October Meeting

The next meeting is planned for October 24th from 5:00-7:00pm @ Calico's. Peter Fergus Moore will be joining us that day at 5:30 so please be on time so we can go through our usual business before he joins us.

Writing Assignment - Due End October

Assignment A

IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO:

Prepare a brief biography of yourself. Include your interests, your influences and preferred genres/styles. Think of this bio as the inside flap of your published work and prepare it in a way that compels the reader to want to read your work.

Assignment B

Prepare a short story based on an emotion evoked for you by the Halloween season.

Assignment C

Review the handouts (re) Peter Fergus Moore to prepare for his presentation for October's meeting. I will email soon with questions and the order to send soon.

Assignment D

Bring in any work to be critiqued by members. Also, Teresa please write your part of the collaborative story and send on to Cedrick for the ending. Thanks.

Happy writing everyone :)

September Meeting

The next meeting is planned for Sunday, September 20th @ Calico's in the meeting room from 5:00 to 7:00pm. Hope to see everyone there :)

Writing Assignment - Due end of September

Assignment A

Create an atmosphere, a setting (max. of 3 paragraphs). Remember that 'every sentence should have an action in it somewhere', so practice creating a scene using SHOW and NOT TELL . Members of the group will try and guess the setting you have created when you read your work.

Assignment B

Bring to our next meeting a passage/piece that you consider an excellent example of prose. Be prepared to hand out the passage and to explain what makes the piece 'work' for you.

Assignment C

Cedrick will START AND END the collaborative story. Please follow this schedule for completing your addition.

Cedrick
Aug 31 / Sept 7 / Sept 14

Donna
Sept 1 / Sept 8

Jacqueline
Sept 2 / Sept 9

Margaret
Sept 3 / Sept 10

Melissa
Sept 4 / Sept 11

Stacie
Sept 5 / Sept 12

Teresa (Please send to Cedrick for the ending on Sept 14th, Thanks)
Sept 6 / Sept 13

Also, feel free to bring in more work for critique.

Happy writing everyone :)

August Meeting

The next meeting is planned for Wednesday, August 26th from 6:30pm-8:30pm at Calicos in their meeting room downstairs. Happy writing and hope to see everyone there :)

Writing Assignment - Due end of August

This month’s assignment will help with the concept of ‘show, don’t tell’, and with character development focusing on point of view. Feel free to also bring in a piece of your long term work for critique / review.

Assignment A:

Below is an example of prose that gets lost in telling. Re-work this passage by showing the italicized phrases.

Deanna and Beverly are best friends. Deanna is an ordinary fifteen-year-old who is sure of herself and very independent. Beverly, on the other hand, is a fourteen-year-old who has a very low self-esteem. She has a boyfriend who is nineteen and knows he could get away with anything because Beverly lets him do whatever he wants to do.

Assignment B:

The following is an excerpt from Snow White. Pick two of the seven dwarfs and describe the same scene but each from a different dwarf’s point of view. You should have two separate paragraphs (ie, one from Happy’s point of view, one from Sneezy’s point of view).

"Oh, heavens! Oh, heavens!" they cried, "who is this child?" and they did not wake her up, but let her sleep on in the bed.

July Meeting

Next meeting is planned for July 30th from 6:30-8:30 @ Calico's downstairs in their meeting room.Calico's is right beside the Hoito. Hope to see everyone there.

Writing Assignment - Due the end of July

First of all please email everyone in the group Exercise 1 & 2 from June Assignments. Everyone should have a chance to read your work and critique it.

This next assignment is to help with your long term project, to help you formulate the query letter and to get feedback. If you have any of these done already just bring them in as polished as you can.

Exercise #1

Prepare your pitch - write the blurb that you would want on the back cover of your book. Grab the reader's (BUYER'S) attention; captivate them to read the entire book.

Exercise #2

Prepare a brief biography of yourself. Include your interests, your influences and preferred genres and styles. Think of this bio as the inside flap of your published work and prepare it in a way that compels the reader to read your work.

Exercise #3

Bring in some work of a long term nature (ie, a chapter of your current novel, manual, poetry) - 8 copies if possible. You will have the opportunity to read your work and then distribute hard copies for comments/review.

Members who were not at the last meeting just try and get as much as you can done since you've had less notice of the assignments. Thank you.

Second meeting was held June 25th from 6:30 to 8:30 @ Calico's.

Writing assignment - due the end of June

Assignment One

Exercise #1:
Write a paragraph and/or story (maximum 500 words) told from the point of view from an ordinary object.


Exercise #2:
Draft a story (maximum 500 words) based on ONE (1) of the following themes. Feel free to use the sentence as an opening line if you prefer.
A) My hand trembled as I dialled the number.
B) As soon as he walked into the room, he knew his life would change forever.

First meeting is being planned for Sunday May 31st, 3pm - Community Room at Chapters.