Saturday, August 15, 2009
Our next meeting
At today's meeting we decided it was time to share our work for our next meeting. This can be a poem, short fiction or an excerpt of a novel. Lets try and keep it to 3000 words or less. At any time in the next month you can upload your work to the Yahoo group site. At the Sept 19 meeting we will offer our critique, advice, observations, etc. If you have any questions just email me.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Some words of Wisdom
On of the blogs I read is Meet Your Muse written by author Jennie Nash. Her latest post had some real gems in it. I asked her I could post it here and she kindly consented.
Writing and Faith
I wrote these words for Eric over at Topic Turtle. I thought they had a place here, too....
Sitting alone in a room putting words on a page in the hope that someone, someday will read them and be moved by them can easily be seen as an act of folly or desperation. We live at a time, after all, when many people struggle to pay for health care and put food on the table. In this economic climate, it’s easy to think that storytelling is superfluous, unnecessary, narcissistic — or worse. In order to continue doing it, day after day, with little or no encouragement or support, is an act of faith — even if you’re “just” doing it for half an hour in the morning before work, or on your lunch break, or in whatever time you can snatch in between carpooling the kids and doing the dishes. But the question is, how do you maintain the kind of faith that’s necessary? What do you to tell yourself to continue to carry on? Here are five suggestions:
1. I Have the Power. It helps to remind yourself that you have what it takes to write a story that will move people. We all have what it takes. We have been crafting stories and telling stories, and listening to stories our entire lives. My friend Lisa Cron, who has been a script reader and story analyst in New York and Hollywood for many years, says that there is a secret language of storytelling – and that we all know it by heart. The problem is that when the challenges of writing overwhelm us, we forget what we know. We forget our power. We give in to the doubt and the voices that tell us that we should quit. When this happens, remind yourself that the ability to tell stories is as uniquely human an asset an as opposable thumb – and start typing again.
2. I Have the Desire. I go to an ophthalmologist who is absolutely stunned that anyone would spend their days writing. “So are you still writing?” he asks me, every time I visit – and his tone is not merely idle office chit chat; I can tell that what he really means is, So you really sit there all day making up stories? and that what he is waiting for me to say is, Oh no, I finally gave that up that silly practice. I used to be offended by his tone, but on this last visit, he told me that he has attempted to finish the same book on each of his last five vacations but he can never seem to do it; suddenly I got it. My ophthalmologist is a man of science, a man who served this country in the armed forces, a man who has successfully run his own business, but he is not a reader and he therefore can’t understand why anyone would be a writer. If you, unlike my eye doctor, feel drawn in by words and stories, if you feel the desire to write, if you feel called, don’t fight it. Take faith from its existence in your life, because not everyone feels it. And it means something.
3. I Am Part of a Noble Tradition. At a certain point, faith in your own desire and your own power isn’t enough. In order to continue, you have to believe in something bigger than your own small self. For some people this faith can take the form of belief in god, but for writers across the entire spectrum of spiritual belief, it helps to believe in the great writers who have gone before you. Rather than be deflated by their brilliance (easy to do when you read something that soars and has lasted for centuries, or something that soars and just made the New York Times Bestseller List), you can be uplifted by your shared reality. My favorite explanation of this kind of faith comes from guitarist Glenn Kurtz, author of the book, Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music: Everything I need to make music is here, my hands, my instrument, my imaginations, and these notes. For most of their lives, Segovia, Casals, Bach, and Stravinksy were also just men sitting alone in a room with these same raw materials, looking out the window at people on the street. Like me, they must at times have wondered how to grasp the immensity of music’s promise in a few simple notes, how to hold fast to their devotions against a cutting doubt that would kill it.
4. I Don’t Have to Write a Blockbuster. The fastest way to kill your faith in writing is to tie your notion of success to the marketplace. The publishing business is too fickle and unpredictable, and books aren’t like ketchup or dish soap; no one knows why, exactly, one book sells 5 million copies and another doesn’t sell any, and you can’t game the system by trying to figure it out. All you can do is tell your story in the most crisp, clear, engaging way you can, and hope that you will be lucky enough to connect with even a small audience who is moved by your story. You can always hope that your story will be the one plucked from obscurity and celebrated all over the world, but hope is different from reality. You can’t take hope to the bank. You can enjoy it, and use it, and be motivated by it. But hope can't be what makes you write. Bookseller Christine Deavel, co-owner of Open Books in Seattle, Washington, sums up this reality nicely. “Most people in the book business know they will not make a lot of money,” she says, “There’s never been a bubble burst here — we never had a bubble. We find other rewards. There are still poetry lovers. Just a few minutes ago, I had a conversation with someone about Robinson Jeffers and Emily Dickinson. That is a form of payment for me.”
5. Writing Matters. If you lose faith in yourself as a writer, have faith, instead, in the power of writing itself. Writing has the power to illuminate, to heal, to amaze, to shock, to galvanize, and it can do so one-on-one, or within entire nations. Your story may seem small to you, but it could be enormously important to someone else. When you feel doubt about what you are doing, try to recall a book that had an impact in your own life. Think back to a writer who helped you over a hurdle, gave you an epiphany or brought you a measure of peace. Your feeling of gratitude for that experience can be enough to push you forward with your own work. It can remind you of why you’re doing what you’re doing, alone in your room, while the recession rages on. As Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, says, “What we do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.”
Written by Jennie Nash.
Writing and Faith
I wrote these words for Eric over at Topic Turtle. I thought they had a place here, too....
Sitting alone in a room putting words on a page in the hope that someone, someday will read them and be moved by them can easily be seen as an act of folly or desperation. We live at a time, after all, when many people struggle to pay for health care and put food on the table. In this economic climate, it’s easy to think that storytelling is superfluous, unnecessary, narcissistic — or worse. In order to continue doing it, day after day, with little or no encouragement or support, is an act of faith — even if you’re “just” doing it for half an hour in the morning before work, or on your lunch break, or in whatever time you can snatch in between carpooling the kids and doing the dishes. But the question is, how do you maintain the kind of faith that’s necessary? What do you to tell yourself to continue to carry on? Here are five suggestions:
1. I Have the Power. It helps to remind yourself that you have what it takes to write a story that will move people. We all have what it takes. We have been crafting stories and telling stories, and listening to stories our entire lives. My friend Lisa Cron, who has been a script reader and story analyst in New York and Hollywood for many years, says that there is a secret language of storytelling – and that we all know it by heart. The problem is that when the challenges of writing overwhelm us, we forget what we know. We forget our power. We give in to the doubt and the voices that tell us that we should quit. When this happens, remind yourself that the ability to tell stories is as uniquely human an asset an as opposable thumb – and start typing again.
2. I Have the Desire. I go to an ophthalmologist who is absolutely stunned that anyone would spend their days writing. “So are you still writing?” he asks me, every time I visit – and his tone is not merely idle office chit chat; I can tell that what he really means is, So you really sit there all day making up stories? and that what he is waiting for me to say is, Oh no, I finally gave that up that silly practice. I used to be offended by his tone, but on this last visit, he told me that he has attempted to finish the same book on each of his last five vacations but he can never seem to do it; suddenly I got it. My ophthalmologist is a man of science, a man who served this country in the armed forces, a man who has successfully run his own business, but he is not a reader and he therefore can’t understand why anyone would be a writer. If you, unlike my eye doctor, feel drawn in by words and stories, if you feel the desire to write, if you feel called, don’t fight it. Take faith from its existence in your life, because not everyone feels it. And it means something.
3. I Am Part of a Noble Tradition. At a certain point, faith in your own desire and your own power isn’t enough. In order to continue, you have to believe in something bigger than your own small self. For some people this faith can take the form of belief in god, but for writers across the entire spectrum of spiritual belief, it helps to believe in the great writers who have gone before you. Rather than be deflated by their brilliance (easy to do when you read something that soars and has lasted for centuries, or something that soars and just made the New York Times Bestseller List), you can be uplifted by your shared reality. My favorite explanation of this kind of faith comes from guitarist Glenn Kurtz, author of the book, Practicing: A Musician’s Return to Music: Everything I need to make music is here, my hands, my instrument, my imaginations, and these notes. For most of their lives, Segovia, Casals, Bach, and Stravinksy were also just men sitting alone in a room with these same raw materials, looking out the window at people on the street. Like me, they must at times have wondered how to grasp the immensity of music’s promise in a few simple notes, how to hold fast to their devotions against a cutting doubt that would kill it.
4. I Don’t Have to Write a Blockbuster. The fastest way to kill your faith in writing is to tie your notion of success to the marketplace. The publishing business is too fickle and unpredictable, and books aren’t like ketchup or dish soap; no one knows why, exactly, one book sells 5 million copies and another doesn’t sell any, and you can’t game the system by trying to figure it out. All you can do is tell your story in the most crisp, clear, engaging way you can, and hope that you will be lucky enough to connect with even a small audience who is moved by your story. You can always hope that your story will be the one plucked from obscurity and celebrated all over the world, but hope is different from reality. You can’t take hope to the bank. You can enjoy it, and use it, and be motivated by it. But hope can't be what makes you write. Bookseller Christine Deavel, co-owner of Open Books in Seattle, Washington, sums up this reality nicely. “Most people in the book business know they will not make a lot of money,” she says, “There’s never been a bubble burst here — we never had a bubble. We find other rewards. There are still poetry lovers. Just a few minutes ago, I had a conversation with someone about Robinson Jeffers and Emily Dickinson. That is a form of payment for me.”
5. Writing Matters. If you lose faith in yourself as a writer, have faith, instead, in the power of writing itself. Writing has the power to illuminate, to heal, to amaze, to shock, to galvanize, and it can do so one-on-one, or within entire nations. Your story may seem small to you, but it could be enormously important to someone else. When you feel doubt about what you are doing, try to recall a book that had an impact in your own life. Think back to a writer who helped you over a hurdle, gave you an epiphany or brought you a measure of peace. Your feeling of gratitude for that experience can be enough to push you forward with your own work. It can remind you of why you’re doing what you’re doing, alone in your room, while the recession rages on. As Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, says, “What we do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy.”
Written by Jennie Nash.
Friday, May 1, 2009
How to fall back in love with your story
One of the blogs I regularly read had some great advice today so I am sharing it here.
http://growwings.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-fall-back-in-love-with-your.html
Also there is a writing group at Barnes and Noble the first Wednesday of the month at 7 pm.
http://growwings.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-fall-back-in-love-with-your.html
Also there is a writing group at Barnes and Noble the first Wednesday of the month at 7 pm.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Meeting this Saturday
Don't forget, High Desert Writers will be meeting at the Villa Coffeehouse at 2 pm on Saturday, May 2nd. Our fearless leader won't be there, so we'll be leading ourselves.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Awesome Writers Group
We had an awesome meeting on Saturday. We did a couple of timed writings and then read what we had written. It was a great time of sharing and I know everyone who attended had a great time.
There has been a request for a second meeting per month. We will try that out and see how it works. Although this session will be less structured I still feel the focus will be on writing. We'll have time for sharing and talking about how our writing is going and also do some timed writings. Perhaps even some time to work on your own writing. This meeting will be the first Saturday of the month. The next one is March 7th. We have the room reserved for that date
The third week will remain as it is. At our meeting on March 21st Lee will give a short talk on developing a character and we will discuss that and do a timed writing and share. If you have any ideas or suggestions for future topics please let me know.
There has been a request for a second meeting per month. We will try that out and see how it works. Although this session will be less structured I still feel the focus will be on writing. We'll have time for sharing and talking about how our writing is going and also do some timed writings. Perhaps even some time to work on your own writing. This meeting will be the first Saturday of the month. The next one is March 7th. We have the room reserved for that date
The third week will remain as it is. At our meeting on March 21st Lee will give a short talk on developing a character and we will discuss that and do a timed writing and share. If you have any ideas or suggestions for future topics please let me know.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Writing Prompts
I just found this today its a blog called Pictures, Poetry, and Prose. Each post has a picture or some Art and a prompt to get you writing for the day.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Novel Writing Software
For any of fyou who were at our last meeting you know I had some frustrating moments with yWriter, the novel writing software I am using. This led to a search on the net for what else was out there. So then I found this Noveling Writing Software on the net. Its called New Novelist and it looked pretty good. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the money on it though. I wished they had a free trial online or something like that.
I looked at other ones too and this seemed to have great reviews. I ended up going to PC magazine reviews and discovered yWriter has a new version and they rate it highly. So I downloaded yWriter5. This time I found a users manual, user group and more. They answered a lot of my questions. So I decided to work with the free software for now. yWriter5 can be found here I also found that I could import my file from word directly to yWriter and it will put it into chapters and scenes automatically. That was pretty cool. You might want to check it out.
You might wonder do you need to use something like this. For me I discovered all the different characters and locations etc in my novel started getting confusing. This software helps me to organize it all well. It even has a storyboard and you can move scenes around easily. Also by now I have made all the mistakes with it that you can so I can help anyone get started with it.
I looked at other ones too and this seemed to have great reviews. I ended up going to PC magazine reviews and discovered yWriter has a new version and they rate it highly. So I downloaded yWriter5. This time I found a users manual, user group and more. They answered a lot of my questions. So I decided to work with the free software for now. yWriter5 can be found here I also found that I could import my file from word directly to yWriter and it will put it into chapters and scenes automatically. That was pretty cool. You might want to check it out.
You might wonder do you need to use something like this. For me I discovered all the different characters and locations etc in my novel started getting confusing. This software helps me to organize it all well. It even has a storyboard and you can move scenes around easily. Also by now I have made all the mistakes with it that you can so I can help anyone get started with it.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Neil Gaiman does it again
Hey everyone. I found this through a twitter friend. It is excellent. You can add this to the Pep talk he gave during Nano 2007 as a fantastic read.
Where do you get your ideas
Where do you get your ideas
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Changes at our meetings
As I mentioned earlier I am going to change the focus of the writers group meetings. Starting at our next meeting on February 20th. We meet from 2-4 pm so the first 15 minutes will be devoted to meeting and greeting. At 2:15 our business will begin.
This first time we will do a timed writing for 15 minutes on a subject that I will provide. Then we will read what we have written. These will be stream of consciousness writings. There is no way you can do it wrong.
In future meetings we will have programs where we discuss writing topics such as Point of View, Creating Interesting Characters, Setting, Plot etc. I will be looking for volunteers for some of these, If you feel like you would like to research any of these areas and present it to the group, please contact me and we will put you on the schedule.
I would also like to set up another time where we do another critique. I need your input on this. Perhaps in March or April.
Also since these meetings will be focusing on writing if you want a meeting scheduled just as a write in then let me know and we can reserve another date at the villa. I need to know what your preferences are.
This first time we will do a timed writing for 15 minutes on a subject that I will provide. Then we will read what we have written. These will be stream of consciousness writings. There is no way you can do it wrong.
In future meetings we will have programs where we discuss writing topics such as Point of View, Creating Interesting Characters, Setting, Plot etc. I will be looking for volunteers for some of these, If you feel like you would like to research any of these areas and present it to the group, please contact me and we will put you on the schedule.
I would also like to set up another time where we do another critique. I need your input on this. Perhaps in March or April.
Also since these meetings will be focusing on writing if you want a meeting scheduled just as a write in then let me know and we can reserve another date at the villa. I need to know what your preferences are.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
This is Amazing!!
Hello fellow writers! This blog is really cool!! I can't wait to hear what everyone is up to! Thanks Kate you rock. Love Amber
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