Inspiration took form in the idea of a Freddy Words Camping Trip this summer.

If there is an interest in doing this, we should plan ahead! 

Tish

Also, feel the epicness:

Dear Twilight Fans,

Thank you for making us look sane.

Sincerely,

The Trekkies

(Notes by Tish and Yolande)

Hi Everyone,

Justin here – I just wanted to say that I’ve finally finished transcribing, polishing, and uploading the copious amount of notes I made during the 2009 Maritime Writer’s Workshop at UNB. I’ve already sent out the file as an attachment to the FreddyWords list serv, but for anyone else interested, I’ve included a download link to the notes here.

I know it’s been a long time since the workshop, but I found much of the advice and tips there highly useful, especially on how to make a good first impression with your writing.

Download from Box.net

Workshops

World building

Organizer: Jackie
Date: Late July
Subject: planet, setting
FW only

Poetry

Organizer: Mare
Date: Late May

By default workshops will be Freddy Words and friends only

24-Hour Write-in

Date: August 14
Places to check out:
- Lakeview lnn and Suites
- UNB

• pros: less expensive
• con:no food

- Fredericton Inn

• pros: great location,
• cons: no food.
• $400

- Killarney Lake Lodge

• pros: bus, bbq, swimming

- Ramada Inn

Proceeds go to NaNo

Volunteers:

• Publicity-Yolande
• Money-Jeannie
• Saint John Rep-Mary
• Campus Rep-Mare

Announcements

• Logo Done
• Memoir restart in June

Spring Events Suggestions

- Publishing Workshop – should we reschedule?
- Wii Party – Susan
- Twilight-riff tracks – Justin
- Eclipse Party
- DVD party (various TV shows/movies) – Yolande
- Post Wedding Party – Jeanie
- Write In Last Weekend in May at Yolande’s
- WFNB workshop (mid-May)
- silly exercise day – Susan
- Online write in * invite sister group in Illinois
Monday, April 26, 7-9pm – Susan

Priority for FW events this spring:
- Online write-ins (various hosts, Mondays from 7-9)
- In-person write-ins once per month

Next Meeting: May 1, 2-4pm
at Yolande’s

Mailing list

- Add help message to unsubscribe
- Show how to edit messages

New member process

- Need a referral from an active member
- Attend event
- Then join mailing list, website, etc

Workshop-Mentorship

- Confirm with Yolande a couple of weeks in advance
- New workshop leaders should seek guidance from members who’ve done a workshop before
- People who have already run a workshop:
Jarod, Yolande, Mary, Jeannie, Amanda.

For next meeting:

- Determine location for 24-Hour Write-in (Aug. 14-15)
- Decide rates and start pre-reg
- Then Yolande and Mare will start publicity

We had 7 people at the meeting, and we discussed the upcoming writing retreat and some NaNoWriMo news.

Writing Retreat (Aug. 9)
We decided to arrive at 8:30 a.m. We seem to be set for food and drinks, and we acquired more chips at the meeting, which Justin will bring to the retreat. We did collectively decide that the food listing is seriously deficient in quantities of chocolate, so if you can help us out, please do.

We figured out drives, and two people will bring extra extension cords and power bars since there are limited outlets there.  Next meeting we’ll discuss what worked and what didn’t work in preparation for the NaNo retreat (Sun, Nov. 9).

National Novel Writing Month (November)
We decided to add a mid-October “How to Succeed at NaNo” workshop that Mary will lead as long as she gets lots of help.

We announced our tri-city sisterhood with Peoria, Illinois, and Gainesville, Florida. We’ll try to do some activities in real time with them, and we’ll have many tri-city word wars (to see which city can write more in one hour!). This means  a lot more motivation and fun for us, as well as TONNES more online write-ins (they will be invited to ours; and us to theirs). Yay!

We may also have a “frenemy” pairing-up program, where you’re paired up with someone from the other cities in order to challenge each other to write more. Also to have a target for your smack talk. There will be plenty of smack talk.

Future Meetings
The next memoir meeting is Thursday, August 13, from 6-9 p.m. Location TBD. Please RSVP at freddywords@gmail.com if you plan to come.

The next Freddy Words general meeting is Tuesday, August 18, from 7-9 p.m. Location: On the North side! We will be meeting at the King’s Place bus stop area at 6:30 to take the bus together. Please RSVP at freddywords@gmail.com if you plan to come.

This is a placeholder until notes are posted. Mainly we cancelled our involvement in the women’s festival – not enough people to staff a table all day – and talked about the writing retreat. And we did speed editing, of course, which went very well. Five people in attendence.

Exercises based on “Writing Picture Books” by Ann Whitford Paul. I have modified  the exercises for more general writing, but there is still a heavy slant towards fiction.

Step 1: Write an Opening

Roughly 250-500 words.  I want to call this a paragraph, but I’ve seen opening paragraphs that are only one word long.  You need a little bit of meat to be able to do these exercises. You will be using this for all the exercises, so try not to write something that will annoy you.

Step Two: Point of View

Rewrite your Opening in at least 2 different POV:

a. Third Person, single POV
b. Third Person, different POV Character
c. Narrative Voice, multiple POV
d. First Person
e. First Person, different character
f. First Person, like a letter
g. First Person, like a diary
h. Second Person

Step Three: Setting

Rewrite your Opening

a. Change the time
b. Change the location
c. Change to verb tense
d. Change the characters (People to animals, animals to aliens, Fantasy to Sci fi)

Step Four: Tone

Rewrite your Opening at lease twice using a different tone

a. Funny
b. Scary
c. Epic
d. Romance
e. Thriller
f. Mystery

Step Five: Character Study

For each character, decide the following:

a. Name
b. Age
c. Appearance
d. Relationships
e. Personality

Bonus:
f. What has brought the character to this point in the start of the story?
g. What does the character want?

Step Six: Strong Opening

I like this step, it uses colours!

Print out your Opening and mark it up with the following colours:

a. RED – Who is the main character?
b. YELLOW – What does the main character want?
c. GREEN – When is the story taking place?
d. BLUE – Where is the story taking place?
e. PURPLE – What is the tone of the story?

BONUS STEP: Poetry!

Rewrite your Opening as a poem.  (or at least pump up the poetical phrasing)

a. Rhythm
b. Rhyme
c. Alliteration
d. Assonance, consonance
e. Onomatopoeia

Have Fun!

Susan

(Notes by Justin. 4 people in attendance.)

Opening Question – Ideas for Women’s Festival?
- Suggestions: potential crafts? selling books? homemade jewelry, NaNoWriMo promo materials
- Two people needed per shift (have to be women) – not enough if only 3 of us
- Likely just half-day then (noon-6pm);  if so, space for vendor table not guaranteed;  may not be a major problem if space isn’t available anyway

Rescheduling of Aug. 1st meeting to Aug. 4 (7-9 pm) to allow for long weekend
- Justin hosting (!)
- Need to send email with address reminder for time/date/place/food

Online Write-In for Aug. 9th accidentally scheduled for same day as writing retreat; write-in scrubbed

Online Write-In tomorrow (July 4th) via IRC; check FB invite

- Mary, Jarod set up as mods for chat room as NaNo prep

July 21st: Speed Editing FreddyWords meeting
- bring 2 pgs. of work
- edit for 10 minutes
- 6-9 pm (extended from 7-9)

Maritime Writers Workshop – next week
- Thursday: memoir workshop
- reading @ bar at hotel besides Beaverbrook Art Centre
- meet up of FW group there

Editing groups going well; writerly is very happy about this!

General Swapping of Twitter Usernames?

Writing Exercises?
- for Tuesday, Aug. 4th: “Ghost”
- need to do more writing, reduce chattiness (some people would like more emphasis on writing exercises)

I put this list of working definitions together for the brand spankin’ new memoir group.  I was surprised to have such a hard time tracking down explanations of these terms, so these are an amalgam of my own knowledge and what I have been able to find. Feel free to discuss these in the comments!

NON-FICTION

1. CREATIVE NON-FICTION (CNF) is non-fiction which uses the literary devices of fiction to tell a story. According to Wikipedia, CNF is “a genre of writing truth which uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives. Creative nonfiction contrasts with other nonfiction, such as technical writing or journalism, which is also rooted in accurate fact, but is not primarily written in service to its craft.” Examples of CNF include memoir, autobiography, personal essay, travel writing, biography, and literary journalism.

The journal Creative Non-Fiction explains that the term “‘creative nonfiction’ precisely describes what the form is all about. The word ‘creative’ refers simply to the use of literary craft in presenting nonfiction—that is, factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid manner. To put it another way, creative nonfiction writers do not make things up; they make ideas and information that already exist more interesting and, often, more accessible.”

Links:
- A good description of the genre of CNF
- More detail on CNF
- An interesting essay on CNF

2. A MEMOIR is a thematic slice of the writer’s life. An AUTOBIOGRAPHY is a chronological description of the writer’s entire life. Both are sub-categories of “creative non-fiction.” Again, from Wikipedia: “While an autobiography typically focuses on the ‘life and times’ of the writer, a memoir has a narrower, more intimate focus on his or her own memories, feelings and emotions.”

Links:
- More information on memoir

FICTION

3. An AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOVEL is “a novel based on the life of the author. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction. Because an autobiographical novel is partially fiction, the author does not ask the reader to expect the text to fulfill the ‘autobiographical pact.’ Names and locations are often changed and events are recreated to make them more dramatic but the story still bears a close resemblance to that of the author’s life. While the events of the author’s life are recounted, there is no pretense of exact truth. Events may be exaggerated or altered for artistic or thematic purposes.” (Source: Wikipedia.)

Examples of autobiographical novels can be found here. Autobiographical novels need not follow the form of non-fiction autobiographies; these should read as fiction novels, but be enhanced by the fact that the story is based on the author’s life (usually the protagonist is modeled on the author and the events in the book resemble ones in the author’s life).

I could not find any useful links to further explain an autobiographical novel or autobiographical fiction. This is the best link I found.

Once you have your head around those working definitions, you could move on to reading these articles (which might further confuse you and/or enhance your understanding of the terms and genres):

1. “An Interview With Creative Nonfiction Writer Phillip Lopate”

Choice quotes:

“The reason I read nonfiction is to follow an interesting mind… I’m arguing more for reflective nonfiction where thinking and the play of consciousness is the main actor.”

I like his thoughts on the writing process: “It is very much like working with a lump of clay. You’re trying to form it into a statuette. Will it fall over, or will it stand? If at least you complete the process, you complete the arc, then you know that you pulled it off on the simplest technical level. Then you have to try to make it better. You go over and over, revising, and then you come to the point where you say, ‘I’m done.’”

2. “An Interview With Writer Robin Romm”

Choice quote:

“Q: Your relationships with your father and boyfriend play a central part in this memoir. How did you navigate the tricky business of writing honestly, yet remaining respectful of those relationships?
A: This was a giant task. I was angry with my mother for dying and I was angry with the people in my life who couldn’t help me. Which was everyone. How do you express this rage without compromising love? I wrote and rewrote these two men, searching for a way to make anger respectful. I guess I settled on critiquing myself rather than them. That’s how I managed the complexity.”

ETA: More thoughts I’ve come across on memoir (actually the first one is good general writing advice!):

• Great suggestions on how to digest feedback from writing groups (and any feedback in general, really).

• Interesting article on the James Frey affair and related controversies.

In the article, the author says that disclaimers in memoirs are okay when they:

1. protect identities
2. suggest that the author’s memory is imperfect
3. note that omissions have been made for narrative economy

• More on fake memoirs, a little more optimistic.

• A humourist’s guide to faking your memoir without getting caught. I like what the author says about “emotional truth.” Hee.