Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story
February 21, 2020

The first word . . .

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
― Jack London

“I hate writing, I love having written.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“Learning music is hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it because it’s so much fun.”

— My old friend John, a jazz pianist who was teaching me basic guitar chords. Much later, when I could finally do a few chord progressions without effort, I realized that he was right. It’s good to know that other writers, and musicians, talk about their craft being work, something that they have to practice or they lose the muscle memory of that skill. And unlike piano playing, writing can be practiced almost anywhere.

 

Last Tuesday evening with Tuesdays with Story…

 Nine dedicated folk gathered together at Barnes & Noble to discuss their work.

Amber Boudreau (Chapters 15-16, Second Nature) . . . For Chapters 15 and 16 of 2nd Nature: Jack had a note or two about word choice in the first paragraph and was looking for more information from the pamphlet that might make it clear it was anti-werewolf. He also recommended an article about dog’s sense of smell and the number of VOC’s they’re able to pick up. Jerry wanted to know when Moira sat down again before she got back up, but thought it read pretty cleanly.

Kashmira Sheth and Amit Trivedi (chapters, untitled novel) . . . The group preferred the first ending – Add the tree comment or leave it.

Move the elder couple scene in the beginning of the chapter.

Expand on the bus conductor scene to tie in the story as a parable.

John Schneller (chapter 15, Broken, rewrite) . . . Most discussion centered around actions of the hawk. Ruffling of his feathers has emotion communicated where there should not have been, New word needed. His ability to blend in, his skills as a spy, all can be described better without the word camoflage. On a positive note, choice of words to fit the animal speakers is appreciated. “chipmunked out” and the excited “treetops” exclamation.

Huckle Rahr (chapters 5-6, Wolf Healer) . . .

Jerry Peterson (chapters 30-32, Killing Ham) . . . Jack wrote a couple new jokes for Jerry to include in his rewrite of the chapters. Having an ash tray in a bar that doesn’t permit smoking seemed an oddity. Several suggested Barb Larson push a near-empty beer bottle in front of the smoker and order the person to drop her cigarette there. Most found it a hoot that the smoker is a county health officer. There was much debate over how much detail to add to scenes . . . Fishbine leans down to Wads, the A.G. stares at the woman who has bumped hips with her. “I would add an adverb to the verb,” Amber said, “then take it out.” Spare writing was advocated by most.

 

TWS News

Amber Boudreau has learned that she will be on the Success Panel at the Writer’s Institute in 2021. Yay Amber!!

 

Who’s up next . . .

March 10

Meg Williams (???)

Bob Kralapp (chapter, Capacity)

Kashmira Sheth (???)

Paul Wagner (???)

Larry Sommers (first and last chapters, rewrite, Freedom’s Purchase)

Mike Austin (short story, “Second Date” – Part 2)

Our editor . . .

Next month, it’s John Schneller. If you have something you want John to include in our first March issue, email it to him.

 

News about the first leader of TWS . . .

Cranking back to 1998, B&N Westside recruited Ben LeRoy to lead the writers group meeting at the store. He continued in that role for the next seven years, finally stepping away from us when his work with his own publishing company, Bleak House Books, demanded all of his attention. He sold his company to Big Earth Publishing in 2009, then started a new publishing house here, Tyrus Books. After he built that company, he sold it to F&W Publications in 2013. F&W is best known for the magazine it publishes, Writer’s Digest.

Today, Ben is a senior acquisitions editor for Crooked Lane Books, a publisher of crime fiction.

In all of Ben’s moves through the book publishing world, he has never left Madison.

Another person with Madison connections also is a senior acquisitions editor for Crooked Lane, Terri Bischoff. Terri had owned Booked for Murder, an independent mystery bookstore here, until in 2010 she sold it to Joanne Berg who moved the store to Monroe Street and renamed it Mystery To Me.

Terri then moved to Minneapolis where she became the acquisitions editor for Midnight Ink Publishing. When Midnight closed shop last year, she joined Crooked Lane.

 

A writing contest for you . . .

Wisconsin People & Ideas Magazine’s fiction and poetry contests are now open. Deadline for entries is March 15. Winners get money and their stories and poems published. The top winners also get a one-week artist residency (writers retreat) at Mineral Point’s Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts.

Fiction entries—short stories—must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words. Equally important, the stories must not have been previously published.

Poetry entries . . . an entry may include up to three poems. As with the stories, the poems must not have been previously published.

For more contest information and the entry forms, click on this link: https://www.wisconsinacademy.org/content/writing-contests

Here’s a factoid for you . . .

As of today there are around 6 million books on Amazon Kindle alone. Says online trainer Daniel Hall—he works with writers—if you were to stack them all on top of each other and assume they were half an inch thick, they would reach the moon. Hall did the math on this.

His point: We’ve got a lot of competition when we have a book to sell.

The last word . . .
“Writer’s block is a fancy term made up by whiners so they can have an excuse to drink alcohol.”
― Steve Martin

“Yeah, like we need an excuse.”

—Mike

Thanks!

To everyone for your help and pointers for helping me put the newsletters together this month.

Mike