When Friends Write

The 7/7/7 Challenge

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7-7-7 challenge

Writing friend, Eve Messenger, tagged me for this fun 7/7/7 challenge.  I told a couple of writing friends about it already, and they can’t wait to participate too.

So, here are the rules (they’re really quite simple):

  • Go to page 7 of your work-in-progress.
  • Scroll down to line #7.
  • Share the next 7 lines of your manuscript in a blog post.
  • Tag 7 other writers (with blogs) to continue the challenge.

My Little Morsel

He reached the bottom of the stairs, turned to enter the dining room and collided with a pretty, young lady.

“Oh!”

“Uh, excuse me, Miss.”  Johnny could feel the heat creeping into his face but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the pretty face in front of him.  She had a narrow nose that turned up just a bit at the end, brown eyes with golden flecks and full lips.  A couple of strawberry blonde curls had escaped her hair knot and were framing her attractive face.

“Be more careful turning corners around here,” she said.

“Well, I see you’ve met the mistress of the house, Johnny.”

NOMINEES:

Laura L. Zimmerman

Donna L. H. Smith

Lisa Betz

Jill Printzenhoff

(I apologize but four is all I can come up with.  I know quite a few other writers, but many are already published and established and don’t do these kinds of posts or other writers I know don’t have blogs yet.)

 

 

Winter Writers’ Retreat

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Several months ago, I received an email from my writing friend, Lisa at Lisa’s Musings, talking about the possibility of having a Winter Writers’ Retreat.  She asked me for ideas and she shared her ideas with me.  Then we talked about what the schedule might look like and how we could keep it very low cost by simply having a simple lunch of sandwiches and salads and a dessert, with drinks and snacks available throughout the day, and the lunch would be all that each person would have to pay for.  Lisa also ran the idea by our friend, Donna at Donna L. H. Smith, who helped with some activity planning, getting the word out and registration.

So, this past Saturday, February 27th, seven (counting Lisa) of us got together at Lisa’s house for this retreat.  Donna asked us to introduce ourselves and share what type of writing we do and how long we’ve been married and how many children we have.  Then she opened with a devotion and prayer.

Lisa had asked me, during the planning, if I would be willing to lead an activity.  She gave me two choices and I chose the one I felt was the less daunting of the two.  🙂

Therefore, after the opening devotion and prayer, I led a creative writing exercise.  I was relieved when everyone found the exercise to be so much fun.

After the creative exercise, Lisa gave us two characterization exercises and two setting exercises and we spread out around the downstairs of Lisa’s beautiful home to spend some time writing, using at least one of these exercises.  I actually used a combination of one of the characterization and one of the setting exercises and I applied them to my current work in progress.  I think the creative writing exercise we started with helped to get my brain into writing mode.  (Of course that was the purpose.)

The next thing we did was break into two groups and we each shared about something we are currently struggling with in our work in progress, whether it was a plot problem, problem with a character or with the setting, or something else.  Then the others in the group helped to brainstorm to come up with ideas to work the problem out.

During lunch we had conversation about upcoming writers’ conferences, what we thought of the retreat up to that point, self-publishing and the possible challenges that would include, flash fiction and blog writing.

After lunch we had a critique group, where Lisa shared the critiquing process — a way to help and encourage the writer, not rip their work to shreds — to begin with a positive, then point out something that could use some work or fixing up with an idea or suggestion for that, and concluding with another positive.  These things need to be specific to be of any real help to the writer and the people doing the critiquing need to consider the Big Picture.

We ended with another prayer and an excerpt from a book that Lisa recommended for encouragement.

I cannot speak for any of the other ladies, but I found this day so very helpful.  I was able to leave there with a fresh excitement about writing, especially working on my work in progress.  I had been struggling with something before that and so the brainstorming for story problems was a huge help with that.  I also really enjoy being able to share with other writers because they understand me and I understand them.  We can help and encourage one another and that is so valuable.

Everyone left with a desire to do another retreat in the future.

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This was the great group of ladies who attended, minus Donna, who took the photo.

I encourage all of you who write to find a group of writers you can spend time with talking, sharing, brainstorming, problem solving, and encouraging one another.  You may even want to consider starting your own small writers’ group or hold your own small simple retreat like the one we just had.  Writing is a solitary activity and can be stressful.  It’s good to step out of your writing closet and breathe some fresh air and spend time with others who understand your struggles and the way your mind works (you know, that you talk to your characters and stuff).

Have you been to a writers’ retreat?  Do you belong to a writers’ group?

Time to Put My Nose Back to the Grindstone

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Well, after a month break from novel writing, I feel refreshed and ready to get back to some serious writing.  I finished my first novel at the end of November, and when I did, I had no desire to start editing it or really digging into another novel.

So what did I do for the past month?  I let my novel rest, although I did send it to my writing buddies that I meet with weekly, and the editor completed technical edits (you know, grammar, spelling, and such), which I have only recently begun to look at.

Did I feel guilty for taking a month off?  No, I felt like I needed the break.  It is a busy time of year.  Also, I have heard other authors repeatedly suggest taking a break after completing a novel.  Suggested time off ranges from two weeks to a month.  It allows you to approach the novel with fresh eyes and mind to edit and revise.

During my month break I did not stay away from writing completely.  I couldn’t do that.  If you follow this blog, you know that I wrote a short Christmas story that I read at our church Christmas service, because I posted the original on this blog.  I also did a couple of blog posts, did some planning and research for my next novel, and I read and studied the book Revision and Self-Editing for Publication by James Scott Bell.

I found Mr. Bell’s book extremely helpful, and it has given me great tips and advice and motivated me to begin the editing and revision process of my novel.

For the past two weeks, I’ve had no time to write as I prepared for our family Christmas celebration, and then came the celebration, but during this period, I was still studying Mr. Bell’s book.  I was also blessed the Sunday before Christmas, to be able to spend some time talking to our church’s associate pastor, who is also a writer.  He has never published anything traditionally, but has printed and assembled some of his poems and stories to share with friends and loved ones.  He is now 92 years old and still writing.  We have been talking a lot about writing over the past couple of weeks, and I have had the privilege of reading one of his short stories and offering him some writing tips, because, though he has been writing for years, he hasn’t really studied the craft and is not up-to-date on today’s publishing options and what editors are looking for.  I love talking writing with other writers.  I also love to encourage and help other writers in any way I can.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I pray that God will bless you in the coming new year!  I hope that those of you who write, will enter the new year feeling refreshed and excited to write.

Look for glimpses into my novel in the new year.

Guest Posts

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Having people do guest posts on your blog is a great way to help them build their blog.  Maybe they are new to blogging or have been blogging for a while but haven’t really been noticed in the blogging world yet, so if you have a successful blog, you can help someone boost theirs by writing a guest blog for them.

This can also help you make your blog a bit more successful as well if you have your friend you write a post for include a link to your blog when they post your guest post.

It’s a great word for writers and/or bloggers to help one another.

Yesterday a friend of mine posted a guest post by me.  You can read it, and maybe learn something about me that you don’t know by going to Anecdotes from Along Life’s Road.  While you’re there, be sure to check out some of Jill’s original posts.

Encouraging Young Writers

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As I have mentioned before, I love teaching writing to young people, especially those who are so interested in writing and eager to learn.

We had our homeschool co-op today and I am free during the 5th period.  One of my students came to sit with me and I was reading something that another student had written, but the young lady sitting with me asked if it was my story.  I told her it wasn’t and pulled out my story and handed it to her.

She’s been struggling with writing but she has a desire to learn how to write stories, and she wants me to assign specific homework!  So far this year, I’ve just told them to write a story and to keep it going as long as they can.  Most of the students are happy with that, but this young lady and a couple of other students want me to give them homework.  I promised I would come up with something for them for next week, but their stories are really good.  I hope they continue to work on them and finish them one day.

Back to this young lady, she read about four pages of my story and said, “Okay, I have an idea for my story now.  Don’t worry, I’m not stealing anything from you, but now that I read some of your story, I have an idea of how to write some of what I wasn’t sure about before.”  She took out her story and she wrote several paragraphs in the course of about a half hour, while I was working on a short piece that I plan to submit.  When I put my work away, she asked me a couple of questions about her story and I offered her some advice.  It was really nice to share this one-on-one time with her.

Here is a piece of advice I shared with my class:  If you begin writing a story and get stuck or decide you don’t like it, Don’t throw it away!  File it somewhere because you could get an idea that would help you finish the story, or you might want to use parts of that story (a character, setting, etc.) in another story.  You never know when something you wrote that you thought was worthless will become valuable.

Making Adjustments

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In the past week, I, and some of my friends have found that some of the things that we do, need some adjustments.

First, the small homeschool group we created is going great and everyone loves it, but we need to do some tweaking because we always run out of time on at least one project.

Second, our Thursday evening writing group.  There has been way to much social talking and not enough writing, so many of us go home frustrated and angry because we didn’t accomplish what we wanted to accomplish, and for most of us, Thursday evening is often the only chance we have to write during the week because of other family obligations.  (We are all homeschool moms).  So, we have found it necessary to draw up a few basic rules and guidelines.  We also decided to add a monthly social night for our writing group, where we can spend an entire evening talking about all things writing!

Therefore, I have found that just as my writing needs editing and revision, so do some of my activities.    🙂

Meet My Writing Friends

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My Hand 008

I thought that since I posted about our weekly evening writing group, you might like to take a look at what my friends are writing.  They each have a blog where they write, in addition to the other things they write when we meet weekly.

First, there is my “Random” friend, you can see the fruits of her talent at Random Stories Under a Blue Moon.

Next, there is the amazing poet in our group, and you can read some of her poetry at The Dance of Life.

Finally, there’s the politically minded, non-fiction light of truth of the group, and you can read her truths at The Truth Expedition.

I hope you enjoy visiting my friends.  I certainly enjoy my weekly evening with them.