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Family and Friends is my everyday journal. Captain's Log is where I pontificate on religion and politics.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Name in the paper

I attend Southwest Writers Workshop every month to meet and greet a large number of writers in this area, they have monthly competitions and an annual competition on 33 different genres. Each meeting has a guest speaker and I've written a number of posts where what one of these speakers has said inspired me in one way or another.
Another writers group I go to sometimes is Writers 2 Writers. It meets on the second Monday of every month from 6:30 to 7:30 at a west side Hastings, and though I always intend on going most of the time I hit my self in the head just before I go to bed that night and say, "Oh shit, I forgot again."
About four months ago I told David Correll, who coordinates the group I'd give a presentation. Last night was when I gave it on how to write a hook. When I got there David was really happy. He'd tried for years to get the local paper to say something about these meetings and Sunday's paper had a one paragraph blurb in the living section, last page with the book reviews mentioning that I would be speaking. I'd read the paper, even read the book reviews, but the right hand column that listed book signings and other things I skipped. When I got home I looked at the page again, read that column and sure enough pm Prescott (sic) was mentioned. Did the paper think my initials reflected the fact that the meeting was held in the evening? Oh well, at least they spelled it right.
It was an enjoyable evening. I gave a hand out on what makes good hooks, explained the time I showed Optimus to a Zondervan editor how he cut my first paragraph to ribbons which opened my eyes to why a good hook is so important. A number of those who came (around twelve) shared their first page. They had lots of questions and I even had a handout of cliche opening sentences for them to practice writing a hook from. Unfortunately no one wanted to buy one of my books. The problem with writers groups like this is that they all have a book to sell, but are not all that interesting in buying.

2 comments:

grandma1 said...

Sorry, I missed it. It sounds like a good evening. I missed it in the paper also, and unfortunately I dumped the paper.

Mom

Unknown said...

If you were local, I would have attended P M. I'll have to look into your book as well to add to my reading list. Good for you, showing up! You surely affected someone there in attendance positively!