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October Meeting Minutes 2020

Hello Everyone,

We held our October meeting on October 18, 2020. (Sorry for getting these out late. My internet has been down Friday evening through most of Tuesday, today.)

PRESENT:

Sharon, Ryan, Marlys, Jan, Dawn, Mary.

TALKING STICK BOOKS:

Sharon had some TS29 books with her. We realized that in a couple of months, we will be sending out the call for submissions for TS30. How can time go so fast? We would like to do something a little bit special for this thirtieth book—if anyone has any ideas, let us know. One thing is that we will be asking for fiction and nonfiction with slightly longer word counts. We think some writers will like that. We hope that next year we can have a book release party again, but at this point, who knows?

SEPTEMBER WORKSHOP:

Our virtual workshop “Writing Deeper” with Candace Simar went very well. We thank Candace for the work she put into the workshop and we thank Ryan for his help on the technical end of things. Candace had received lots of good comments. We discussed that we really liked the way that she used lines from TS29 to demonstrate ways of writing deeper. We also liked the way that she had door prizes and gave away some of her books. We also liked the way she gave writing prompts through out the workshop. They were all involving a friend of hers that she described but every prompt suggested writing about another aspect of her. It was a very special workshop.

HACKENSACK BOOK AND ART FESTIVAL:

Because this event had to be cancelled this year too, Sue Ready went to a lot of work on her blog. All summer long, she dedicated one week each to the various writers who usually come to the Book and Art Festival. Her blog told about our group one week in September and encouraged folks to buy books. This was such a good help to booksellers and we thank Sue for all her work.

MISCELLANEOUS:

We didn’t have any PRLAAC news or news of Art Leap. We hope to have some next month.

We mentioned NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, and several writers thought they might try it this year. This is in November and you can look up the suggested rules on the internet. We mentioned that stream of consciousness writing like that is very productive. Just write and write and do not stop to edit yourself.

Ryan uses Strength Finder. This is something that figures out, for you personally, how you should do your writing—whether outlining first or not.

Someone mentioned “ing” words. Many of us use them a lot. We decided that if used as adjectives, they are very effective.

Several writers brought things they were working on and the rest of us critiqued with helpful comments and suggestions. As usual, we had great conversations and lots of laughter. We find that we really miss each other when we can’t get together. We had the virtual workshop in September, but we hadn’t been able to get together since August. Even with masks on and sitting apart, it is so good to see each other and talk about writing!

Hope to see you all next time!