December Meeting Minutes

East Beach Writer’s Guild
Minutes from the December 13, 2013 Meeting

Meeting called to order at 9:15 at the home of Randi Klein.

Kudos of those in attendance as follows:

o   Mary-Jac—Has been writing/editing 30 minutes a day

o   Mike—The proofs for his new release, The End of Free Will, are in the mail!  He has been learning social media in order to promote. You’ll soon be able to order your copy.

o   Pat—The December starter sentence (be sure and read it…see link at the end of the minutes) helped him move forward with his current WIP, so has put his new project on hold while he returns to his original.

o   Randi—She has self-published a short story “Grandpa’s Glasses” printed on canvas paper as a Christmas gift for her granddaughter.

o   Sally—Showed an advanced copy of Virginia is for Mysteries, (to be released by Koehler Books on January 2, 2014).  It includes her short story, “Best Friends Help You Move the Body.”  A book release will be held January 11, 2014, at the East Beach Sandwich Company where 6 of the 14 contributing authors will be in attendance to sign the book.

New Business:  Congratulations to Mike Owens on his upcoming release! 

Old Business:

o   Books collected for the Toys for Tots are as follows:

Ø  The Screaming Staircase, a Lockwood & Co. adventure, by Johathan Stroud;

Ø  The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates, a Magic Marks the Spot book by Caroline Carlson (according to the contributor, you CAN judge a book by its title!);

Ø  Once Upon a Time, Y’all: Southern Origin Stories “How Mister Turtle Got His Shell” and “Why The Mockingbird Has Many Voices” by Lisa C. Ray (accompanied by a wonderfully soft stuffed turtle);

Ø  A Dr. Seuss Board Book collection which included “ABC The Amazing Alphabet Book”, “I’ll Teach My Dog A Lot of Words”, “ The Alphabet Book”, and “Go, Dog. Go!”

Ø  Dr. Seuss’s What Was I Scared Of?;

Ø  If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” by Laur Numeroff;

Ø  Great Illustrated Classic The Secret Garden  by Frances Hogdson Burnett;

Ø  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain;

Ø  The Nutcracker by E. T. A Hoffman;

Ø  The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

These books will be dropped off at the Toys for Tots bin at the East Beach Porch Walk on Sunday.  Thanks to the generous donations of the EBWG members, there will be lots of smiling faces on Christmas morning!

o   Library Reorganization will take place in early 2014.  More information at the January meeting.

o   Upcoming Meetings:

Ø  January 17  will be our first critique session.  Submit 5 pages in manuscript format (which is double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 pt font, 1 inch margins) to EBWG2013@aol.com (the guild email address) by January 8.  In the interest of time, only the first 5 submissions will be critiqued.  Once submitted, they will be sent to all the members in the group.  Then we’ll each take our pens and, using things that MJ will teach  as part of today’s program, critique the submissions.  Then we’ll bring our critiques to the next meeting and discuss what we thought and share with the author. 

Ø  February 14 - Invited Guest speaker Jim Warren, published author from Northern Virginia, who has written multiple articles for professional magazines.  He is also writing a novel and has a concept for a children's book.  His presentation will be about writing and getting published in magazines.  He is a retired Navy Commander and Gina’s brother.

Ø  March 21—Invited guest speaker Shelia Buff, professional editor and published writer,  http://sheilabuff.com/.

Ø  April 18—second quarter critique session.

Starter Sentence:  This month’s starter sentence was…”The tree we bought smelled great…” 

o   Again, some great submissions!  You can read them at http://eastbeachwritersguild.blogspot.com/p/starter-sentences.html

              For those of you who weren’t in attendance (or forgot them or didn’t do them yet or wrote the wrong month…please send your musings to EBWG2013@aol.com so they can be posted and shared with the world.

o   January Starter Sentence:  “The forecast calls for snow…”  So go on, get writing!

The meeting was adjourned, and the program turned over to Mary-Jac O’Daniel who gave a fabulous presentation on how to critique, and then we did a hands-on critique for practice.  The handout Mary-Jac provided is posted separately on this blog.

Respectfully submitted,

Sally Parrott, writing as Jayne Ormerod