WRITING EXERCISE: Choose three words. Autumn, Gold and Retriever. Write for three minutes, beginning with one of the words and incorporating the other two in the first
"If you're stuck in your writing, this exercise will help get your creative juices flowing and build your portfolio."---Susan Reichert
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Exercise in development of a three deminsional characters in your writing.

Using a familiar Biblical character, like David, create one or two sentences about your perception of these various aspects of his character:
Background, environment, how he thought, how he looked, his dress, how he felt, what he taught, how he acted under pressure, flaws, good points, what people liked about him, his secrets, his motivations, uniqueness, and what he didn't want to face.

Once you create a character and answer these questions you will have a more readable, 3 dimensional character in your story or novel.

The more you know about your characters and include in your work the more your readers will see your written image. It puts a movie of your descriptive words in the readers head. Readers will seek out your work.

We did an exercise in dialogue and Speech pattern in whisper mode.

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JULY----Reminder about annual dues $15.00 for the year or
$1.00 a month.
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Cash is fine or make a check out to Susan Reichert.

DIALOGUE EXERCISE

In this exercise one side of the room wrote as a boy and the other side responded as a girl.

Dialog shows instead of tells the story, by letting your characters be your mouth piece, this helps move the story forward. Provides balance between descriptions and characters interaction. If you have too much description without dialog it can slow your story down. DIALOGUE...who knew you could have so much fun working with dialogue. Great exercises to have... people think of things they would say. One side of the room had to come up with: "Come play in the dirt with me." The other side had to come up with the reason they could not or would not play in the dirt.

WRITING EXERCISE
FOUR MINUTES

"Prayer, street, bottle" runner up words
"aqua & flower". Some members incorporated all 5 words in their writing. 
Try it, take the above words and time your writing for four minutes.Begin your first paragraph with one of the above words, incorporate two more of the words in your first paragraph and use the other two words in your second paragraph.

Capitalization

Susan quizzed on Capitalization per a recent post by Cec Murphy, who has a daily blog on writing. Check out his blog to find the information on capitalization.
 http://cecmurpheyswritertowriter.blogspot.com

LOOK, OBSERVE AND WRITE IT

Pay attention and note items in a notebook as you go about day. Savor your day in and day out experiences... the clerk slinging your groceries (did you know they are timed via computer from the time they start the transaction til the total button is hit?) Pumping gas... describe the total process. Etc. This helps you develop your 'describing technique'.

Media Tip
Increase online Presence
Shannon Milholland

#4 referring site is Wikipedia.com & it is a free directory
You can not upload your bio & backlinks to your name But you can have a friend from their computer do this for you.

This increases your online presence and indicates to a publisher that you are a serious writer.

Shannon recommends Andy Stanley's book on speaking to an audience- unique narrative non-fiction.

ENTERING CONTEST...

HERE'S THE SCOOP!

---word limit is the word limit- 1000 words means 1000 words (no whining in writing--just like no crying in baseball from A League of Their Own)
---Read & reRead the contest guidelines and then do them
---only send it once
---if a submission does not adhere to the guidelines the submission is disqualified and not read
---check deadline dates and times, if submitted after the deadline they are disqualified.

Entering contest is a great way to hone your writing skills within a specific set of rules and parameters.

ARCHIVES

Public Relation Firm
Be very clear on what the PR firm will do for you and how often and for "x" amount of money.

Markets for Stories

Jeris Hamm

Writing market opportunities
1. Christian Communicator -Vonda-Vision, word of flame, personal interview, 500-1500 words, devotions, word aglow
www.wordaflame.org

2. White Rose Publishing publishes 50 books a year, manuscripts 10,000-80,000
www.whiterosepublishing.com

NANCY PERKINS...
Member Nancy Perkins published her book, "I've Lost Lindi". A touching book based on her real life experience of the loss of her daughter, Lindi. She pulled out faded penciled journals she kept during this difficult time to write the book. She will be donating any profits from her book to a children's ministry. Priced at $10 plus shipping. To order email bigbobperkins@netzero.net

REFERENCE BOOK OF THE MONTH : Novel & Short Story Writer's Market

JANUARY MEETING

Jim Williams came by and talked to us about taking photos to use in picture books. He also brought some of his personal picture books from his trips to Europe which were not only interesting but beautiful shots. Several of our members brought a photo and read the story they wrote to go with the photo.

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RHYME LINK
Rhymzone.com

Ten Points
writing a fiction story
Barbara Ragsdale

Stories begin with ideas. Ideas become plots. Plots have a beginning, middle and an end (build the story scene by scene).

Within the plot are characters. Tell the story with one point of view (POV). Show not tell means use dialogue.

Develop the story with literary devices: flashback (use sparingly); foreshadow (increase intensity); simile and metaphors (define characters; add color).

Plot (beginning, middle & end), characters more than one,
Point of view. (only one) not advisable to have a change of scenes in a short story,
Dialogue moves the story,
Literary devices, limit them
Foreshadowing adds tension
Backstory it stops the story's forward movement
Simile (as or like)
Metaphor (Psalms)
Language creates the rhythm of the story or its very breathe

FUNNY MEETING QUOTE

 " I may not be much but I'm all I think about." ( said very tongue & cheeky by Doyne Phillips ( check out his picture on the back cover of this month's Southern Writer's - hint- he's the one in the Ralphie bunny suit :)

Interior Dialogue

www.novel-writing-help/writing dialogue htlm. Help on interior monologue
Which is the correct way to punctuate thoughts of a character. Discussion about how it putting thoughts in italics can be distracting to a reader.

APRIL MEETING ADVICE: 
DON'T FIND TIME TO WRITE, MAKE TIME TO WRITE. Pray before you write and pray for each member in their writing endeavors.

WRITING ASSIGNMENT
.........descriptions.........

Wrote a 3 minute description of a character---
choose some one you know or some one you see and describe that person in detail.

With descriptions pick the ones that move your story forward.

Don't tell a story, show a story.

FEBRUARY MEETING

Our meeting this month was special–our pet book was published and
delivered to us. We had cupcakes to boost the celebration. What fun
seeing the books passed around to be autographed.
Thank all of you for your participation. We will soon have the book uploaded
here on our site in the section for member publications.
Also we learned a little more about using dialogue in different voices as well as honing our writing skills.
Looking forward to March's meeting.

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MARCH MEETING

Today we announced our contest winners:
_Barbara Ragsdale... First Place winner for Christmas Bells
_Judy Fletcher...Second Place winner for Lady in the Bay
Third Place was a tie
  Alan Bradshaw for Amazing Grace and Mike Ware for New Years: A Time for Time.
Fourth Place was a tie
Annette Cole Mastron for Reflections of Earl and Charlotte Bradshaw for The Bag Lady.
All of the stories were wonderful and we highly recommend you send your stories off to periodicals to be published. They were excellent and we had a hard time picking the winners because all were so good. Thank you for participating in the contest. We look forward to the next one.
Gary Fearon brought us the first segment on screenwriting, Shannon Milholland worked with us on blogging how-to's and Barbara Ragsdale worked with us on short stories. We celebrated our two years with cupcakes. We decided to write a book filled with stories about  Christmas. (guidelines coming)We look forward to our new year and all the words we will write.
Thank all of you for participating in the writing group. Let us know about your writing events.

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