Writers Retreat

This past weekend my writers group, Creme de la Crime, held its twice-annual writers retreat. One of the two times we go away, generally to a nice little town tucked into the southeast corner of the state, the other we spend at one another’s homes. This was the latter time. Saturday we spent at Carl Brookins house, Sunday in the Party Room of my co-op. Nine could attend, and each of us brought two or more chapters of whatever we’re working on to read.

Our group meets once a week and at those meetings one or two of us will read a chapter of a book we’re working on or, occasionally, a short story. A copy of the reading(s) is handed out to the listeners and we all read along as the author reads aloud. Then there is a ten or fifteen minute period while we go over the reading, marking things we like and/or problems we feel need to be addressed. Then we take turns giving feedback.

At the retreat this happens writ large. That is, the readings are longer, and everyone gets to read. We go all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Volunteers among us bring the ingredients for a casual breakfast and a sandwich-salad lunch and a hot dinner on Saturday, and a breakfast and lunch on Sunday. All of this is arranged at several of the weekly meetings in advance of the retreat.

This year’s retreat was particularly fine. Every person’s readings was great. One member, who has been working on the same novel for years, seemed to cross some kind of boundary and produced a chapter that was positively brilliant. Her writing was lyrical, the setting evocative, the two main characters beautifully described. We pretty much agreed, it's time she found an agent. Our newest member is trying to sell a finished novel with an unusual setting. None of us in the group can understand, from what he’s read of it so far, why he hasn’t succeeded. (Publishers can be so blind! This thing has best-seller written all over it.) Another member, who is struggling with a health problem, seems to have discovered that, instead of a distraction, her problem has concentrated her mind, and produced a reading that was simply excellent. She has invented a villain who is deliciously creepy. Our most renowned author has settled into another great entry in his long-standing, best-selling, award-winning series. And so on. I have been fussing with the start of And Then You Dye and finally just sat down and wrote something light and a little silly – and they loved it! So it’s like everyone’s muse got together and decided to give us all a break. It was the best retreat we’ve ever held, in my opinion. The only problem was, it was hard to find something critical to say about the readings, they were all so good.

I have said it before, but I’ll say it again, if you’re trying to break into writing, see if you can join, or start, a writers group. There you’ll find people after your own heart, along with the advice and encouragement it takes to be a success.

Maunderings

I have a new car! My old car developed a faulty transmission, the climax of a series of smaller problems that it had suffered over the past year. It was going to cost a bundle to fix the thing and I argued in favor of getting a good used car rather than continue being nibbled (and bitten) to death by the one I was currently unable to drive.

Instead, after researching what was out there, we went to a local dealership and I am the proud owner of a Ford Focus in a crayon-blue color. I’m still feeling it out, but so far, I really like it. One thing it came with was a six-month subscription to satellite radio. Dozens and dozens of stations to pick from, plus the usual am/fm stations. Tomorrow I will get serious about Serius radio, and program more than the two stations I selected when the salesman was showing me how it worked. (When I got home, all I remembered was how to turn the radio on.) And give the car its first bath. One of the neat amenities in the co-op we live in is a car washing station in the underground garage. It’s good exercise and it saves money.

The Super Bowl was exciting, wasn’t it? I found it to be a great game, probably because my team took the lead from the start. But I didn’t like the half-time entertainment. The special effects were wonderful, but the music sounded, to my antique ears, unmusical, even amateurish. I understand this is normal in people my age.

I took my dyeing resource to lunch yesterday. She answered some questions and loaned me three good books on dyeing – one devoted entirely to the three major kinds of natural dyes that give you red. One is made from insects, one from the roots of a weed, and one from a shellfish. None, unfortunately for my story, is poisonous. But I’m working on a new angle that may do fine.

It’s my turn to host my writers’ group this Wednesday. It’s amazing and comforting to see what a writers’ group can do to improve each member’s writing. If you’re a writer, do you belong to a writers’ group

WRITERS GROUPS

My writers group meets here this evening. I don’t know if I’ve written much about writers groups, or my writers group in particular before, so I hope I’m not becoming boringly repetitive if I say I highly recommend them – if they’re good. They can be bad. A good writers group has one goal: to get every member published. Okay, another goal: to improve every members’ writing. No cliques, no cruel comments, no games. Say something nice before offering a critical comment: "Your story has a nice brisk pace, but I think you need to foreshadow this abrupt change of attitude in your main character," for example. My group meets weekly and one or two members read. Other groups meet monthly and every members reads. Some groups hand out copies of the readings at the meeting, some mail them out in advance, some don’t hand out copies. Our group meets in members’ homes; other groups meet at a central place. The motto of every writers group should be: Whatever works. The joy of sharing with fellow writers cannot be overstated, and the value of a good writers group cannot be exaggerated.

Well, a bad writer probably could do both, but in a writers group it would be critiqued.