Posted by: Sally Charette | 03/16/2010

Bo’s Cafe Life – by Wayne Pollard

Bo’s Cafe Life

by Wayne Pollard

Bo’s Café Life is about the writing life, its joys and its frustrations. It is loosely based on my experiences. Other writers relate to it because they can see themselves in the strip. They see the joy of getting a piece published. They also see the blues that comes from constantly dealing with rejection.

Like Bo, I spend a lot of time writing in cafés. I go to a café nearly every day and there are two things I know for sure. First, never have two large coffees and a bran muffin before sitting on an hour-long bloggers panel. Second, cafés are not just about the coffee. I write in cafés because they make me feel more creative. And if I don’t feel more creative, at least I look more creative.

Just prior to creating Bo’s Café Life I was feeling down because another agent had decided not to represent me. I wasn’t surprised; I had written a satire about the civil rights movement that guaranteed I wouldn’t get a book deal. I was sitting in a café, telling my frustrations to a chai latte and a blueberry muffin, when the idea of writing a comic strip that takes place in a café hit me.

I’ve always liked reading about the relationships between famous writers, such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wanted to capture some of this, but with humor.

Although Bo’s Café Life is about relationships, it is primarily about determination and persistence; Bo is determined to get a book deal.That’s what the strip is really about, pushing on with a dream despite the tremendous odds you face. One thing you can be sure of is that Bo will keep writing and trying to get a book deal.

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Posted in The Writing Life, writing | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 03/09/2010

Pulling in the Welcome Mat : Public vs. Private Writing Groups by Peggy McCarthy



Pulling in the Welcome Mat:  Public vs. Private Groups

by Peggy McCarthy

I was initiated into writing groups in a public library, and noted that the attending local writers fell into two main camps: some offered intelligent, thoughtful critique. Others explained away critique and reciprocated minimally, with mainly negative comments. I wasn’t sure the level of critique was directly proportionate to the quality of the writing, but that became a moot point when the group disbanded after only a few meetings, the more capable writers having fled.

At college, in the setting of writing classes and juried workshops, the forum was limited to serious members who subjected themselves to the discipline and guidance of a higher authority. These groups worked especially well when led by a caring professor or visiting author.

From one of those classes a private writers’ group formed, based on the gentle formula of a respected writing professor who advises students to engage in observation, analysis, and finally evaluation, in that order. The members of that group came to know each others’ stories and styles, and we improved each other’s’ writing.

When that group disbanded after several years, I founded a county-wide group at the public library. I understood the risks of open meetings, but those of us who work to give thoughtful, detailed critique began to feel used by authors who claim inexperience as a shield from behind which they not only refute critique, but also claim immunity from offering critique. I was seen as the leader and they probably would not have met without my input, so I continued. But the group was more a public service than a valuable source of mutual support for writers.

The evolution of this group from public to private solidified my appreciation of private groups.

When we moved out of the library and into my home, everything changed. I wouldn’t have guessed how much. It’s been over a year, and I now enjoy the writers, look forward to their work, and value their comments. Those of us working on long-term projects recently formed an online group to supplement our monthly face-to-face meetings with submissions and critique.

What made this difference? It’s not the pot of tea. Surely not my domineering messy computer table that sort of squats in the dining room.

Initially I set the tone and a few rules, the main one being: everyone critiques. I place pens and scrap paper in the center of the table (inside the circle of mismatched mugs) with the advice to take notes, because there is no excuse for silence. I sometimes share an article on character or plot, or invite everyone to consider a specific aspect of the readings. I’ve suggested that we especially notice setting, character development, or the use of sensory detail, for example. I employ my experience as a substitute teacher and insist on considerate, thoughtful comments—no pot shots. I remind us all on a regular basis that our purpose is to encourage each other.

But the major change is the fact that the flow of newcomers has slowed. Writers now discover this group in a much less public way —certainly not through an announcement that Everyone Is Welcome. Each of us thinks seriously before inviting a guest. The key factor may be our shared sense of protective ownership.

Pulling in the Welcome Mat has made us selfish in a very positive way.

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Posted in The Writing Life, Writing Groups and Workshops | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 03/02/2010

The Dialogue of Everyday Life by Mary Casey

A cup of coffee offers the perfect blind when stalking dialogue inspiration.


The Dialogue of Everyday Life

by Mary Casey

You might call me a professional eavesdropper. I was always taught – and now teach – that the best way to learn the craft of writing dialogue is to listen to how people speak.

As any playwright will tell you, dialogue is especially important in the short play form. Ten-minute plays, five-minute plays, even one-page plays. There is no time for dawdling in the short play. The form demands a tightly structured story, a clear point of attack and dialogue that moves the story along while telling us about character and place.

I overheard a wonderful opening line for a ten-minute play the other day. A man and a woman were sitting at a table at a funky-couch coffee house in downtown L.A. Suddenly my ears tuned in to the woman saying, “And that’s where you put the log line, right there.”

This seemingly banal dialogue does everything that’s asked of it: it establishes a mentor/student relationship; it suggests that the mentor is a bit pushy or at least unsure of the acuity of the student (was it really necessary to add, “right there”?); it lets us know immediately we are either watching screenwriters or people who know how to pretend to be screenwriters (how many poets do you know who write brief summaries of their work using a hook?); and it hints to us that, yes, the setting is very likely the greater Los Angeles area (true, you might talk about log lines in Wichita but not with such casual abandon).

Who knew one line of dialogue could carry ten times its own weight?

Not that I typically use overheard dialogue verbatim. Sometimes it just clues me in to different speech rhythms. False starts are a study in and of themselves. “Geoff is, well… let’s just say, Geoff really knows his stuff. And he’s great to listen to.” My immediate question was of course, What was she going to say before she stopped herself? Geoff is, well…what? Geoff is an insufferable pain in the ass but really knows his stuff? A womanizer and libertine but one who’s great to listen to?

The false start is always filled with elusive meaning. Now Geoff, in this case, was a respected academic about to address a room full of people. He does indeed really know his stuff and, on occasion, is great to listen to. So the false start may well have been innocent. But my, how it does give us pause.

Much has been made lately of the change in aural communication in public space because of the ubiquity of cell phones. And I have to concede the phenomenon has had an effect on my data collection. I often walk past people on cell phones now who seem to be having the most mundane conversations – confirming schedules and chores, calling to say hi, or just being monosyllabic. All virtually worthless for stage dialogue unless you hang with the absurdists.

Sometimes, however, the loss of privacy in public space can produce some odd overheard communication. Like a recent bus passenger on a cell phone who was helping initiate her younger sister into the rite of menstruation. Which was quickly followed by a second monologue to the passenger’s boyfriend retelling the rite of passage. Even a dialogue hound like me has to concede that with this loss-of-privacy thing, we’ve definitely crossed over to TMI.

So, for better or worse, apparently technology and our hectic modern lives have not completely robbed us of the possibilities of overheard conversations. Not that I’m eavesdropping exactly. Just, well…listening hard.

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Posted in Sources of Inspiration, The Writing Life, writing | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/28/2010

2010 Summer Workshops from The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley

The Community of Writers at Squaw Valley Announces its 41st Annual Summer Workshops

Poetry Workshop: July 17 to 24, 2010
Fiction and Non-Fiction Workshops: August 7 – 14, 2010
Screenwriting Workshop: August 7 – 14, 2010

The Squaw Valley Community of Writers is a literary organization that holds several week-long gatherings of poets, writers, and screenwriters every summer in the Sierra ski area of Squaw Valley. Applications are now open for writers who wish to attend.

The oldest writers conference in the Western United States, it was founded in 1969, a time when the Sewanee and Breadloaf writers conferences – in Tennessee and Vermont, respectively – were the principle venues for young writers seeking instruction and fellowship. Today, the Squaw Valley workshop has enjoyed for many years a prestige equal to those older institutions’. Alumni of the Community of Writers include Pulitzer Prize-winners Michael Chabon and Richard Ford, bestselling novelists such as Anne Rice, Janet Fitch, Alice Sebold, and Amy Tan, and many others of today’s well-known literary artists. Poets who have gone on to publish include Kazim Ali, Molly Fisk, and Evie Shockley to name just a few. The workshops are convened in the belief that inexperienced writers can help each other to prosper by sharing the lore and craft of writing, by seeking the advice of better-established authors, and in particular by close textual criticism of their own stories and poems and screenplays.

The institution was founded over four decades ago by California writers Blair Fuller and Oakley Hall, because they wished to foster a literary culture in the West that would be conversant with the publishing establishment of the East Coast. New York had always dominated the literary scene, and Fuller and Hall, as Californians, felt that the West Coast had been somewhat left out in the cold. It’s a testament to the success of their vision that now the West is a home to many of the most eminent American writers, many of them friends and former students of the Community.

Squaw Valley, near Lake Tahoe, was the site of the 1960 Olympic Games – today a world-class ski area – and in the summers it serves as a destination resort for hikers, bicyclists, and outdoor enthusiasts of all kinds. The participants in the Community of Writers live in ski-cabin housing during the weeks of conferences, and convene for workshops in public buildings under the aegis of the Squaw Valley USA ski corporation, which generously furnishes its premises.

This year, the staff for the poetry week will include Kazim Ali, Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, Evie Shockley, Dean Young , and Special Guest Lucille Clifton. There are morning workshops in which the poets read to each other the work of the previous twenty-four hours. In the late afternoons the poets gather for a lecture on some aspect of the craft of poetry. http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/poetry_ws.htm

The teaching staff of the prose program includes literary agents and editors as well as dedicated writers. These include Mark Childress (Crazy in Alabama), Glen David Gold (Carter Beats the Devil), Sands Hall (Catching Heaven), Al Young (former California Poet Laureate); and new staff writers Teresa Jordan, (Riding the White Horse Home), ZZ Packer (Drinking Coffee Elsewhere), Luis Alberto Urrea (The Hummingbird’s Daughter). Guest include Diane Johnson (Le Divorce), Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones), and Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club). Mornings are devoted to close criticism in small groups, conducted by the writers and agents and editors on staff; afternoons are turned over to public lectures and panels, concerning the techniques of writing as well as the ins and outs of the publishing business. It is the philosophy of the workshop administration that, as writing is a business as well as an art, a working familiarity with commercial publishing is useful to aspiring writers. http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/writers_ws.htm

The instructors for the screenwriting section may include Pamela Gray (Music of the Heart), Christopher Monger (The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down A Mountain), Judith Rascoe (Eat a Bowl of Tea), Tom Rickman (Coal Miner’s Daughter). The Screenwriting Program focuses on individual attention and work-in-progress, by staff screenwriters and writer/directors. Film clips, lectures and writing exercises are incorporated into daily workshops emphasizing all aspects of craft. This program invites both narrative features and character-driven documentaries. http://www.squawvalleywriters.org/swriter htm _ws.

The experience of the week can be a challenging one, for ambitious artists who are exposing their work to the view of their fellows. The convention is devoted to some fun, too, as there is plenty of recreation in the Tahoe area, and it’s meant to an informal community. At the end of prose week, by which time a camaraderie has grown among the participants, an informal pageant known as The Follies is performed, where guitars are dragged out, or saxophones or violins, or even fright-wigs, as skits and other performances allow participants to blow off a little steam built-up over an arduous week.

All interested writers and poets are encouraged to apply. No prior publications or academic credits are required; the only criterion for admission is that the applicant submit a sample of his or her original writing, which is evaluated by a panel of judges on the basis of literary merit only. Admissions are competitive, as the ratio of applicants to acceptances is an average of 4-to-1. Some financial aid is available.

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Posted in The Writing Life, Writing Groups and Workshops

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/23/2010

Rescuing Your Orphans by Ruth Goring

If Keats had written in a diner, it might have looked something like this.

Rescuing Your Orphans
A (revisable) checklist for revising poems

by Ruth Goring

In the last year or so I’ve been dumpster-diving in my poetry file, opening poems written years ago and spiffing up some of them to submit to journals and contests. Some have proceeded to win publication and prizes–but they could never have done it without the spiffing-up.

What do I look for when I’m revising a poem, whether I wrote it recently or years back? The other day I had fun scribbling down a list of the revision tasks I assign myself and the questions I ask of each poem.

* Highlight every abstract word (e.g., beauty, failure, hopelessness, love). Unless your work is highly philosophical (and mine isn’t), translate these terms into concrete sensory images.

Exception: An abstract word planted in an unexpected slot amid sensory images may be very startling and fresh.

* How many senses is the poem engaging? See if a smell or texture can be added somewhere.

* Are there clichés or other phrases that slide too readily into a brain-groove? Recently I wrote a poem about riding a mule in the midst of a tropical rainstorm. I pictured the sky as a dramatic diva who “dumps barrels of tears.” When I workshopped the poem, a couple of people noted that this phrase was a little too familiar. Grateful for their sharp eye, I later had fun plundering my online thesaurus to construct a more interesting phrase. I ended up with “upends great tanks of tears,” which not only is fresher but has some soundplay with the repeated n’s and t’s.

Another option is to stand a cliché on its head–make it literal or stick it somewhere it doesn’t “belong.”

* Are the verbs pungent and vivid? In the same mule poem, another poet friend pointed out that “becomes” was static and insipid (though she didn’t use that pejorative word) in a stanza filled with strong active verbs. I replaced it with “slumps into” and the stanza took on a bit of extra shine.

In a different poem, where the moon had been “tossing / its bright coins against my mirror,” I switched to a different participle: “the moon stops me, flicking / its bright coins against my mirror.” Just a little more evocative, isn’t it? Some who voted for this poem in a contest quoted those lines as favorites, and it won!

* Adverbs: Eliminate most or all.

* Adjectives: Unless your style (overall or in this particular poem) is breathlessly florid and your adjectives unusual, pare them down judiciously. Try to transfer content to verbs as much as possible. For example, you might change “His jacket was slick” to “Rain slicked his jacket.” Much cooler.

* Sounds: Where can you increase alliteration, slant rhyme, assonance, and other soundplay?

* Meter: Read the poem aloud: does it have an emerging rhythm? (Obviously I’m working in free verse here.) Is meter giving your words the appropriate weight? For example, two monosyllabic stressed words placed next to each other have great force.

* Line breaks: Where do you want the reader to pause or stop fully? Where do you want to create tension and pull her forward? Are you using enjambment, dropped lines, and end stops to full effect?

———

If you prose writers see anything useful here for your own revision process, please help yourselves–after all, we poets may be in the minority at this writer-friendly table. Are there any tasks/questions I should add to my list?

Comment below to share your wisdom, please. And hurray for thoughtful, adventurous wordsmithing!

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Posted in Poetry, Revisions, The Writing Life, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/22/2010

Hedgebrook Workshops and Residencies

Hi, Friendly Writers!

Just wanted to take a minute to tell you about these workshops that are being offered in Los Angeles.   I’ve signed up for one already.

I know a lot of you are not in the L.A. area.  Hedgebrook also offers master classes at the retreat itself on Whidbey Island, near Seattle, WA.   And, better yet, their main focus is to offer women writers the time and space to focus on their writing through 2-6 week residencies.

I spent three weeks in Oak Cottage in 2001, and believe me it is a writer’s paradise.  You are provided with 3 meals a day and a fabulous little cabin all to yourself.   Residencies are open to women from all over the world, so I encourage you to take a look, start dreaming, and then fill out an application.

All these years later, thinking about waking in my cottage, lighting a fire in the stove, writing and communing with nature and other residents opens up a little packet of joy inside me.

Check it out for yourself on Hedgebrook’s site.

Alumnae Workshops– LA

HEDGEBROOK L.A. CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS

Saturday, March 6, 2010 and Saturday, March 13, 2010

At Mount St. Mary’s College, Chalon Campus – Los Angeles, CA

Spring is almost here—why not make it a rebirth for your creative self? Hedgebrook L.A. is excited to announce two days of creative, inspiring workshops lead by industry experts and celebrated, award-winning alumnae. Meet fellow filmmakers, novelists, poets and nonfiction writers. Limber up your writing muscles and get your creative and financial houses in order. Come for a single class, or the entire day. Let Hedgebrook help make 2010 a stellar year for you! All proceeds are tax deductible and go to benefit Hedgebrook L.A.

SUGGESTED DONATION: $40 per class (general public)/ $30 (Hedgebrook Alumnae)
Any 4 classes for $120 (general public)/ $100 (Hedgebrook Alumnae)

Saturday March 6, 2010

The Writer’s Dance Class (S. Pearl Sharp), From Manuscript to Screenplay, Adapting Your Work for the Silver Screen (Romell Roster-Owens), Financial Planning for Independent Creatives (Liz Schiller), Writing Powerful Film Scenes: The Conflict in Creating Conflict (Crickett Rumley)

Saturday March 13, 2010

E-Marketing for Documentary & Independent Filmmakers (Judith Dancoff), Financial Planning for Independent Creatives (Liz Schiller), How to Keep Your Novel from Becoming a Never-ending Story (Sherri L. Smith), Balancing Act: Empowering Your Work and Your Self (Vickie Saxon)

CLICK HERE to download the complete brochure with class descriptions and more!

*********

SUGGESTED DONATION: $40 per class (general public)/ $30 (Hedgebrook Alumnae)
Any 4 classes for $120 (general public)/ $100 (Hedgebrook Alumnae)

To make payment and reserve your seat online, CLICK HERE. Please reference HEDGEBROOK LA and the workshop title(s) in the “comments” section of the donation form. If you are reserving FINANCIAL PLANNING FOR INDEPENDENT CREATIVES, please indicate in the comments your preference for a Vegetarian or Regular lunch.

Print your receipt & bring to the workshop for admission. Once you have registered, you will receive a confirmation email within one week with driving directions and parking instructions.

This series is presented by Hedgebrook’s Alumnae Leadership Council to support the professional development of creative writers.

Of course, I’m all messed up because it’s the last day of our Hedgebrook residency and I’m crying.  There’s Ruth Kozak sharing the back row with me!

p.s.  If any of you know of events/workshops/retreats in your area that you think are worth checking out, let me know!  1writerfriendly@gmail.com

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Posted in The Writing Life, Writing Groups and Workshops, Writing Retreats | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/20/2010

February Winner – Parrot Not Included

Click on  the photo for my  Olympics-quality play-by-play coverage of this month’s winner-selection event.

Congratulations to Ruth Goring, lucky winner of a copy of The Writing Group Book edited by Lisa Rosenthal!

Coincidentally, Ruth’s piece, Rescuing Your Orphans : A (Revisable) Checklist for Revising Poems, will appear on Writer Friendly on February 23rd.

My advice to anyone named Ruth who’s reading this is to be sure and enter next month’s giveaway.   Actually, that’s my advice to everyone out there.  Because this streak can’t continue…can it?

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Posted in Giveaways, The Writing Life, Writing Books, Writing Groups and Workshops, writing | Tags: , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/16/2010

They Hate to Write. They Really Hate it. Really. – by Ray Turner

Not Ray’s students, but a group of similarly reluctant teen and tween writing students.

They Hate to Write.  They Really Hate it.  Really.

by Ray Turner

My students hate me.  It’s not personal. They’d hate anyone who forced them to write. Every semester I ask them why they enroll in my class. Every student gives me the same response: This course is required for my degree.

I teach technical writing – extended definitions, instructions, mechanical descriptions, analytical reports and a little business correspondence for the softer elements of one’s workplace, for the making-excuses, requesting-assistance, and persuading-bosses everyone does now and again.

I teach for a community college. For new students, the college administers basic skills tests designed to guide them into courses they are prepared for.  It doesn’t work. Too many exemptions.  Too many accommodations. Nearly all my students should be directed to developmental writing.  Not a chance that’ll happen.

My students are budding welders, cops-in-training, junior EMTs, heating and air conditioning fixers, automobile junkies and alternative energy geeks.  These are not people who write.  Trust me on this.  They didn’t write before my class. During their long semester with me, we endure unimaginable pain as they write reluctantly and poorly. They stop writing as soon after my class as they can and I’ll give you odds most successfully avoid writing for the rest of their lives.

Many give it the old college try and they seem to learn a little about writing better. A rare student – One in 50?  One in 100? – becomes a writer.  Not a serious writer.  Not a great writer.  But a writer who won’t embarrass herself writing on the job.

Some are sincere and ready to work.  They take my lessons and work through them, asking good questions, taking good notes.  They study my comments about their work and try to apply corrections and suggestions. They want a good grade, at least to pass, and a few (I imagine optimistically) want to improve their performance at work.

My most challenging students are the few (the proud) who defiantly declare that my class is a waste of their time and they can’t understand why they have to take it.  (I can’t understand this either, but have given up trying to understand curricular decisions.)  These students are proud of their verbal disabilities.  They’d call me an elitist pedant if they had these words, but they have few useful words and are pathetic and a bit scary.

Why teach writing to students who are so unenthusiastic, so unready, and so unwilling?  I don’t have an inspiring answer.  Some of them, sometime, will realize they needn’t use the word that five times per paragraph and maybe find passive voice occasionally ineffective and one day discover a few sparkling words they love and, at the end of a meeting, courageously announce ‘I’ll write that up’ or (be still my heart) finally feel the satisfaction of using thoughts to create writing and writing to create thoughts.  But I don’t hold my breath for miracles like these.

My students are required to take my class. I am not.

I guess I continue to teach only because I like them, these unlettered, unaware and unnoticed students. They are surprisingly earnest and want a richer life as much as more literate students.  And I want them to know at least one person who likes to write and, with brio, welcomes them to the world of words, an alien planet.

They have never had a writing teacher like me: pushy, brash, profane, and unpredictable. They have never had a class like mine: rough and tumble, loaded with high expectations, awash in screaming feedback, and quick, quick so they don’t realize how hard it is.

I like to give these neglected, horrid writers a jolt to see what shakes out.  I have a blast. Maybe they do.

I know most of it doesn’t work.

17 Comments

Posted in Teaching Writing, The Writing Life, writing | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/09/2010

From the Editor’s Desk by W. Ruth Kozak

The Vancouver Sun building, where it all started for W. Ruth Kozak, who took this photograph.


After graduating from high school I went directly to a job in the newsroom of the Vancouver Sun, one of the city’s big daily newspapers. It was a dream come true. I wanted to be a crime reporter and the thrill of being accepted as a copy runner (that is, an apprentice reporter, nowadays called an ‘intern’ which back then meant someone studying to be a doctor.) I was the only girl ‘copy-boy’ working with one or two other young fellows who had the same dreams and aspirations as me.

We’d stand at our post in the centre of the big newsroom amidst the sound of clacking typewriters and bustling reporters busy at their desks banging out the day’s news. When one would shout “COPY!” I scurry as fast as I could to grab the sheaf of 8” x 6” newsprint on which the story was typed and race over to the editor’s desk. The editor would take it, scribble a few things, and minutes later yell “COPY!” and the paper would be picked up from the editor, rolled inside a tube and shoved into a pipe-like gadget that would suck it up to the composing room where the story would be typeset for printing.

What a thrilling time it was! The reporters were exciting characters to be around, all of them smoking up a storm, their coffee cups not always full of pure coffee (Often we’d discover bottles of whiskey stashed in the coke machine or filing drawers). In the midst of deadline they could be furious as angry lions and we didn’t dare tarry when they shouted “COPY!”. Once deadline was over, things would settle down, and often there were parties in the newsroom. Sometimes buckets of fresh oysters would appear, and plates of goodies and cases of beer. Even the lowly copy-runners were invited to join in.

One of the top women writers on the news desk wanted to train me for her job taking police calls and following up the stories. But the news editor wouldn’t hear of it and eventually I was encouraged to take a position in the news library. That proved interesting, because I was put in charge of the crime files and bios. And in the news library I honed my research skills.

Now, years later I find myself working as a full-time writer. And recently one of my old dreams came to pass when I was appointed “Vancouver Expert” for Planet Eye, www.planeteyetraveler.com which means I’m a kind of ‘roving reporter’ posting local news in The Vancouver Guide.

But what is also interesting is that these days, because of my own travel website, TRAVEL THRU HISTORY , I am sitting on the other side of the desk in the chair of the editor.

This week I’ve been spending quite a lot of time editing stories for my website and editing my own work, or stories from the people in the writing classes that I teach. It’s interesting being on the other side of the desk, wearing the editor’s hat. Now I understand why editors are strict about the submissions they receive, and how easy it is to get your work rejected if you are not careful to submit ‘clean copy’.

I used to wonder, when I was a kid back in the newsroom, exactly what ‘clean copy’ meant. It didn’t mean a piece of copy paper with no coffee stains or cigarette burns. It means a piece of work well written, with a strong lead, informative body and satisfactory conclusion; no spelling errors; tight sentences; clear writing.

Writers must learn to edit and send ‘clean copy’ to our editors/publisher. Never send a first draft, it will only get rejected. And accept the suggestions that are offered to you for improving your work. It’s a learning process, all part of being a writer. Eventually the self-editing becomes easier. It’s always helpful if you’re in a critique group too, because then you get fresh eyes looking at your work (but this must be through another writer’s eyes — your Mom or your best friend aren‘t likely to understand the craft of writing.) It doesn’t hurt, if you’re a novice writer, to take a few courses from the experts. You’ll learn a lot and it will help you understand the intricacies of writing. If you’re weak on grammar, get a copy of “The Elements of Grammar” by Margaret Shertzer, or Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”. And for heaven’s sake, use your spell-check or refer to a good dictionary or thesaurus!

After all these years, from those days back in the ‘50’s in the Vancouver Sun newsroom, when I was this starry-eyed, innocent kid who wanted to be a crime reporter, and spent hours at home sitting at her old Underwood typing out historical fiction novels, I am today a writer/editor with a number of publications to my credit and a new ‘job’ as a roving reporter. And one day, very soon, I’ll have my most important body of work, Shadow of the Lion completed, ready to send off to an editor/publisher and I’ll remember the rule: Send out CLEAN COPY!

10 Comments

Posted in Journalism, Nonfiction, The Writing Life, Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: Sally Charette | 02/06/2010

What’s Brewing at WF? New Market and Freebies!

Call for Submissions : The Nashville Review

First off, thanks to friendly writer Ruth Goring for sending along a call for submissions from a new paying literary market, the Nashville Review.  (Click for writer’s guidelines.)  If any of you know of new markets for our work, or would like to share publications or other sources that you’re fond of, please let me know!

Upcoming Dorothy Parker and F. Scott Fitzgerald Events in Los Angeles with Adrienne Crew.

The West Coast Dorothy Parker Society  has 2 events coming up that you
will not want to miss if you are anywhere close to the City of Angels:
Come meet fellow LA Parkerites for a no-host lunch at Greenblatt’s on
Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 1 PM. Adrienne Crew will be there to chew
the fat and talk about the Parker connections in the neighborhood.
Come with ideas for planning other Parker events this year, including
Parkerfest 2010 in October or more walking tours. Don’t miss this if
you are a Parker fan in LA; bring your friends.
Greenblatt’s Delicatessen
8017 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90046

(323) 656-0606

Also, [Adrienne is] heading a walking tour of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s West
Hollywood as part of the City of West Hollywood’s Big Read initiative
surrounding The Great Gatsby. I was hoping to encourage Parker fans to
come out and then organize a breakfast before hand or drinks after the
tour. I’m giving two 1-hour tours on Sunday March 7. Event info:
Fitzgerald in West Hollywood: A Walking Tour
Adrienne Crew, Los Angeles Liaison of The Dorothy Parker Society, will
lead an urban walking tour of places frequented by Fitzgerald during
his residency in pre-City West Hollywood.
Event Location: 8152 West Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, CA,
90069-5020 (formerly the Garden of Allah, where Parker and Fitzgerald
once lived)
Date: Sun, March 7, 2010
Time: 2:00pm — 3:30pm and 3:30pm — 5:00pm

Writer Friendly’s February Giveaway Closes on February 18th!

Don’t forget to sign up for a chance to win a copy of The Writing Group Book by Lisa Rosenthal.  Just be or become a subscriber and email me at 1writerfriendly.gmail.com   I will let you know that I have recieved your entry, so if you don’t get a response, let me know as a comment on this post.

Thanks!

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