Minutes! 11-29-11

TV Voiceover: Last time, on Drivel & Wit Chicago--

• New members! Raphael, Maggie, Lindsey, Liz
• General consensus: meeting at an apartment is highly enjoyable. There are couches. There is alcohol and food. It is quiet. What's not to love?
• Felipe read Becky's story, "Sinister Little Me." Constructive criticism ensued.
• David read Elizabeth's story "AeroMexico." Constructive criticism ensued.
• Liz sang a lovely new song. Discussion and constructive criticism of the lyrics ensued.
• We took turns reading Glenn's story "Shadows Over Eden." Constructive criticism and LOTS OF HEATED DEBATE ensued. 
• Maggie, Lindsey and Liz read part of Maggie's television screenplay. Constructive criticism ensued.
• We decided that our next meeting will be Tuesday, December 13th at 7:30 p.m. at Becky's apartment.

Post meeting, Glenn, Raphael, and I were thinking that maybe if a story is as long as Glenn's, the author could pick a part he or she wants read, or ask if any one else has a particular portion that they want to read. Not that we didn't love Glenn's story (we most certainly did!), but it did take an awfully long time to read, and it's not as though we had time to discuss every page we read aloud anyway. Furthermore, if we have more to say about longer stories, we can always discuss them online on our google group. That way the discussion can go on for all eternity. Or, you know, for as long as we want.  Please feel free to comment with your thoughts!

Before I go, here's a little blog entry I found that (humorously) details 25 reasons why people will stop reading your story. Hope you find it helpful!

Minutes! 11-15-11

Why hello there. Here are the minutes from our second meeting which was (very unexpectedly) held at L&L. Sheffield's was WAY too crowded.

• We welcomed several new members to the group: Meg, Dan, Glenn, and Andrew. And there was much rejoicing. (Yay!)
• Recap of what we decided at the first meeting for the new members.
• Meg explained the story workshopping method she learned at Columbia College. 
• We decided it would be fun to try some writing exercises from the aforementioned method.
• David read his story. Group critique followed.
• Dan read Becky's story. Group critique followed.
• Beckah read Felipe's story. Group critique followed.
• Meg read Glenn's story. Group critique followed.
• We all decided it was extremely helpful to have other people read our stories.
• As a fun, end-of-the-night exercise, we decided to take 5 minutes and write stories in response to the prompt "Cats and/or Batman." The stories turned out way better than expected. 
• Becky mentioned that the Chicago Book Expo is this weekend, in case anyone's interested.
• Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 29th, 7:30 p.m. at Becky's apartment.

Of course, I'm not putting directions to my apartment on a public website. That would just be silly. I'll let everyone know where that is through our google group. Looking forward to the 29th!

Second Meeting Tonight!

Remember everyone, our second meeting will be TONIGHT at 7:30 p.m. at Sheffield's. Beer, stories, fun! I will be wearing a gold sparkly turban so that you can easily find us. Because that's clearly the most logical way to do things. You can RSVP on Facebook here.

We are definitely going to have some new members, so get ready to expand.

See you there!

First Meeting Minutes!

Well, I am happy to say that our first meeting was a resounding success! Thanks to everyone who came.  Here's a brief overview of what we discussed:

• Tuesdays at 7:30 seem to work for everybody, so we're going to keep that as the meeting time.
• We are going to meet every other week STARTING NEXT WEEK, NOVEMBER 15TH.
• We should find more ways to advertise about the D&W Chicago. Some possibilities include: posting flyers in coffee shops, meetup.com, Beckah getting in touch with her connections at the Columbia College fiction department.
• We should try to have the meetings in other venues, preferably quiet bars. They don't always have to be in the same place.
• Simply having us read our stories aloud is difficult. Therefore, we will establish a way to post our stories on Google Docs so that we can read them before each meeting. (If the Google Docs thing doesn't work out, we'll have to do this the old fashioned way--email attachments.)
• If you want to have your story read for the next meeting, try to have it posted on Google Docs at least a day in advance.

On that note, our next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 15th, 7:30 p.m. at Sheffield's. You can identify our group by the gold sparkly turban I will be wearing. (Seriously. Keep an eye out for it.) 

Hope to see you all there! 

To keep you occupied until our first meeting...

...here are some other things you can do to start writing!

It is still early in November, so you have plenty of time to participate in NaNoWriMo! (National Novel Writing Month.) The goal: write a 50,000-word novel by the end of November. Are you up to the challenge? I think so.

Here are some writing contests whose deadlines are fast approaching:

Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition - Deadline November 15th

Glimmer Train Press Short Story Award for New Writers - Deadline November 30th

Narrative Fall Story Contest - Deadline November 30th

Don't forget, our first meeting is November 8th, 7:30 p.m. at Intelligentsia Coffee on Broadway! Bring your contest entries and we'll workshop them.  Can't wait to see you!