Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
June 9, 2017

Tuesday evening at B&N

A baker’s dozen gathered around one teeny, tiny table to critique the work of seven of our colleagues. Here are the summaries:

• Amber Boudreau (chapters 21-23, The Dragoneer) . . .
• Millie Mader (short story, part 1, “Stone Cold Stripper”) . . .I received quite a lot of critiques on my opening chapter. Mostly to rearrange some of the paragraphs and to make it all more clear. I will start working on it this weekend. Thanks for taking on this job.  Millie
• Eva Mays (chapter 12, Dhuoda) . . .The intrigue of the story starts to build up in Chapter 12. There were some character inconsistencies that need to be fixed. Kashmira pointed out that Dhuoda probably wouldn’t reveal what Gerberga told her with no provocation, and Mike thought she should be better at hiding her emotions at this point. Jerry mentioned that there wasn’t precicely “nothing” under the dead woman’s sleeve, and also that shears can’t actually clatter from someone’s hand. Thanks for the notes, everyone!
• Mike Austin (chapters 10-13, Riding with the Reed Gang) . . .I received a lot of good input for my chapters of “Reed Gang.” There was some discussion of how disturbing Smitty is and whether that scene could be toned down a little or stay gritty. I also need to choose better and more varied names. There was much fun poked at the similarities, even making it sound like a Dr. Suess story. Thanks everyone for mocking me! But seriously, yes, I do need to work at that. The thing that was mentioned that I was seeing as the biggest problem was the length of time focused solely on Nick, and then suddenly bringing Ida back into the picture. I’m not sure just yet how I can remedy that, if it will be with some editing or with new chapters being written. Thank you all for reading and commenting. 

• Kashmira Sheth (chapters 8-11, Nina Soni, book 2) . . . Kashmira submitted her chapter book (Nina Soni 2) pages. The main concern was the reaction of Nina’s parents when she built a dam, as well as Nina’s reaction when they asked her to apologize to the neighbors, were not strong enough. Keeping that in mind, Kashmira has revised the scene. Otherwise, the opinion was that the story seems to be moving along well. 

• Cindi Dyke (chapter 11, North Road) . . .
• Jerry Peterson (short story, “Brothers”) . . . A grabber of a story, all agreed, but Tracey Gemmell wanted more in the ending. She wanted to see how the deaths of the Sullivan brothers affected Boone. That brought a discussion, led by Larry Sommers, of how men back then – during World War II when death was a constant – stuffed their emotions down, didn’t talk about them. “What could you do” when someone was killed, he said, “just keep on doing your job.”

And speaking of Larry

 This note from Larry Sommers: Bob Dylan made a really good and thoughtful response to the Nobel Committee’s request for a lecture. It’s at this website, https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2016/dylan-lecture.html , and the best way by far to experience it is to read the full text while listening to his audio reading of it. It’s about a half an hour. There’s also a reading by the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden of Dylan’s acceptance speech on YouTube, which is about 8 minutes long and is also definitely worth a listen.

Who’s up next

June 20: Jen Wilcher (chapter 4, part 2, Hogoshiro Chronicles), Rebecca Rettenmund (new chapter 2, Hunting for Dad), Jack Freiburger (short story, part 3, “Jesus Walked into the IHOP”), Tracey Gemmell (chapters, Casa Something), John Schneller (chapter, Final Stronghold), Paul Wagner (prologue, part 2, Rise of the Serpent), and Amber Boudreau (chapters 24-26, The Dragoneer).

July 4: No meeting. Enjoy the holiday.

July 18: Millie Mader (short story, part 2, “Stone Cold Stripper”), Eva Mays (chapter 13, Dhuoda), Amber Boudreau (chapters 27-30, The Dragoneer), Mike Austin (chapters 10-13, Riding with the Reed Gang), John Stephens (chapter 2), Cindi Dyke (chapter, North Road), and Jerry Peterson (short story, “Aboard a PT”).

Fifth Tuesday

 Here’s a bit of history for you. Jack Freiburger suggested the idea of a Fifth Tuesday as a social event way back in 2004, after we had divided TWS into two groups. Several of our writers wanted a way for old friends from the two groups to come together for a good time.

Our first Fifth Tuesday was June 29 of that year, at an Irish pub a couple blocks from Barnes & Noble.

Our first Fifth Tuesday with a potluck dinner and a writing challenge came on August 31. We held it at the Fitchburg Community Center because one of our writers and her husband, Ruth and Pete Smelser, were members there.

The writing challenge: Labor. “So pound out 500 words B less is all right, more is not B on something tied to labor,” the instructions said. “It might be the sweat required to meet this writing challenge, something that happened to you on a Labor Day past, the labor of child birth. It could be an allusion in a poem. Could be a metaphor. Could be anything; you’re the writer.”

 January 5^th Tuesday Prize Update

Way back in January Eva won the group’s flash fiction for her story “The Ball at Mawley”. In May she was able to collect her prize—a critique of the first fifty pages of “Dhuoda” by TWS Alum Patrick Tomlinson. They went to the Great Dane Brew Pub on the Square downtown with the prize money and got down to brass tacks. Patrick thought the story was marketable and made a note at the end of the fifty pages that he wanted to read on, so that was good news. He thought that, at the current 83,000 words, it is too short for the genre, but, luckily, he thought the characters and some of the plot lines could use some fleshing out, so that’s an easy fix. A good and informative time was had by all.

Our editor

This month it’s Eva Mays. Please send her your good stuff for Writers Mail.