Greenwood Area Chapter of the Miss. Writers Guild

2007-10-29T08:32:00.003-07:00

Please plan to come for our next meeting on Thursday, November 15th at 5:00 at Yianni's in Greenwood.

Unrelated but funny:

Thanks, Savage Chickens.

September Meeting

2007-09-08T06:21:00.000-07:00

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, September 18th at Yianni's in Greenwood.

The writing prompt from the last meeting is to write from a photograph. If you want to participate and do a writing prompt, please bring the photo the meeting.

See you there!

Conference

2007-08-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

The Mississippi Writer's Guild conference was August 3-4 in Raymond, Miss. I wish you all could have been there. I learned some, made some new friends, and the contact buzz I got from writiness of it was awesome.

Novelist Joshilyn Jackson and me, at Pentimento Books in Clinton, Miss.

Joshilyn gave a rousing and funny opening address that was inspiring and motivating (the jist of which was: Write, then write some more. Write what you like. Write what you love. Then? Write some more!). She also led two workshops, which I took. One was about great opening lines and what makes them great. It was very informative.

I am working on (deep breath) a novel. A mystery. I feel altogether uncertain and downright squeamish about how I don't know what I'm doing. But we've been plotting and now it's time to write.

What are you working on?

This Is Your Assignment

2007-06-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

Beverly has given the group its first assignment:

She suggests we write a one to two page description of either our mother, father or someone we admire greatly, living or dead. By writing about what we know, we can delve into more description, even the little things.

This will be "due" at our next meeting on Saturday, July 14th at 11:30 in Winona. We'll meet at my place and I'll get you all directions there.

Happy writing --

What Makes It Happen

2007-05-18T09:21:00.001-07:00

Very interesting article by The New York Times about why some books are bestsellers and some are not. It has some good insights in to the publishing industry and the way it does business. One quote by an author, who overheard this from an editor: “People think publishing is a business, but it’s a casino.”
Read it here.

New Book

2007-04-26T07:54:00.000-07:00

Check it out.

Blogs = Good

2007-03-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

I think that blogs are doing the writing world a ton of good. How many people do you know personally who blog? Probably a few, right? How many blogs do you read every day?

The number of people who are discovering blogs – both reading and writing them – grows every day. More than two blogs are created every second of every day. There are about 1.6 million posts every day. On July 31, 2006, Technorati tracked its 50 millionth blog.

Pooh-poohers talk about the lack of grammar, the lazy word choices, not to mention that blogging simply glorifies online writing, hurrying the handwritten letter into an early grave.

That’s flawed logic, I think. Sure, there are blogs with abominable writing and there are the blogs detailing their day’s activities in boring detail. There is also much bad writing in print magazines, ads, and handwritten letters, for that matter.

But look at all the writing that is going on online. That is a great and wondrous thing. I suspect some, maybe many, bloggers start their online journals as a lark or for fun or to be hip and in style. I bet any number of them find themselves thoroughly enjoying posting, particularly as their writing grows richer and fuller during the process, something that I think can’t help but happen with lots of practice. If you’re posting often, you’re getting lots of practice.

And I firmly believe that the more you write, then, well, the more you write. Someone who blogs for fun and sport may be, after a while, more inclined to write a handwritten letter to a friend, to send a note to the editor of their local paper, to try their hand at crafting maybe a poem or a short story.

I think writing in general, whether it’s blogs or The Great American Novel, helps us to become more discriminating readers, as well. Writing more helps you with reading and reading more helps you with writing. The two are co-dependent like that in the best possible way.

They also become more aware, more livers of life – looking around and mining the world around them for material, maybe without even realizing they’re looking for ideas for content but yet feeling of this world more so than before.

Learned, Inspired, Motivated

2007-03-07T09:02:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, several of us travelled from Greenwood via Winona to Clinton, to hear novelist Carolyn Haines talk about writing. More specifically, she spoke about the business of writing.

I jotted notes and this is an attempt to make sense of them, which may or may not have worked.

The first question a writer must ask is: “Do you want an audience?” And she said a lot of good stuff about why you need to know this, none of which I wrote down.

Next two questions to consider when structuring your novel are:

Whose story is this? The reader must have a guide.
What point of view are you going to use?

More about point of view (pov):

First person is very powerful. It can be intimate, it draws the reader in. It’s a powerful voice because the reader is right there. You can use memories to move the story along.

If you opt to use third person, you can use multiple pov, telling the story from several characters’ points of view. With third person, you can manipulate the place and time. You can hide things from the reader

Second person is very difficult to do. I think there is one notable book that used it and did well – “Bright Lights Big City” by Jay McInerny, maybe? (“You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are…”) Seems to me like that would get tiresome to read after a while.

Next Carolyn gave what is basically a formula! For writing a novel! Yes! The logic in that appeals to me so much. It takes some of the lofty mystery from the process.

Every novel has:
Exciting event, usually in the first 30 pages
First turning point, usually in the first 50 pages
Midway turning point
Final turning point
Climax/black moment/crisis
Resolution

Also, more nuts-bolts-type information:
Publishers want novels to be around 100,000 words, which is roughly 400 pages in 12 pt. Courier New, double-spaced with 1-inch margins.

Next she talked about character arc, how there must be change in the main character. If not, then the reader must change, but that is difficult to do.
Writer should establish a pattern of storytelling and stick with it.

Another form of novel is the issue-based storytelling. It involves one central issue and stories about different characters affected by this issue radiate from the novel, like spokes from the center. These characters have their own stories.

Carolyn talked about why plain writing is important. You don’t want the reader to get mired down by an element of the writing, such as one brilliant sentence. You want the reader to simply read so that the attention is focused on the story, not the writing.

She mentioned that plot, theme, setting, character, and style are elements of writing.

Plot and structure are the hardest elements for creative types. Plotting is much like drawing a blueprint.

Character, including dialogue, comes easier for creative types.

Other random things I jotted down:

Pacing naturally reflects the voice in the storyteller’s head.

Each scene must reveal character and must move the story forward.

It is the writer’s job to manipulate the audience.

By the same token, the writer must never disappoint the reader.

Any of you who were there, if I've misremembered anything, let me know.

This is What I Do Rather Than Write

2007-02-27T13:19:00.000-08:00

I review my collection of quotes! Because my procrastination knows no bounds.

Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. ~ H. Jackson Brown

An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners' names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. ~Arthur Polotnik

There's only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that's a writer sitting down to write. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

I do not like to write - I like to have written. ~Gloria Steinem

Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it. ~Hannah Arendt

I think we need to be put back in touch with our childhood...to be reminded of what's important, like memories about people we loved, or things that happened to us that affected our lives, things we can laugh about and shed a few tears about... I think storytelling is a way of saying 'I love you. I love you enough to tell you something that means a great deal to me.' ~ Kathryn Tucker Windham

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new. ~Samuel Johnson

Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps, if you are not willing to move your feet. ~ Author Unknown

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want to know your past--look into your present conditions. If you want to know your future-- look into your present actions. ~ Buddhist Saying

You can’t build a reputation on what you’re GOING to do. ~ Henry Ford

It’s never too late to become the person you might have been. ~ George Eliot

I write so I’ll know what I’m thinking about. ~ Flannery O’Connor

How I Write

2007-02-12T08:18:00.000-08:00

(This post was written by Greenwood writer John Rose, author of The Monster Grrls.)

So here's the thing: I was asked to come to a Writers' Guild meeting because I had done a book called The MonsterGrrls, which had some success. We all met at Webster's, which is a sort of public house-type restaurant, and someone raised the question, "How do you keep track of ideas?" Or words to that effect.

Well, for me personally, I tend to keep a lot of my ideas on file in my head, and I kind of do a lot of writing in my head, so when it all finally gets down on paper it kind of ends up how I want it to start with. But I can get away with something like that because I have a weird ability to intensely focus on a project, which isn't something a lot of people have. So one thing I did do when I was writing MonsterGrrls was keep a work journal, called "The How I Did It Files" (after Frederick's dad's journal in Young Frankenstein, which made sense).

MonsterGrrls ended up being a pretty dense story: four monster leads, three auxilary human leads, a large cast of supporting characters (allies, villains, and general nuisances) and two worlds; one pretty much like our own and another being this haunted place where monsters lived. There was also a huge amount of folklore, fable, legend and cryptozoological information about monsters to begin with, so by writing in the journal, I sort of organized a road map of these paths that many others before me had walked and decided what bits I wanted to use. At the end of the day, such a novel required a work journal to help keep everything straight.

When I was done with what I'd written for that day, I'd make notes in The How I Did It Files to finalize the progress I'd made. Sometimes I'd write about where I wanted to go next, other times it would be something like "Finished scene. Dead tired. Going to bed." As the story grew and I came to know the characters, sometimes the writing would be notes on motivation, history, back story and so on. For instance, the entire back story of how Bethany was Turned as a vampire is in the HIDIF, which was retold through her point of view in the final act. This kind of thing is necessary for good character development in writing. It may seem like extra work, but it really wasn't; it was just part and parcel of everything that I did.

When I found something that I thought would fit with a character, I'd make notes. Example: it came to me one day that Frankie's personal hero was Thomas Edison, so a note was made. Eventually, in one scene it was revealed that Frankie has a picture of Edison in her locker at school. It's a small thing, but small things help to make characters come alive and seem like people you know, or want to know.

I did not write a lot of personal stuff in the HIDIF; I felt that it should concentrate only on the book, and though I sometimes did talk to myself about how I felt about something, most of the stuff in the HIDIF was straight notes. Eventually MonsterGrrls began to birth other ideas, which also wound up there, so I have this handy back catalog of stuff I can draw from.

Something else I think is important to how we write: reading. I read as much as possible, and most of what I read has influenced my writing because reading was really how I learned to write. I don't think there's a certain number of books one should have read or a certain kind of book you are supposed to read before you can start writing, but I think that you should read often because it keeps your vocabulary strong and shows you things you can use. One of the reasons I like reading Stephen King so much is because he has a way of getting into his characters' heads and capturing their internal dialogue, which was something I knew I wanted to do with my own characters. By the same turn, I like reading Mark Twain's short stories because they're all pure storytelling; no pretensions and no affectations, just a simple voice and a great sense of humor. And conversely, there are things I didn't read when I wrote MonsterGrrls because I didn't want that influence creeping in--for instance, I stopped reading Harry Potter back then. I didn't want people to say that I'd taken anything from J.K. Rowling, because there was a lot of magic use in her stuff and in mine. I felt it was important that I find my own thing and learn how to do it.

Anyway, that's what I do. The HIDIF is still in my computer, and I still write in it even now. So if this idea helps anybody, feel free to start your own, because some day, maybe there'll be another Mad Scientist who'll find it hidden in the ancestral castle, and read it, and suddenly be stricken with a desire to create his own Creature and send it up to catch the lightning. Which, as I can personally attest, is a lot of fun.

Applause!

2007-02-09T11:38:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I participated in an event called Applause! at the Eudora Welty Library in Jackson. Maybe I told you about it? Six writers were on a panel and we answered questions about writing. That was a first for me and I enjoyed it. At times like that I realize that, Hey! I do know some stuff that other people may be interested in learning.

Several of the executive board of the MWG drove up from Meridian and I also met members from Jackson. It's always fun meeting these fellow writers who heretofore had been email addresses.

On Thursday, February 22nd, many members of the MWG will travel back to the library in Jackson to participate in Applause! again when they honor historic Mississippi writers. Read the brief article that was in The Clarion-Ledger today to see the great publicty the guild is getting.

For the Do-It-Yourselfer

2007-02-06T09:04:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in self-publishing, this is a good article.

Rambly

2007-02-06T08:37:00.000-08:00

Once I get an idea, I don’t have much trouble writing it. I’m not saying anything about the quality of the writing therein, I’m just saying that if I can just get an idea, a hazy outline in mind, then I’m pretty well good to go. When I am lacking that idea umbrella, I’m pretty well useless.

Case in point: I had what I thought was a brilliant idea sometime last summer or fall for another book, full of witty and pithy and wry commentary on the south, from a girl’s point of view. That was kind of the problem, though. The point of view wasn’t just any southern girl’s, it was mine, and I began wondering why what I had to say and think about the south was that important and any more insightful than what any female in the southeast may have to say. I got stuck right about there and have been there ever since. It’s a terrible thing to have an idea so tissue-thin in its vagueness that upon closer inspection, there is actually not much substance to it. I keep thinking if I could just expand and flesh out this little idea or that one then before I knew it, I’d have a book outline. Not so much.

I gave myself this whole big year 2007 tied up in a shiny baby blue satin bow in which to write the book. Then I’d have a good part of 2008 in which to edit and design it and have fun planning the promotional aspects.

All that is going to be darn hard to do if I don’t have any content. Here it is already February and I haven’t done anything.

You know how there are books full of writing prompts? They suggest you write for five minutes about a view from a classroom window when you were a child, for instance. I get that you could conceivably take one of those prompts and turn it into an actual book, or the seed of a book, anyway.

But what I would like is a book of book ideas. It would be divided into sections for singletons and military folks and highbrow literary and low brow trash. It’d have prompts like, in the military folks section, for instance, “Soviet sympathizers hijack a nuclear submarine and something terrible happens!” In the singleton section, “A few years out of college, Caitlin thought she had it all figured out. Her career was right on track until she appeared on the Reality TV show [insert ridiculous yet funny name of make believe show here] and although she loses her job and makes a fool out of herself in front of national TV, hilarity ensues and she gets the guy,” and…hey…Maybe there’s a book idea for me? Perhaps that’s the book I could write!

Or not. I’m guessing not many writers are as lazy and whiny and ridiculous as I am. And clearly I’d have to do a lot more research (can a submarine be hijacked?) on pretty much every genre except fiction, regional, southern and fiction, women’s contemporary.

So I was at Barnes & Noble because I was looking for Nick Hornby’s book, The Polysyllabic Spree, which neither they nor Lemuria had in stock. I’m going to have to order it, though. That is how much I like his writing, particularly his nonfiction essays. Later in the week, I'll have something here about his fantabulous book, Housekeeping Versus The Dirt: Fourteen Months of Massively Witty Adventures in Reading Chronicled by the National Book Critics Circle Finalist for Criticism, which I read over the weekend and and which had a lot to do with pulling me out of my self-imposed slump. Well, that and some kind friends who indulged me my dark moods and listened.

What I brought home from Barnes & Noble, instead, was Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (which I think is now one of my Top 20 Books of All Time), The Big Love by Sarah Dunn, The Tea House on Mulberry Street by Sharon Owens, and Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times.

After roaming the store for an hour or so, I had over a dozen in my arms this time when I lucked up and got on of those comfy seats near the magazines. I wish I could remember the the titles of all the books I picked up. I know there was The Mysteries of Pennsylvania by Michael Chabon (which I'll be looking for after loving Wonder Boys as I did), Book Lust (another book I dearly wish I had written), Dress Rehearsal (this book seemed cool. It looks like standard issue chic lit but I liked the premise – the owner of an upscale bakery can predict a couple’s viability by the cake that’s ordered. I may well end up getting that one), Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron (this one, really, I wanted. Except that I read a little and I could tell that it was one of those books that would require effort and passive reading. As of late, life is overwhelming me and I know myself well enough not to take on this project. Sure, I could have bought the book and taken it on later except that I know how I am, and I would have felt like I was failing by not diving into the book and its exercises immediately. The book would have mocked me from its shelves.)

I’m that way with all books, really, though. They rarely make it to the bookshelves, instead sitting in clear view and I’m always eager to gobble them up. I read fast, too fast, really, and I always re-read books. If it’s something I like, of course. I don’t think I own many books I haven’t read over and over. Although there are exceptions, such as Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides. (Now that I think of it, I don’t have that book. I must have borrowed it from the library.) Anyway, The Prince of Tides is a beautiful, brutal book. Painful, even. Some of the scenes, good and terrible, stay with me still. Incredibly written, but I’ll never read it again.

What was I talking about? I can’t remember either.

Before I Forget

2007-02-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

Our next meeting is Thursday, February 15th at 5:00 at Yianni's in Greenwood. Hope to see you there!

“Ya’ll know what’s weird? Sometimes I have weird thoughts. Is that weird?”*

2007-01-30T09:31:00.000-08:00

I seem to have nothing to say. No, really. I can’t get anywhere on this third book idea or even the idea I had for a fourth book – which involves planning for the holidays and should be easy-peasy – or blog posts. I’m doing good to get an email done.

What is up with this? I don’t get it and it’s a strange, unsettling feeling. The last time I remember feeling this way – sort of – was the month of August. That was a blue month. The book was at the printer and I felt foreign. It was an antsy, jump-out-of-my-skin feeling that was kind of awful. But even then I had no lack of whinage about it.

But this, this complete lack of topics of anything to say? I felt like this once before, the summer after my husband and I separated. I had nothing to say and even worse, I didn’t like my writing voice anymore. At all. I forced myself to draft the introduction to the summer section of More Culinary Kudzu. I gave it to a friend to read and kept asking what she thought of it. Finally, the night Katrina hit, Tillman and I were marooned at her house. Under much duress she admitted that she had actually read it, although she had told me before she hadn’t yet had time to, and, well, she didn’t like it all that much. It was too negative and complainy and angry. It made her not want to read any more of it as full as it was of bile and bitterness against…the heat and humidity that is a Mississippi Delta summer. So. There was that.

There has been no great upheaval in my home life over the last couple of months. Well, besides, Christmas. There was upheaval aplenty during December, which I do need to write about for that holiday planning book, while the agony is still fresh, as a writer friend urged me to do.

I’ve drafted something for this blog and have an idea for a couple of posts for my blog but still ya’ll. I just can’t seem to get with it. I know, I know. Listen to this whining. If I were reading this, my advice would be to just freaking write. It doesn’t matter – at all – if you don’t “feel” like it.

I think I’m still suffering the effects of an all too-busy autumn and holiday season. I also think I may require more time alone than the average person. My favorite kind of weekend in the world is not a whirlwind of fun and activities from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Rather, it is a long two days full of enticingly-empty blocks of time, so that I can stay in my house the whole time, perhaps working at the computer, perhaps reading, perhaps wasting way too much time watching The 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders on VH1, or perhaps getting a wild hair and dashing down to Jackson to spend a few hours at a bookstore, perhaps going to Oxford to sit on a friend’s patio and drink beer. Those are the kind of weekends – with all the choices and options – that I crave at least once a month. Call me indulgent and I won’t disagree. That’s just part of my makeup; I need that alone time. I haven’t had one of those weekends since September. Yeah, so. I blame my lacklustre everything as of late on that fact.

*Second-favorite line from The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing

UniverseDonna

2007-01-29T06:02:00.000-08:00

Contrary to what my friend keeps telling me, I am too the center of the Universe, and if I’m having a problem with something, surely I’m not alone, and at least one other person is saying, yeah, I’m with ya’, baby, and one’s enough for me. Okay…I wrote 250 words or more a day for, u’mmmm, 15 days. Then life happened. Again. It always does. I did do a book review and edited some essays, but that’s not real writing like…like….like THIS is real writing. I also went to some doctors’ appointments with a friend, and there must have been something else I did? Not vacuum, sorry to say. And the dirty clothes are spilling out the bathroom closet door and also taking over the butler’s pantry. I think the Rent-Earner is running out of socks. I KNOW I didn’t play free cell, not even when my daughter called and talked for three hours and she had wine and I didn’t, because I gave up free cell last year, and even though I thought about it an hour and a half into the call, I wouldn’t let myself go there. Addiction, after all, is addiction. I haven’t given up e-mail, but I’m a woman and women need to talk five times as much as men, at least that’s what some research article said, and I mostly have a social group of two (me and him), three dogs and two cats, and, okay, I need it, the article said talk-talk goes straight to the pleasure center of a woman’s brain, which goes to prove men and women really are different, and the sex thing is really a lost cause as far as communication goes. He is going to fall asleep while you are not even close to finishing up with that pleasure center in your..what?...BRAIN. Silly Nature. Did I get lost here? Maybe, but I was enjoying the chat. So, back. No 250 words last week. And also so, I can shoot myself or jump back in the saddle. So so so this Monday, here are my words. Yes, this does too count, because I say.

Reporting In: When Writing Doesn't Pay the Rent

2007-01-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

Flannery O’Connor once said something to the effect that she was guided by her muse to write, and her muse could find her at her desk, every day between 9 and 12. She also said the only award she really appreciated was the kind that could be cashed at her bank. If Flannery didn’t say something to this effect, some other renown writer did. If this is so, let me know who, but what I remember is what informs me, even if I remember it wrong.

I know that a schedule with writing honors the act of writing and provides me with the framework to actually get something said. No schedule…then each act of writing requires some more amount of energy than it would if I just said, “9:00. Write.” There are all kinds of questions I can ask: Am I hungry? Should I take a walk first? Who lives in this messy a house? I wonder if my sister is at home? Do I actually have something to say? Is writing just a silly hobby? Who would want to hear what I have to say? DO I HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY?

Feel a nap coming on?

If you have a job, and you wake each morning asking yourself if you should really go to work today, honey, you’re sunk. You hate your job, you hate your life, you are not sure about yourself, and even your dog is suspect. In order for a job to be tolerable, you have to make a commitment to it.

So, you make a commitment to writing, but it comes without a check at the end of the pay period. You can’t cash that commitment at an American bank? What happens next? What happens to me is that an emergency comes up, or I haven’t made an equal commitment to washing the clothes, and I run out of undies, or the kids are coming home, or a friend has a project that needs help. I’ll write when…when what? No time to write, just for today, or for a week. Months later, ‘urgent’ circumstances are still making inroads on what was supposed to be my writing time.

Here’s the rub. No rent money. No legitimacy. No continuity.

I’ve wanted to ‘be’ a writer since I was 8. I’m not sure why. I loved books, and maybe I thought writing would be a way of living with books, rather than going out into the world and doing other things like my parents did. Writing didn’t seem to have any connection with having anything to say, since I didn’t feel like I really knew anything. Still, the desire to write has simmered through my years like a low-grade fever.

The present simple tense of ‘to be’ is am. I want ‘to be’ a writer? That’s something in the future, and a heck of a lot of ‘need-to nows’ stand in the way of its arrival. I am a writer means also I am writing. Now. Here at 9:00 today.

Today marks one week of my 250 word commitment, though I’ve actually written more than that each day this week. Two weeks seems to be my wall. On the 15th day, Circumstances Arise. I am really curious how other writers, my friends and guild members, write. How do you do it? Are you scheduled? Do you get paid for writing? What's working or not working for you? Let me know.

TODAY'S LESSON AND THEN I WILL BE FREE

2007-01-12T06:51:00.000-08:00

to grocery shop, wash clothes, vacuum.

Our January meeting of the GAMWG was in a noisy restaurant, and our group added to the clamor. I sat in the middle and often only rode the waves of sound. People were talking across from me, on either side of me, and others, not us, all round the room. Our group was diverse: two artists, two single mothers, a young person retired from the military, a retired business woman, a part-time postal clerk who had built her own home, four mothers, a teacher, four published authors, two novelists, one piddler, a construction worker. Eight of us wore many hats. What we had in common was all of us loved writing and none of us wrote to pay the rent.

The goals of the MWG are lofty and admirable. The joint goal of our own animated little group was to meet again next month, in a restaurant, albeit a less noisy one. After the tangled web of conversation, I am not sure if we agreed on any thing else, though we all seemed to leave still talking. I did hear some of us needed community. And encouragement.

Because here’s what happens if you do not write to pay the bills: writing can too often be laid aside. (Here I acknowledge some of our little group wrote like breathing, but publishing eluded them). So we begin new years and new groups with new goals. This year I will do it. But big goals often deflate, and groups grow stale and next year rolls around with instant and infinite regularity.

So I vow to begin. Just begin.Something doable before the groceries and laundry and housekeeping. Two hundred and fifty words a day. I am only 2,750 words behind since the start of the year. WAIT. I am not behind at all. There is only today. And I’ve already made today’s quota.

I would love to hear from other writers, members of the guild or not. Do you write for rent? Regularly? Sporadically? Tomorrow, at Tara? How’s it going this year, today? Encourage us by being part of our community. If you have a bit of time, blog on your writing schedule and let us post it here.

Now…on to the have to’s, but maybe I will be back to the computer today. For sure tomorrow, because it’s only a bit I have to write, and I did it today.(413)

How Writing Saves Me

2007-01-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

Do you ever have those days, those times when you don’t want to write? When it’s more than a, “Nah, I don’t feel like it,” but more like an active dislike of the act?

That’s the way I felt today. It’s just been one of those days for no apparent reason. I’m discouraged about how the book is selling. I’m feeling overwhelmed about this other book project, one I had been looking forward to diving into after the first of the year. I’m battling feelings of, “What does it matter? Is it worth it? What’s the point?”

Okay, so maybe there are some apparent reasons.

At any rate, today I needed to work on the monthly enewsletter I do. And I did not want to. Like at all. But it kept nagging at me until I said, “FINE. I will write something but it won’t be any good. So there.”

And that’s pretty much what happened BUT I polished here and edited there and it’s shaping up to be okay. The payoff is that by pushing through and writing even when I wasn’t feeling the love, it made me feel so much better on so many levels. Has this ever happened to you?

Gifts for You

2006-12-28T06:44:00.000-08:00

The afternoon of Christmas Day I began The Great Office Reorganization Project of 2006-2007. I really, really wish I had taken "before" pictures because ya'll, in a few short days that little room will be a pleasant, well organized, and efficiently-run writing machine. I have little doubt that getting it in order is all it takes to make my productivity skyrocket. I'm delusional that way.

In going through the kajillion boxes of books I have, I ran across a number of writing-related books that I'd like to give away. I've listed them below; please comment or email me (info@pecanst.com) and let me know if you're interested and I can bring them to our meeting on the 9th.

Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $85,000 a Year by Robert W. Bly

How to Publish Your Articles: A Complete Guide to Making the Right Publication Say Yes by Shirley Kawa-Jump

Too Lazy to Work, Too Nervous to Steal: How to Have a Great Life as a Freelance Writer by John Clausen

The Complete Guide to Writing and Selling Magazine Articles by Peggy Moss Fielding and Dan Case

Writer's Digest Handbook of Making Money Freelance Writing

Write Where You Live: Successful Freelancing at Home Without Driving Yourself or Your Family Crazy by Elaine Fantle Shimberg

Writing for Magazines: A Beginner's Guide by Cheryl Sloan Wray (Note: My copy is a 1996 Edition that I got when I took a writing class from the author. The one in the link is a revised version from 2004.)

How to Write Attention-Grabbing Query and Cover Letters by John Wood

The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency as a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less by Peter Bowerman

Anyone noticing a theme here with these books? I have all these books and surely I read them. Just think: had I done all (or any) of the things in these books, apparently I'd be financially self-sufficient - making $85,000 a year!

Next Meeting

2006-12-19T11:47:00.000-08:00

I'll send a reminder the first week of January, but just so you know, we will next meet on Tuesday, January 9th at 5:00 at Webster's in Greenwood. I hope you'll be there!

Welcome!

2006-12-15T13:56:00.000-08:00

The inaugural post of the Greenwood Area Chapter of the Mississippi Writers Guild should be full of import, no?

This may disappoint, then, as I just want to say hello and welcome and all that.

But since I do have the floor, as it were, a couple of things:

What do you say about an acronym? The Greenwood Area Chapter of the Mississippi Writers Guild is a lot of letters, whereas GAMWG? Not so many. What do you think?

I’m thrilled about this chapter. Donna and I have lots of ideas for all manners of projects and programs and all kinds of stuff. Your ideas and comments and thoughts are extremely important so please share.

The MWG conference in August is going to be really good. I hope you’ll all be able to make it.

That’s all for now. Please comment away and get your posts ready! Please let me know your thoughts! Email me at info@pecanst.com