TIP TUESDAY WOW: A GUEST POST BY AUTHOR LINDA KAY

Linda Kay (Christensen) is the author of three books in a series addressing the five stages of love. The fourth book is now in process. The themes of the books address a series of prints given to Linda’s grandmother in 1916, and bring these vintage prints into life in the current generation.

Women of Words (W.O.W)

Are you a writer or wanna-be writer? Are you looking for an encouraging group where you can share your writing and listen to others’ creations? You might be surprised at how beneficial this input can be. Thanks to Janie for allowing me to share my writers’ group with you in this guest post.

“I think that sentence would be more powerful, if you reversed the order,” said Sally, noting the paragraph in my short story. (Our fearless leader, Sally Clark is a prolific poetry writer, published in many magazines and anthologies, and the creator of a board book for children called “Where’s My Hug?” Her website: http://sallyclark.info.)

“Can you somehow clarify where your characters are in this story, so we have a better picture of their surroundings?” asked Barbara. (Barbara Loyd is a writer and an artist; her blog is “Color in Our World” on Blogger, http://colorfilled.blogspot.com.)

“It might be better to break that sentence down in paragraph three into two separate sentences,” mentioned Lynn. (Lynn has been hand writing a story in several separate spiral notebooks, reading new entries to us each week.)

“I just love this,” said Sheila. “I think you should enter it in the contest, for sure.” (Sheila Kale owned a Christian Book Store in our town for many years, and she is an avid reader and writer. She is also a life coach, helping folks find direction in their future.) Sheila’s website is http://sheilaspeakshope.com.)

We are a group of women who love to write, and are willing to hear critiques of our writings. On the second Tuesday of each month, a special meeting of the WOW group meets in a conference room at a local bank, with six to twelve women, depending on our busy schedules. At this particular meeting, we start out with a sentence challenge. Sally or someone provides the sentence, and we have ten minutes to create our story using the sentence. At the end of the time, we read these to the group, and it is usually very entertaining. Some stories lend themselves to longer ones for publishing. Our website: http://hcwomenofwords.org

After we finish this exercise, various folks who have brought something creative have a chance to share with the group for critique. These critiques are never threatening to the writer. The suggestions rather encourage the writer to think about how to improve the piece, especially for publishing. Our meetings last about two hours, beginning at one in the afternoon.

On each of the other Tuesdays in the month, a smaller group called Tuesday Writers’ Inspiration Group (TWIG) meets at the same place to share our work. The discussions range from what is going on in the community, any upcoming writing-related events coming up on the calendar, and finally the creations we have brought. Some have never yet published an article or a book, but have come to learn.

I am now working on my fourth book, all published during my years of meeting with my writer friends. Not much can interfere with my commitment to these two-hour sessions, as I have found the input from others reading my work to be very valuable. In each case, the writer reads aloud, which in itself is revealing, providing copies for others to follow along to see sentence structure and punctuation.

Sally regularly sends emails of special note. There are magazines looking for articles, special events for writers held by various Texas writers’ groups, and reminders of the meeting times and dates. When magazines are looking for specific articles, these can stimulate those words looking for a page for others to read. Find a group or create one, be diligent in attendance, and offer your own encouragement and experience to others.

You can find Linda Kay on her blog at http://senioradventureswithlindakay.blogspot.com

Women of Words meet.
Photo provided by Linda Kay.

A note from your Junebug: Thank you, Linda Kay, for sharing the story of your writing group with us. It sounds as though it's a great way to share works in progress.