Monday, March 21, 2011

Meeting Minutes, March 20, 2011

We had a small group due to the March Break and other stuff. Thank you to those who attended.

Kelli read her rejection letters from Harper Collins Canada and Scholastic Canada. They both told her they don't accept unsolicited manuscripts but one read her story regardless. Pat said she believed Kelli's query letter indicating the story was based on her own experience played a role in that. Members gave Kelli advice about checking publisher websites for their guidelines and recommended websites writersdigest.com and writing.com for information.

A question arose that no one had an answer for. If anyone knows, please feel free to share. Kelli submitted to Harper Collins Canada. Would it be okay to submit separately to Harper Collins U.S.? In any case, can you submit to a company AND their sister company in the U.S.?

Joe read an article he wrote 15 years ago about his visit to an Istanbul marketplace which was published in Roots Magazine. Though the marketplace was well described, Clare said he felt the smells and sounds were missing. Joe said he was writing to a specific market.

Judy read a poem, "Mother", she plans to present at an event at Alton Mills the first weekend of May. (I checked Alton Mills website but couldn't find an event fitting this category). When asked about "Fat and Other F Words" Judy said she is considering self-publishing.

Pat has been busy with various deaths in the family but promised to writing something about her aunt's last days.

For prompts Pat, a fill-in leader for a fill-in leader for a fill-in leader, chose to do Dictionary Dip. Since there was no time to advise people to bring a dictionary for this purpose, she did her own dipping and came up with the following words:

glamorous
being
huddle
erode
roman
ponderous
beseige
account
heavy
heart
cubic
release
scroll
steep
tidy
ovation
fame
cinch
junk
cotton
liquid
immortal
odds
red
descend
jug
fitness
phobia
indian
flicker

The idea is to take one word and write about it - prose, poem or whatever.

Of course Judy circled the words beginning with "f" and chose to write about fame and, of course, was able to include many other "f" words.

Clare used the words heavy, release and flicker about an experience with "heavy" luggage in an airport.

Ron used all but one word - fitness.

Ashley used the words fame and ovation.

Kelli wrote about the word fitness, inspired by a conversation she had with her doctor.

Pat used all but 3 words - fitness, cinch and ponderous.

Pat urged members to post their exercise on the blog. I also recommend that this be done more often, where appropriate.

The next meeting is Sunday, April 3rd. Clare will be leading. Hopefully Diane will be back to take notes. She does a much better job.

2 comments:

Diane Bator, Author & Book Coach said...

Great job on the minutes, Pat! I feel like I was there. Looking forward to getting some time to take on the prompt challenge later this week. Kudos for doing double duty as leader/secretary.

Laura said...

BubbleCow (terrific blog) has been doing a series of posts on publishers that accept submissions without agents. http://bubblecow.co.uk/blog/