Category Archives: A Message from the Editor

Fridays With Dale: Taking a Break

Title with image of author

Dale Angel

 

Fridays with Dale will be going on hiatus.

Way back in May, as the Writers Forum Short Story contest was winding down, I was trying to think of a way to find material to post on this blog consistently. I looked through my files of old newsletters, and noticed that I had six short pieces on file from Dale Angel. These were pieces that Dale had read at our semi-annual Read Around and had handed me her copy at the end of the day for putting in the monthly newsletter. The pieces were entertaining, and had been popular reads at the Read Arounds. They stretched back for the five years or so that I have been the Newsletter Editor. Or is it six years now?

I sent Dale an e-mail and asked her permission to post them. Dale enthusiastically agreed.

I thought it was going to be a six-week run. After week two, Dale asked if I would be interested in any more pieces. I enthusiastically agreed. She sent me six more.

I thought, “Wow. This could turn into a regular feature.” I put together the Fridays with Dale title, and used a photo I had on file of Dale from a Read Around to make the graphic you have seen almost every week. The regular feature officially became Fridays with Dale for week three of its run.

Every time I was almost out of new pieces to run, Dale would send a fistful more. This kept up all summer and through the fall and into the winter.

Alas, after 28 Friday’s with Dale features, we have no new pieces from Dale to share at this time. I am keeping a place-holder here for Dale, and any Friday that she wants it is hers.

In the meantime, I have a few other goodies to share. Stay tuned.

Thanks,



Geo.

Writers Forum is open to submissions for the blog or the newsletter.

Type of Material and Guidelines for e-newsletter and Website Submission: 1.) Your articles on the art or craft of writing. 2.) Essays on subjects of interest to writers. (200 words can be quoted without permission but with attribution.) 3.) Book or author reviews. 4.) Letters to the Editor or Webmaster. 5.) Information on upcoming events, local or not. 6.) Photos of events. 7.) Advertise your classes or private events. 8.) Short fiction 9.) Poetry

Please submit copy to the editor at writersforumeditor@gmail.com . Electronic submissions only. Microsoft Word format, with the .docx file extension, is preferred but any compatible format is acceptable. The staff reserves the right to perform minor copy editing in the interest of the website’s style and space.

NaNoWriMo: Planner or Pantser?

Planner or Pantser?

Last week I told you that I had decided to use a 25-year-old idea for my NaNoWriMo project this year. And then I didn’t tell you what that project was.

I wanted to leave you something for this week.

In the early 1990s, I went back to school at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California. While there, I was president of the Christian Fellowship Club for several semesters. That was an interesting time. I saw a lot of different things. I experienced a lot of different things. I learned a lot of different things while I was there, and all because of that position that I held.

My novel will be based upon my experiences with the Christian Fellowship Club at LMC. It will be a story of a maverick finding himself thrust into a position of leadership in a typically conservative organization.

And that leads me to my NaNoWriMo Topic of the Day.

Planners versus pantsers.

Like so many other endeavors, NaNoWriMo has grown its own vocabulary. One of the common dialogues you will find at NaNoWriMo groups is between Planners and Pantsers.

Some writers like to have their project planned out in advance. They have their research complete and organized. They have their book outlined. They know in advance all of the twists and turns that their stories will take. These are the Planners. 

Then you have those who prefer to Fly By the Seat of Their Pants. Hence, Pantsers. They usually have no idea where their story will go. They might not even have all of their characters in mind when they start. They like to be as surprised while writing it as their readers will be when reading it.

When I worked on my memoir project, I was definitely a Planner. It was a memoir. I knew where the story went, and how it ended. I knew all of the characters. I just needed to write those memories down in a creative way. 

This year, while my story is based upon my experiences, those experiences will be the basis for a fictionalized version of that story. My tenure as president spanned the better part of two years. I am going to compress that story into nine months, using material from the breath of my time there, plus some completely fictionalized complications.

Do I have this story outlined? Nope. Do I know all of the characters in the story yet? I know the principal characters, about five of them right now, but not all of them. Do I know how the story ends?  Roughly, yes, but I am going to include a fictional problem as a major point of the book…maybe the major point of the book…and I do not know yet how that problem will be resolved. I do have one specific event that will tie all of the others together.

Do I have any of this written down? Nope. I only have the basic ideas that have been living in my head for 25 years.

Am I terrified as I prepare to plunge into this project? Absolutely!

I believe I have joined the Pantsers this year.

Wish me luck!

Do any fellow NaNoWriMo players want to give us a snapshot of their experiences so far this year? Leave a comment!

Geo.

Writers Forum is open to submissions for the blog or the newsletter.

Type of Material and Guidelines for e-newsletter and Website Submission: 1.) Your articles on the art or craft of writing. 2.) Essays on subjects of interest to writers. (200 words can be quoted without permission but with attribution.) 3.) Book or author reviews. 4.) Letters to the Editor or Webmaster. 5.) Information on upcoming events, local or not. 6.) Photos of events. 7.) Advertise your classes or private events. 8.) Short fiction. 9.) Poetry.

Please submit copy to the editor at writersforumeditor@gmail.com . Electronic submissions only. Microsoft Word format, with the .docx file extension, is preferred but any compatible format is acceptable. The staff reserves the right to perform minor copy editing in the interest of the website’s style and space.

Second Shot at NaNoWriMo

I decided at the last minute to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo. Over the Halloween weekend, I wrote out a few pieces that I will schedule to post over the next few weeks. Fridays with Dale have already been scheduled through Thanksgiving.

Here is my first piece for the month…

Geo. Parker

 

I’m sure I’m crazy.

I decided to take another shot at NaNoWriMo.

For most of the last few weeks, I was certain that there was no way I was participating this year. So many projects; so little time. There is the as-yet unfinished memoir. There is the stalled California Conservation Corps podcast and website that need to be jump-started. There is the poetry writing that I have recently discovered. (Thank you, Linda Boyden!) There are the ever-present Writers Forum website and newsletter that take time.

How could I park all that stuff for a month and shoot out 50,000 words on a different project? There is simply no time in my life for that sort of commitment.

Then about a week ago…

Hmm. Maybe I could finish the memoir this year. Then it wouldn’t exactly be redirecting my attention from a current project. Then I could feel like I was following through on other commitments, anyway. However, at this point, the memoir doesn’t need 50,000 new words. The only new writing it needs is an 8,000 word bridge at one point. What it needs is editing. It needs words removed in most of it. It needs words rearranged. It needs good words replaced with better words.

NaNoWriMo is not for any of these things. NaNoWriMo’s purpose is to crank out 50,000 words on a new project. No editing allowed at all. The common phrase is that NaNoWriMo is for writers to ‘puke out’ 50,000 words.

New project, huh?

Well, there is the fantasy world that I have been thinking about for about thirty years. Last year, I finally started running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in that world. I even wrote a short story set in that world to explain a background character. Yeah! That’s it! A fantasy novel!

But I’ve actually been stuck in that setting, too. Well, NaNoWriMo will help me brute through those blocks, right?

Still…it doesn’t feel ‘new’ enough for NaNoWriMo.

Then, on the last Friday of October, two days before NaNoWriMo officially starts on November 1, I had a new idea. Well, ‘new idea’ in that I have never written anything in it before.

But it’s an idea that has been stewing for 25 years.

And that will be my NaNoWriMo project for 2020.

Stay tuned for more of my 2020 NaNoWriMo journey.

I would ask for you to share your 2020 NaNoWriMo project origin stories, but since NaNoWriMo is now officially underway, you’re all probably busy with more important projects.

 

Geo.

Writers Forum is open to submissions for the blog or the newsletter.

Type of Material and Guidelines for e-newsletter and Website Submission: 1.) Your articles on the art or craft of writing. 2.) Essays on subjects of interest to writers. (200 words can be quoted without permission but with attribution.) 3.) Book or author reviews. 4.) Letters to the Editor or Webmaster. 5.) Information on upcoming events, local or not. 6.) Photos of events. 7.) Advertise your classes or private events. 8.) Short fiction. 9.) Poetry.

Please submit copy to the editor at writersforumeditor@gmail.com . Electronic submissions only. Microsoft Word format, with the .docx file extension, is preferred but any compatible format is acceptable. The staff reserves the right to perform minor copy editing in the interest of the website’s style and space.

It’s Nearly November! Ready For NaNoWriMo?

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Yes! It is four days until to the kick off for the 2020 NaNoWriMo, which is of course, National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is the endurance race to get 50,000 words of a project down on paper. Or on your hard rive.

The writing project is usually a novel, but it doesn’t have to be. There are categories for  just about any genre you would write.

Go to the NaNoWriMo website by clicking here, create a free account for yourself, and then explore the options. Create a profile, organize a project, or search for your community. You do not have to be alone in this race.

The objective to to write, write, write every day in November. To meet the 50,000 word goal, one has to write just 1,667 words every day.  The trick to this is to never edit in November. Get those words down on the page! October is for editing!

Returning for a second year is a Redding Area Municipal Liaison who is coordinating events for NaNoWriMo participants in our area. This year, due to COVID-19 social distancing restrictions, all of the NaNoWriMo group events will be held twice a week, except Thanksgiving week, online with Zoom.

If you have never tried NaNoWriMo, I highly encourage you to give it a shot. I participated a few years ago. I did great the first two weeks, but then ran out of gas. Even though I did not reach the 50,000 word goal, I did end November with 23,856 words that I did not have on November 1. You cannot lose in this proposition.

Thanks,

Geo.

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National Poetry Month

Here it is, almost the end of April, and I have nearly missed writing about National Poetry Month.

National Poetry Month was started by the American Academy of Poets in 1996 “to remind the public that poets have an integral role to play in our culture and that poetry matters,” as we learn from the AAP website.

I know that Writers Forum has many poets in our membership. I also know that Writers Forum has many good writers who find themselves intimidated by poetry. I know, because until a short while ago, I was one of you.

Sure, I had dabbled in poetry in college. I tried my hand at free verse and sonnets. And once I didn’t have to write poetry for assignments anymore, I stopped writing it. Poetry was hard. I had a hard time reading it. I was much more comfortable writing in prose. I had been writing prose all of my life, and it worked just fine for me. Why change?

I’ll tell you why.

Writing poetry will make your prose stronger. I guarantee it.

Poetry took me by surprise. It ambushed me after a Writers Forum Read Around. I hadn’t even read any poetry. I had read a selection from my Backcountry Trails memoir. After the Read Around, a friend in Writers Forum approached me and asked me to join her poetry critique group. Just like that. I didn’t know what to say. She said that her poetry group had dwindled through attrition down to two people, and they really needed a third for it to remain a ‘group.’ I protested that I don’t even write poetry.

She said, “You are a writer. Writers write. Poetry is just another type of writing, and I am confident that your poetry is just fine.”

I thought about it for a minute. If for no other reason than to get to know these other writers better, I agreed to check out their group. I met them at a local restaurant the next week.

Did I mention that the other two people are language teachers and published authors? Do I need to tell you that I felt intimidated and way, way out of my league to be sharing poetry with them?

I also need to tell you that they did everything they could to make me feel at ease and to assure me that I am a writer, and poetry is one aspect of any writer’s craft. I had heard it said that writing poetry helps your word choice and concision in other writing.

It’s true.

After spending almost two years writing poetry, it turns out to be the single best thing I have done to improve my writing in a long time. Give it a shot!

Even after National Poetry Month ends, we will continue posting on this blog to help you build your poetry muscles. I will also be looking for poets interested in contributing articles about the craft of poetry.

Maybe we can make it a regular feature and call it Hitting the Poetry Gym. I am open to other suggestions.

If you are a poet and would like to contribute to the blog, or if you have other name suggestions for a ‘poetry workout’ feature, leave a comment, or email me at writersforumeditor@gmail.com .

Thanks for reading,

Geo.

If you would like to contribute an original piece to Writers Forum for posting on the blog, please submit to writersforumeditor@gmail.com .  Please note ‘Submission’ in the subject line. All submissions are considered, but shorter pieces of 500-1500 words are preferred. We will consider all original works–poetry, short fiction, essays, memoir. We would also love to run your short pieces on writing as well. Share your writing insights with us. Thanks!