for anyone who likes to write non-fiction. The PR side is easy to pick up (and I would be happy to help anyone who wants to go in that direction). But suffice it to say that I still think of the Madison group from time to time and hope you are all doing well. Lots of Love, Jean. My website is www.smartprcommunications.com

Great word . . .
mortify . . . This grand word provided courtesy of Wordsmith Anu Garg.
PRONUNCIATION:
(MOR-tuh-fy)

MEANING: verb tr.:
1. To humiliate, shame, or embarrass.
2. To discipline (one’s body) by self-denial, self-inflicted suffering, etc.

verb intr.:
1. To endure self-denial, self-inflicted pain, etc.
2. To become gangrened or necrosed.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Latin mortificare (to kill). Ultimately from the Indo-European root mer- (to rub away or to harm) that is also the source of morse, premorse, mordant, morbid, mortal, mortgage, nightmare, amaranth, and ambrosia. Earliest documented use: 1382.

USAGE:
“Kate Bannan is mortified by her son’s conviction for drink-driving.”
– Keith McLeod; Barry Bannan’s Mum; Daily Record (Glasgow); Dec 23, 2011.

“You can only understand why he mortified himself and renounced all pleasures if you have lived a long time.”
– Fanny Howe; Outremer; Poetry (Chicago); Sep 2011.

Food for Thought . . .
“A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It’s a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of the truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.” ― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life