Writer’s Mail
Tuesdays with Story
April 5, 2018
We stayed home
Rain, sleet, and snow made Tuesday evening a good evening to stay home, so we did. Canceled our meeting at Barnes & Noble Westside. We will be back there in two weeks. Everyone who was to be up Tuesday evening shifts to April 17.
Who’s up next?
April 17
Millie Mader (chapter, Stone Cold Stripper)
Paul Wagner (short story, part 1 rewrite, “Mad Jack”)
Kashmira Sheth and Amit Trivedi (chapter 22)
Jack Freiburger (chapters 2-3, A Walk on the Water)
Amber Boudreau (chapter 1, Avice)
Jerry Peterson (short story, “This One’s for You, James Early”)
May 1
Tracey Gemmell (chapters)
Mike Austin (???)
Bob Kralapp (???)
Kashmira Sheth and Amit Trivedi (chapters)
John Schneller (chapter, Final Stronghold)
Our editor
Tracey Gemmell <tlgemmell15@gmail.com> is our editor this month. Email her your good stuff for the next issue of Writer’s Mail.
Planning ahead
May cometh on and with it our next Fifth Tuesday, yes, May 29. Larry Sommers will host us at his home. Larry’s address, for your notes, is 438 Hilltop Drive here in Madison.
We’re looking for a writing challenge, so please bring your suggestions to our April 17 meeting.
More Planning Ahead
Larry, Amber, and Tracey will attend the Writers Institute in Madison April 12-15th. If anyone else is attending, let the group know. Maybe we can meet up for a TWS lunch on Saturday.
Here’s a link to the schedule: https://uwwritersinstitute.wisc.edu/schedule/. If you can’t attend but one of these events looks particularly interesting to you, let the attendees know. If possible, one of us will be there to take notes.
Second Best …
In the absence of opportunity to encourage each other this week, here are some words of advice from other writers:
“Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t—and, in fact, you’re not supposed to—know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.’
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
“In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.
You may wonder where plot is in all this. The answer—my answer, anyway—is nowhere … first, because our lives are largely plotless … and second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.”
Steven King, On Writing
“Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.”
Lillian Hellman, in John Dufresne, The Lie that Tells a Truth
Onwards To Spring!
Tuesdays with Story 
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