Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
October 21, 2016

Who’s up next . . .

November 1: Pat Edwards (???), Hannah Marshall (poems, Earthy Things” and “Foster Child”), Kashmira Sheth (???), John Schneller (chapter 6, Final Stronghold), Eva Mays (chapter 6, Dhuoda), Bob Kralapp (???), and Amber Boudreau (chapter 9, The Dragoneer).

November 15:   Millie Mader (poem), Jen Wilcher (chapter, fictional autobiography), Nora O’Reilly (chapter, Bill McCormick’s Bliss), Judith McNeil (???), Cindi Dyke (chapter, North Road), and Meg Goss (chapter, novel).

Tuesday eve at the B&N . . .

New member Meg Goss joined the circle of first-and-thirders as did Jen Wilcher, formerly of our sister group. Here’s some of what was shared during the critique session:

– Millie Mader (poem, “Loss of Innocense”) . . . Generally, I think my poem was pretty well received. A few word changes were suggested.

– Nora O’Reilly (chapter 5, Bill McCormick’s Bliss) . . . Jerry corrected me: the commander in chief  is the abbot, where his prior would be chief of staff. I can easily cut down on my use of ‘really’ or ‘very.’ Most importantly I need to find a more compelling reason as to why Joel is returning to Madison. Perhaps trying to let Bill and Evelyn reunite so she can tell him about their son is enough. I do need to consider Bill’s reaction to the impending danger of Joel returning to the city of his crime. I have to investigate the statute of limitations on murder and what consequences Joel would face if he were caught in the present times. A few wording changes were also suggested.

– Tracey Gemmell (chapter 1-2, novel) . . . Group felt it was generally well written and humorous. Jerry noted some hyphenation issues and suggested some segmentation of longer paragraphs into short, punchy ones to add emphasis.Group pointed out that some British terms may require further explanation for an American audience, and that Taylor’s age required clarification, as they initially thought she was younger than she was. Pat noted she didn’t feel chapter two was as believable as chapter one, and she requested more explanation as to whether Taylor had quit her job or was fired.

– Eva Mays (chapter 5, Dhuoda) . . . Readers of Chapter 5 agreed that Lothar is sufficiently yucky (or “loathsome”), while Ermengarde was NOT perceived to be a villain, despite probably having offed her brothers and sisters-in law. Both were my intention, so, yay! Tracey flagged the term, “to shut me up” as being anachronistic, so it has been nixed for a more time-appropriate alternative. Jerry cautioned me to look out for the overuse of the word “look”. Will do, Jerry. Thanks for all your feedback!

– Amber Boudreau (chapter 9, The Dragoneer) . . . Amber read from Chapter Nine of The Dragoneer. Pat was glad the Librarian had returned. Millie had a hard time keeping the twins straight because their names are so similar, but Pat says she always looks to how the main character acts around them to determine which is which. Tracy was confused by the use of magic at the end of the chapter and if it was magic or not.

November’s Fifth Tuesday . . .

We now have a place for November’s Fifth Tuesday. We will gather at Café Hollander . . . 701 Hilldale Way for your GPS. Hollander does not have a meeting room nor does it take reservations, so the first there will push a number of tables together to make for group seating.

This is an order-off-the-menu event.

The writing challenge: As, yes, you are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner when someone knocks at the door.

In the story you write, you must use all of the following five words: stew, excoriates, laxative, bi-lateral, and dementia.

Max length: 500 words.

We’ve got published writers . . .

Tracey Gemmell and Meg Goss join our group as published writers, both with their first novels out and both writing sequels.

Check out their novels . . . Tracey’s Dunster’s Calling at traceygemmel.com and Meg’s The Uncommitted at margaretmgoss.com.

You can get both books from Amazon as real books and ebooks.

Jerry Peterson’s latest short story anthology, Fireside Stories, went up on Amazon as a real book on October 17.

Big change in TWS . . .

Our second-and-fourth Tuesday group is no more. Its membership had dwindled to the point that the few remaining decided over the last two weeks to disband.

We, of course, are booming at 18 active writers. Our size, though, creates a problem for us. If we schedule seven a night for critiques, four of our writers will only be up for a critique every other month. For a writer who’s pushing to finish a book, having to wait two months to get a chapter critiqued can be darn discouraging.

When we gather on November 1, we need to discuss and decide whether we should cap our membership. If we were to cap our active membership, we could set up a second group of members . . . members in waiting, waiting for an opening on our active roster.

So here’s our current list and the status of each member:

Mike Austin – off the schedule, suffering from a pinched nerve
Amber Boudreau – writing the second draft of her novel, The Dragoneer
Cindi Dyke – rewriting her first novel, North Road
Pat Edwards – a poet with two chapbooks published
Shel Ellestad – shopping for a publisher for his memoir
Tracey Gemmell – writing the sequel to her first novel, Dunster’s Calling
Meg Goss – writing the sequel to her first novel, The Uncommitted
Bob Kralapp – short story writer and poet
Millie Mader – novelist and poet with her first novel out, Baby Blue
Hannah Marshall – poet
Eva Mays – rewriting her first novel, Dhuoda
Judith McNeil – short story writer, poet, playwright, and screenwriter
Jerry Peterson – short story writer, novelist
Nora O’Reilly – writing her first novel, Bill McCormick’s Bliss
John Schneller            – rewriting the third novel in his Mount Zi trilogy
Kashmira Sheth – YA and picture book author, always writing another book
Amit Trivedi – writing a novel, Journey to Swaraj, with Kashmira
Jen Wilcher – writing a fictional autobiography
Shel, Bob, and Amit are not regulars on the critique schedule. Travel knocks Kashmira and Cindi off the schedule from time to time. And work limits Nora to being with us only on the third Tuesday of the month.

The editor . . .

Hannah Marshall is our Writers Mail editor this month. Send her the good things you’d like to share with your fellow writers. Judith McNeil will be our November editor.

December meetings . . .

As always, we have to leave B&N Westside for the month of December. The store needs the space where we meet for Christmas sales. So Millie has again booked us into the Alicia Ashman Branch Library’s community room.

For your calendar, those dates are December 6 and 20.

The library is in the shopping center at Old Sauk Road and High Point. For your GPS, the address is 733 North High Point Road.

WRITING CONTEST

Win Cash, Prizes, and More in Our Annual Fiction and Poetry Contests

Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine regularly publishes some of the best fiction and poetry from around the state through our annual literary contests. Make your mark on Wisconsin’s literary scene and enter your best short stories and poems in our contests.  Open to all Wisconsin residents and students age 18 and older, both our fiction and poetry contests are accepting submissions via USPS and online from September 1 to December 1, 2016. You can win up to $500 and other prizes along with publication in Wisconsin People & Ideas, a slot at the 2017 contest reading at the Wisconsin Book Festival in Madison, and a one-week residency at the lovely Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point.