Our February Meeting Recap

 

We had another great turn-out at our February Meeting with around 45 members in attendance. Thank you to everyone that came, and sorry we missed the folks that couldn't make it.  Our next regular meeting will be held Saturday, March 24th from 11:00 - 1:00 p.m. Our Tenth Anniversary Celebration will also be held on March 24th from 10:00-11:00 a.m. The celebration will be chock full of Saturday Writers merchandise imprinted with our new logo, door prizes, socializing and cake!

 

We started the day with our first Works-In-Progress Discussion Group.  The reading hour brought members who shared their fiction, non-fiction and poetry to the rapt attention of about a dozen listeners. The next WIP group meeting will be on April 28th, please read the discussion group guidelines here before attending.

Our new writing contest was discussed and another creative storyboard was showcased by Rebeca Wise for writing prompt ideas. Enter our monthly SW contests for cash and publication. Remember, the contest topics are not literal, nor genre specific, but more like prompts, so let your imagination go wild! Just tie the theme in and keep to submission guidelines.

Your donations are needed for our "Around the World in 80 Days" themed basket for the MWG Basket Wars. Please consider donating a travel themed item or cash/gift cards that can be used for the purchase of items to help make our basket the winner again this year.

Sioux Roslawski announced a “Writing Marathon” to be held Saturday, April 7, 2012. Writers will meet up in Historic St. Charles, Missouri and be directed to various sites for round-robin writing/discussion sessions, then have lunch. More details will be announced at our March meeting.

Our speakers for the day were Tom Pearson and Joe Schwartz from the St. Louis Public Library. Speaker Tom Pearson explained in great detail his experience of self-publishing via Lulu.com. Speaker Joe Schwartz spoke on his experience and gave lots of advice for utilizing and managing an author page on Facebook.com as a way of building and maintaining a significant web-presence.

 

Blind voting crowned Jennifer Hasheider’s logo submission best of the best. Congrats Jen! [A huge surprise to me personally!]  Stay tuned for our Logo Reveal soon! 

Read Your Work Out Loud

There were quite a few Saturday Writers' members at the Open Mic Night hosted by High Hill Press at Sage Books Friday night. Nearly everyone read a story, or portion of a story and there was even a lovely poem thrown in for good measure. It was great to hear the proud authors give voice to their characters.

Reading and sharing your work out loud are such important parts of the writing process.  Even reading it out loud to yourself will help you find inconsistencies and continuation issues. You may find your character was eating a cookie and then suddenly he's finishing a slice of pizza, or you've described an entire scene, then realize it's set at night.

Since reading out loud is identical to the way we actually speak, you can improve your dialogue by hearing it spoken. If its uncomfortable for you to say what you've written because no one actually talks that way, then chances are it will be uncomfortable for someone else to read in your book. Reading out loud will also allow you to find typos and words your brain skipped over while you read it silently the three-hundred times before. You'll realize how long your sentences are when you can't say them without needing to stop for a breath mid-sentence. (That's probably a bad thing).

If you haven't heard, Saturday Writers' members can enjoy a full hour of reading bliss this year before certain meetings.  We've added our Works-In-Progress Discussion Group to the roster of many of our meetings. You can sign up to read for a few minutes and have your piece discussed, (only if you want us to discuss it), and you can listen as other folks read their work as well. All of which is beneficial to you as a writer.

The discussion group meetings are for members-only and are totally voluntary. They are not part of our regular meetings. Read our guidelines here before you come to the first Works-In-Progress Discussion Group on February 25 at 10:00. Our regular meeting will begin at 11:00 in it's normal fashion (except you'll already have an awesome seat!).

Basket Wars! Open mic night! Logo contest! MWG Conference!

Lots of things are blowing in fast, so be prepared. Submit your idea for a logo by February 15th, then vote for our new logo at our February meeting. Read your works-in-progress an hour before February’s meeting, check out the guidelines. Enter monthly contests for cash and publication. Remember, the contest topics are not literal, nor genre specific, but more like prompts, so let your imagination go wild! Just tie the theme in and keep to submission guidelines.

Basket Wars is on!

Our theme for the auction to be held for Missouri Writers’ Guild Conference is “Around the World in 80 Days.” Please consider a donation of travel type items, or a monetary donation which can be pooled to purchase such items. Think travel magazines or subscriptions, photo books of popular locales, exotic postcards, stationary & stamps, journals, a calendar, fancy pens, photo album, a neck pillow, face mask, mints. Imported edibles can be accepted if in original wrapping and non-perishable. We hold the trophy for raising the most money last year, and want to keep it! Ask Becky Povich (writergal53 at gmail dot com)for more ideas and bring items in by the March 24^th meeting.

Open Mic Night!

Join many Saturday Writers' members and the rest of the neighborhood at Sage Books,  a brand new independent dealer of an eclectic mix of new, used and old books, for Open Mic Night in St. Charles, Missouri! High Hill Press (Lou Turner) sponsors this event on Friday, February 3, 2012 from 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.  Read your fiction or nonfiction with a ten minute limit. If you have books to sell bring them - the owner will display and sell local authors!

 

Write Time! Write Place! Write Now!

Take a new look at the MWG conference blog for some really great giveaways and the latest updates. There are still discounted rooms available but the great thing about this year’s venue is that most of you are close enough to drive home overnight, saving the cost of a room if you prefer.