A Busy Summer of Work and Pleasure

The work commenced in April. We tossed our upcoming responsibility to host the 2017 Idaho Writer's League state conference earlier, but I was worried about lining up a really good program. Others thought it was still early, but I pushed. We settled on the theme, Writer's Rendezvous, and decided a casual atmosphere went with it. As secretary, it fell to me to invite most of the workshop presenters. Several times when I thought all was set, someone dropped out and a new presenter had to be found. In the end we had an excellent program lined up.

Time	Friday, room 1	Friday, room 2	Saturday, room 1	Saturday, room2
9 am	Welcome, LaDean Messenger, Pocatello Keynote Speaker, Don Aslett		“Beginning, Developing, and Publishing Your Book” Will Peterson	“Taking It to the Road: Travel WritingTips” Natalie Bartley
10 am	“Journaling” Gary Eckhardt	“Anatomy of a Book, Including Fonts” Larry Telles		“The Craft of Poetry” Rod Miller
11 am	“Writing a Query That Sells” Heidi Taylor Gordon	“Character Presentation in Four Steps” Brett Wilson	“How to Make a Perfect Pitch” Heidi Taylor Gordon	“Marketing” Tammy Godfrey
Noon	Lunch and Writing Contest Award Presentations		Lunch and Writing Contest Award Presentations
1 pm	“What Is Creative Non-fiction?” Rod Miller	“Writing for the Screen” Sam Dunn	“Writing for Contests” Kitty Fleischman	“Self-publishing” Scott Ferrell
2 pm	“Pursuing Truth through Historical Fiction; The Assassination of Governor Boggs” Rod Miller	“Get Out! Writing for the Outdoor Market” Natalie Bartley	“Writing for the Stage” Robin Wilks-Dunn	“More Than L’Amour: Writing the West in the Twenty-first Century” Rod Miller
3 pm	Social Media Marjanna Hulet	“Finding the Writer’s Voice” Michael Corrigan	“Writing a Romance” Tammy Godfrey	“Writing Fantasy” Scott Ferrell
4 pm	Delegate Meeting (Others can rest, relax, see the town.)		Member Meeting
4:30 pm			Rest, relax, see the town
6:30 pm	Dinner on your own		Banquet Writing Contest Award Presentations Poetry Readings—Randy Mecham
2-5 pm	Heidi Taylor Gordon of Shadow Mountain Publishing will hear pitches. Sign up at registration table. There is a $20.00 fee that must be paid at sign-up.

I was right about getting started early. By the time we did, it was too late to reserve our usual venue. We wound up at Travel Lodge, more out of the way, less well maintained, smaller meeting rooms, no food service, but a lot less expensive. We were able to invite writers to attend at a greatly reduced rate. The local newspapers printed six excellent stories about the conference that brought local non-members to the conference. More members came from Northern Idaho than had ever made the trip when the annual conference was in Southeastern Idaho. But, largely due to the large and closest Idaho Falls Chapter having folded in 2016 and no success getting the Idaho Falls newspaper to carry our articles, our attendance was low--thirty-five! In 2011 we drew one hundred. Thank goodness we came out on top that time. We had funds to cover what we went behind this time.

In keeping with the theme and our invitation to gather around the rendezvous campfire, our decorations were simple and casual, a frontier campfire scene and banquet centerpieces with camp chair favors, just enough to create a little atmosphere.

I designed and made or contributed most of the items with some items contributed by Cynthia Deatherage and Lynn Mickelson.

The summer wasn't all work. Our daughter and son-in-law took us to the 2017 Southern Oregon Kite Festival near Brookings, Oregon. They came and got us, and we traveled in comfort in their 42 foot coach. The festival was fantastic--at least to me. I love kite flying. This extravaganza of indoor and outdoor kite flying is a huge pleasure for kite enthusiasts. Nine experts flew big kites inside the high school gym with no wind.

We walked more than a mile to get to the outdoor demonstration of kite flying where we saw many groups of four to nine kites flown in formation each kite in exact sync with the other as they spun, dipped, and soared in time with music. Even the decorations floated one way or another. The program lasted three hours, its climactic concluding kite, pictured below, was a life-size whale! The flying crew brought it down and rolled it into a bag right in front of where we were sitting.

Brookings is a major fishing port. The marinas were full of fishing boats with a few pleasure boats also moored. On the walk back to the coach, we bought crab right off a boat. The captain had returned at noon from his daily fishing trip. He cooked and cleaned the Humboldt crabs in front of us. This was Friday. On Monday we returned by purchase three kinds of bottom fish. What treats for inlanders.

A few days (20 August) after returning home, two of our children and their families came to stay overnight as a jumping off place for viewing the total eclipse the next day. One family traveled to a dune north of Idaho Falls. The other wanted to see it for a few seconds longer, so they took a back road north of Mackay. We settled on our driveway. I took photos with my little digital camera to make a slide show of the progress of our 98 % eclipse. It shows how the moon moved across the sun, exposing an arc that gradually progressed around the black edge from the left side of the sun, around the bottom, and ended almost at top right. It took about one hour and fifty-eight minutes and produced about a minute of dusk just past the end of the first hour. I wore my sun hat and, unlike at the kite festival where it had been forgotten, did not get a sunburn.

Yesterday our birch tree was almost completely yellow. We three or four nights of frost but not sharp freezes have turned it golden yellow with some green leaves remaining and many leaves already on the ground. Last year the first frost was sharp. The tree completely turned a breathtaking lemon yellow overnight. It was so beautiful, but I waited until the next day to take a picture of it. A wind came up in the night that stripped it clean. Yesterday the weather report forecast wind for evening, so I ran out to photograph it before any more leaves could fall. It's pretty, but not so full and bright as last year.

 So You Think You Are Writing to Shock: Think Again

Fortunately, my husband loves to listen to me reading to him.  We choose reading over what television has to offer most evenings once Jeopardy ends and on Thursdays I've seen "Doc Martin".  Wendell's taste in reading material is almost as wide as mine.  He has listened through many of Michner's thousand page ramblings.  We recently completed Chesapeake, and as a consequence know a lot more about slavery and geese.  Seven of Tom McDevitt's (a member of my writing group) short self-published adventures occupied about the same amount of our time.

Right now we are reading The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Ruark first published in 1953.  When we closed my parents' home, it was among the books no one else wanted.  We have read all those hardbacks, still have three Michners to go, and this thin volume came to my hand last evening.  A sentence on page 13 turned what promises to be a book worth reading into a valuable source of wisdom for writers: "Cussing is for emphasis. When every other word is a swear word it just gets to be dull and don't mean anything any more."

Why are contemporary writers so enamored of the "F" word?  Writers who sprinkle it throughout their novels are like the correspondent who lavishes her letters with exclamation points.  All it conveys is a dearth of vocabulary.  While reading aloud, I find that skipping the "F" word or a blasphemy has little or no effect.  We have become immune to the shock.  Saying or not saying the word goes unnoticed.  More than half a century ago, Ruark knew how over use killed shock .  Shakespeare knew it three centuries ago.  It's time today's writers learned it.

It's the 27th day of April, and it's snowing hard--big soft flakes.  The thermometer outside my back door registers 36 degrees F., and it's still melting on the concrete patio, but the grass is almost covered.  We are promised frost tonight.  We've had the sprinkling system turned on for the summer but haven't had to use it yet and hope the frost doesn't go that deep during this cold snap.  Imagine so much moisture in Idaho!

I need this time to stay indoors just now, anyway.  Pocatello Chapter Idaho Writer's League is hosting the 2017 annual conference in Pocatello on 22-23 September.  This year it will be at the Chubbuck, Idaho, Travel Lodge.  Since I'm the secretary, I'm very busy contacting prospective presenters for the 22 one-hour workshops for that conference.  So far we have workshops lined up for book art, outdoor writing, travel writing, conventional publishing, writing articles, preparing for contests, writing film scripts and play scripts, voice, journaling, and creating a book from getting it started to publication.  We're waiting on presenters for social media, sci-fi, fantasy, self-publishing, marketing, poetry, westerns, using fonts to advantage, and more.

Six years ago when we last hosted, one hundred people attended our conference from all around the state. Quite a few local writers not associated with our organization also took advantage of our invitation to participate.  We hope this year's conference will generate as much enthusiasm and participation.  We put every effort forth to make our conferences the best they can be.  Whether you are a seasoned writer with many publications to your credit or only a wannabe, you are invited.

Surely there will be no snow.

St. Patrick's Day Break from Slaving to Bring a Great Writer's Conference to Pocatello

It's St. Patrick's Day.  I have corned beef cooking and will add the carrots, potatoes, and cabbage at the appropriate time.  A shamrock door ornament has hung on my door all month, and a spray of glittery green and silver shamrocks is sitting amid the battery operated, flickery candles and ivy on the dining room table.  That's as far as our St. Paddy's celebration goes.  I've always believed the story that he drove the snakes out of Ireland, but after what I heard yesterday, I'm disillusioned.  Is it true that there never were snakes in Ireland.  Can't be.  There are snakes everywhere.  Maybe there just used to be many more than normal in Ireland.  Why not honor the saint for the sacrifices he made to carry Christianity to a distant people?  That seems enough to me.

I'm not Catholic.  It was just always fun to wear green and enjoy the traditional food.  It wasn't fun when I was a child who forgot to wear green and got pinched, a wicked tradition.  In my opinion, so is all the green beer drinking that goes on and the accidents and rioting that follow, but who am I to criticize those whose beliefs differ from mine?  I'll continue having fun on this day in my own conservative style.

This year St. Patrick's Day is a break from my labors as a member of Idaho Writer's League in searching for presenters at the conference Pocatello Chapter is hosting 22-23 September.  Anyone who reads my blog is welcome.  It will be at the Travel Lodge in Chubbck just north of Pocatello this year, and we are working hard to present a great conference at a minimum cost.  The conference will include ten workshops running at the same time as ten others, twenty-two choices for attendees to choose from.  So far we have lined up an artist to teach about illustration and book covers, writing film scripts, writing plays, writing about the outdoors, and travel writing.  We plan to add e-books, a professional publisher, self-publishing, poetry, cowboy poetry, writing fantasy, short stories, historical fiction, flash fiction, Native American writing, social media, and a three-session workshop on starting, developing, and publishing your book, writing articles.  Getting everything lined up requires many phone calls, e-mails, and in person visits.  I'm busy, and I'm not alone.  Just want you to know that something good for writers is coming up.  Check my blog for updates.

The Basic Elements of Writing

The Basic Elements of Writing

By Alice H. Dunn, 2016

            In the best writing class I took in college, the teacher said I had a “voice”.  I knew she meant it as a compliment, but I wasn’t sure just why.  Did she mean that when I wrote something, the reader could tell how I felt about it?  That was the rather indistinct idea she gave me.  I have pondered what else it might mean for the next 33 years.

            Last month at my writing group (Idaho Writer’s League, Pocatello Chapter) we had a discussion about a shared novel chapter involving where and how the writer introduced a new character.  This writer definitely has a voice, and he uses it in his own distinctive style, which is like no other.  The problem boiled down to two things: point of view and logic.  I was not satisfied that we had helped him solve the problem clearly. It wouldn’t hurt to summarize the basic meanings of a few writing terms with an eye to using what we know about them to improve our work.

Voice—To briefly answer the question with which I started this piece, voice is the way the writer’s ideas, beliefs, and opinions are exposed in his/her writing.  Voice contains and shapes the story.  The writer’s voice should also suit the story.

Logic—It’s pretty plain that even though logic may be hidden in mystery, no piece of writing ends well if logic is not eventually satisfied, case in point, Jessica Fletcher’s wind-up at the end of every Murder She Wrote installment. 

Theme—The focus of the piece of writing; what the story is about.  Consistent focus must be maintained throughout.

Style—The means by which the writer uses his/her voice, such as how he selects words and puts them in place to best suit the story.  Any writer may vary his/her style to write with local color, ornament, force, countrification, sincerity, or artifice, or poetically, or in a journalistic style, or in any other way he/she chooses to demonstrate his/her own style.

Point of View—Who tells the story.  This may be an omniscient narrator who knows and sees all and can report anything logical with the final outcome of the story even if no character knows things that are reported.  The POV may otherwise be either 1^st person or 3^rd person.  In first person, everything reported must be as the narrator sees it—I saw, I heard, I did, etc.  In third person, everything reported must be what the character telling the story sees, hears, does, etc.  Other characters can contribute information through dialogue and actions that the POV character interprets.  Only what is logical for the POV person to know at the time of the scene belongs in that scene.  In summary, the POV character brings knowledge with him/her to the scene and may learn from other characters and from observations during the scene. 

If POV changes, there must be a break or a new chapter to accommodate the new POV, and it must be a clear change.  For example, in one chapter may have one character as narrator (That means what happens in the chapter is logically known to the person through whose eyes the action is being experienced and reported, and he/she is referred to by name or a pronoun for that name.  The next chapter might be what is happening to a different character and is reported from his/her POV.)  Or sometimes when the writer has two or three characters with related things going on at the same time, their stories can be told in a parallel manner by writing different sections of the same chapter, each section from the POV of the involved character.  In summary, when POV changes, the story needs a new division, be it a clearly indicated section or a new chapter.

Person—The essence of each character.

Structure—The way the story develops with highs and lows, problems and solutions, building toward the denouement and resolution.

Sequencing—Presenting small and large events logically so that focus remains clear while creating tension and surprises that result in suspense and desire in the reader to seek the final outcome.

Genre or Type—The above elements apply to writing in any genre although much else can vary.  A genre is loosely defined as a “school of fiction”.  Some genres (not an exclusive list) to consider as to how the elements apply and what other elements might be important to them individually are briefly described below:

Romantic—stories such as Ivanhoe and Westward Ho.  This genre includes sub-genres such as adventure, heroic fiction, escape, historical fiction, western, stories about far away places, and stories that pit the noble against reality.

Romance—A beautiful young woman is saved from danger by a handsome hero.  They fall in love (and may be shown in a steamy session or two.)  Christian romance contains religious references and practices.  It is usually less steamy.

Sentimental—the story emphasizes feelings and emotions.  Classics such as Tristam Shandy and the Vicar of Wakefield are examples of sentimental literature.

Realism—Dickens, Thackery, and Sinclair Lewis wrote in this genre.  It is considered the definition of fiction: “…exhibit life in its true state… ” (Dr. Johnson, I assume Samuel.)

Naturalism—True stories told as exactly as possible.  Dreiser wrote in this school.  Detective stories are this genre.

Stream of consciousness—This genre attempts to represent the flow of ideas and images through the mind.  Virginia Wolf, James Joyce, and Collette wrote in this genre.

Fantasy—Dream world (Alice in Wonderland), not bound by the limits of real life (Gulliver’s Travels), science fiction, supernatural tales, etc.

Information for this posting came from Johnny Payne, Voice and Style; Ronald B. Tobias, Theme and Strategy; James N. Frey,  How to Write a Damn Good Novel; Hugh Holman,  A Handbook to Literature, 4^th edition; and The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4^th edition.  I also refer the reader to the excellent piece on point of view by Hemlata Vasavada in the Palouse Chapter News of the April,2016, Leagazette of Idaho Writer’s League.  It can be found at www.idahowritersleague.com.