End of summer update

A few of us from the Laramie Writers Group have continued to meet during the summer off site away from the Laramie Fire Station. Regular meetings on the 2nd and 4th Wednesdays hopefully will resume now that people are back from vacations and travelling. A couple of us are going to gather at Coal Creek this next Wednesday around 7:30 PM and you are both more than welcome to come by and introduce yourselves. If anyone else would like to come - please do. Also, if we could get everyone interested in resuming our normal meetings together for the following Wednesday at the Fire Station - please let us know.

A fun writing prompt and great news!

Well, first, the great news: one of the writers in our newly formed little writers group has just got an agent!! And tonight she will be sharing the query letter and sample pages that first snagged her agent's attention. I can't wait to read them.

At our last meeting, one of our members brought a writing prompt from a book on writing song lyrics, and we turned it into a bit of a game. He gave us six prompts, emotions that we were to describe in a short scene, or even a phrase: things like, "I hope I never see you again," or "I think I'm falling in love".  The goal was to write the descriptive phrase or short scene without actually saying "I think I'm falling in love" or "I hope I never see you again." Basically, a show-don't-tell exercise.

We had so much fun sharing our results because each person would read what they'd written, and everyone else had to guess which of the six prompts it was written to describe.

Here's some more writing prompts I came across recently that I plan to share at one of our meetings.

Wyoming Writers Conference in June

We had our second writer's group meeting of 2015 this past Wednesday and I had so much fun! (I think everyone else did to). Emily shared about the pyramid approach to building a novel starting with a single summary sentence. Then we each shared a one sentence summary of a writing project we are either working on or plan to work on, and spent some time writing to expand our sentence into a paragraph or more. My paragraphs were completely unorganized but I got some good ideas out of it.

We also went over critique guidelines since we'll start critiquing at the next meeting (I've post here on the Guidelines page). We'll also do a writing exercise at the next meeting if time allows. Ideas for exercises are welcome, or I might suggest from one of my favorite writing books, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldman.

Passing on this annoucement I just saw:

Wyoming Writers, Inc. conference to be held June 5-7 in Cheyenne, Wyo.
The 2015 Wyoming Writers, Inc. conference will be held in Cheyenne, Wyoming June 5th through 7th at the Holiday Inn.

Presenters will include poet Aaron Abeyta, of Alamosa, Colorado; novelist Laura Pritchett, award-winning author of Stars Go Blue; and Kent Nelson, essayist and author of the short story collection, Spirit Bird: Stories.

Representatives from the publishing world will also be in attendance: Meghan Saar, editor of True West magazine; Tiffany Schofield, editor of Five Star Publishing (Cengage); and Patrick Thomas, editor of Milkweed Editions.

Early bird registration (before May 15) is $215 and includes a one-year membership to Wyoming Writers, Inc. More information is available on the website at www.wyowriters.org, or contact wyowriters@gmail.com.

A great beginning to 2015

For our first meeting in 2015 we had a great turn out and we're so excited to have some new visitors.

Here's some more details from Emily's e-mail:

"I feel like this is the true restart of Laramie Writers Group, and together we can make this group exactly what each of us need in 2015. 

Our next meeting will be the 4th Wednesday of this month, January 28th at 7:30pm at the same fire station room. Margo's mission is to make sure we aren't locked out again. (Thanks for huddling with us while we waited.) So mark your calenders. I'm looking forward to sharing our 1 sentence idea/summary of a piece of writing we'd like to get started on...

Here is the link about NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month) that we discussed there at the end of the meeting. There are a lot of great resources there. Also, Margo and I are meeting next week to get together group guidelines and the website. We'll chat about a drop box or other form of sharing pieces of writing outside of meetings."

Back in business!

We're meeting September 29th 2014, 7pm at Cloud Nine in Laramie! - and plan to meet the 2nd and 4th Mondays each month.

I AM SO EXCITED!!! For four years now I've had wonderful online writing friends and critique partners, but you know there's something really nice about meeting with other writers face to face.

Come join us!

The Wasteline test

I found this awesome writing tool and plan to use it on a regular basis!

Here's a little blurb about it, from the Writer's Diet website:

The Wasteline Test assesses whether your writing is ‘flabby’ or ‘fit’. The test works by counting percentages of words in five categories commonly associated with stodgy sentences: weak verbs, abstract nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs and 'waste words' (it, this, that, there). For every writing sample you submit, you will receive an overall fitness rating ranging from lean to heart attack territory.

If you run the Wasteline Test often and keep its core principles in mind whenever you write something new, you will find your scores gradually improving over time. Please keep in mind, however, that the test offers a diagnosis, not a prescription; a heuristic, not an emetic. Sentences, like people, come in all shapes and sizes, and the world would become a very boring place indeed if we all wrote (or looked) exactly the same way!

We are still active!

Our next meeting is Tuesday 5/11, 7 pm in room 201 of the Methodist church on Harney St.

After growing to almost 10 members last fall, we are back down again to 4 regularly attending members. Part of the curse of a college town - people are always moving on. However, that also means new people are arriving, too. So we are hoping for more newcomers to the group!