JUNE GUEST SPEAKER

The Northeast Texas Writers’ Organization will have Maryann Miller as guest speaker at the June meeting.

As a journalist and author, Maryann Miller has amassed credits for feature articles and short fiction in numerous national and regional publications. She has nine nonfiction books from The Rosen Publishing Group, including the award-winning Coping With Weapons and Violence in School and On your Streets. Fiction titles include Doubletake, Play It Again, Sam, Friends Forever, and her latest, One Small Victory. She also writes plays for stage and screen and has won a number of writing awards including being a semi-finalist at Sundance for a screenplay, Page Edwards Short Fiction Award, Golden Pen Award at the Southwest Writers’ Conference, and New York Library List of Best Books for Teens. Miller is currently Managing Editor for WinnsboroToday.com, an online community magazine, where she has worked for five years. She also does book reviews for ForeWord Magazine and Bloggernews.net.

Her NETWO talk is titled “Virtual Book Promotion.”

The June meeting is the meeting when we elect officers for the next year, so it is especially important. Nominations will be made from the floor, so come and nominate someone you think would be good. Anyone who would like to run for an office should ask someone to nominate them – or simply stand up and say they would like to enter their name on the ballot for such and such an office. If there is an office for which you feel you would especially be suited, don’t hesitate to volunteer to serve. If you can’t fill an office, be sure to come and vote. You

are NETWO. ?

NETWO WEBSITE

If you haven’t done so lately, check out www.netwo.org.

The Hallmark movie based on NETWO member Ginnie Bivona’s novel Ida Mae Tutweiler & the Traveling Tea Party” has had a name change. Look for “Bound By a Secret”. It’s been shown a couple of times, but will appear again. The website will keep you posted. ?

Minutes of May 2009 Meeting

Thirteen members and a guest met at the Western Sizzlin in Mt. Pleasant, Texas on May 14, 2009.

Skip Hughes presided. Bad weather kept the members from Texarkana from attending.

Old Business: Jim Callan wanted to give himself a “Chicken Little” Award for doubting that there would be high attendance for the Spring Conference. At the present, NETWO’s bank account has over $9,000. Food Service received great reviews from the critiques. The editor, Melissa Frain, and the agent, Joanna Stamphel-Volpe, were very approachable by the attendees and both stated that they would like to be invited to return.

Jean Pamplin mentioned that the conference awards should be assigned to a committee to catch people doing things throughout the year to help make our organization awesome.

Michele Chitsey would like to clarify how much space each author will be allowed on the book table due to the number of writers in NETWO getting published.

David and Nita Allen have stepped down from the administration of the Short

Story Contest for the conference. David brought the copies of the short stories to hand back to the contestants who participated. David also brought up the subject, that if a person wins a cash prize in the previous year, he/she should be able to enter the next year. Earlene Callan suggested that the rules be reassessed for the contest.

Jim Callan suggested that April 23^rd and 24^th be set for the 2010 Spring Conference at Camp Shiloh at Lake Bob Sandlin. Jean Pamplin motioned and Georgia and Galand seconded.

Galand Nuchols introduced our guest speaker, Dr. Jim Robertson from NTCC. He

recognized Galand and Georgia Henson as helpers in writing his autobiography. Dr. Robertson spoke on writing a personal auto-biography. He explained that there are two types—the very interesting and then the average people. Writers should tell their stories honestly but elegantly. Start with a book to catch readers’ attention. Think about how to keep the rest of the stories in continuality of the events used together to describe one’s life. Ask other people for help to give ideas to put your life in perspective.

Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted, Joy M. Chitsey ?

CONFERENCE AFTERWORDS

Jim Callan and his Chicken Little Award for his fear the economic downturn would affect Spring Conference attendance.

Charlotte Sherman was presented an Unsung Hero Award. She was not able to be present at the Saturday evening conference event for this presenta-tion. Skip Hughes presented the award at the Saturday Pizza Inn meeting.

Tom Nuchols, husband of Galand Nuchols, was also honored with an Unsung Hero Award. ?

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GEORGIA HENSON’S

NOTES ON HOW TO WRITE

As taken out of the book Magic Steps to Writing by Charles Sasser

Charles Sasser’s book was meaningful to me and I wanted to share parts of it with those of you who did not get one of his books. His five steps emphasize what is necessary to become a writer and I have taken excerpts out of the book to share with you. Georgia

1. Discipline

2. Inspiration

3. Goals

4. Ideas

5. Craft

I hope to help you find the pathway to explaining the five magic steps toward becoming a successful writer. In the end you will find that the magic you develop is inside yourself. Ultimately, you determine your own success or failure.

I. DISCIPLINE

“First, there must be talent, much talent, talent such as Kipling had. Then, there must be discipline, the discipline of Flaubert.”

Ernest Hemingway

You can have loads of talent but must use discipline with it or it never works.

Have a dream. (Never give up.) Success comes from discipline, your willingness to write, your desire to write. It requires hard work. I had to write every day. I knew one day I would overcome everything and prevail. I, too, through discipline and faith, would overcome.

He believed in working and using the experience in his writing. Being dependable is essential in the writing business. Choric also said “dependability derives from discipline.” While the skill of writing can be learned and the love of words and books is taken for granted or you would not want to be a writer. The most important ingredient you can possess for success is discipline. I can unequivocally promise you one thing. Without discipline you will never become a writer.

II. INSPIRATION

“Good work doesn’t happen with inspiration; it comes from constant, often tedious, and deliberate effort. If your vision of a writer involved sitting in a café sipping an aperitif with one’s fellow muses, become a drunk. It’s easier and less exhausting.”

William Hefferman

Why do we write?

Many answers come: to change the world, self expressions, fame, prestige, money, self-employment, travel, adventure, to be in charge of one’s own life.

Why do you want to be a writer?

Because I have to be. I want to see, to experience, to go where so few others have gone and then write about it so others may experience it through me.

Have a dream; let it motivate your life. If you don’t work well in solitude, if you can’t take financial and personal uncertainly, and if you buckle under adversity, rejection or pressures, chances are you won’t survive—no matter your discipline and your inspirations. So, why do we do it in spite of everything? It is because we are writers. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

And what is a writer?

“A writer is one who writes,” said Gordon Weaver. A serious writer is one who writes

as well as he can as consistently as possible and for whom writing is serious activity. He knows how much money, fame or publication he gets—those are extra literary factors. Besides the world needs writers. Inspiration is nothing more than having an idea and setting out to capture its concept on paper. When you have a need to produce, to pay the bills, you will apply yourself to chair and be inspired.

I unequivocally make you another promise, as I did with the topic of discipline; if you have to wait for inspiration you will never be a writer. Three habits I developed that have carried me through success—they are simple. I read. I write. I live.

I read every day and everything. This is the foundation of writing and inspiration.

I have never thought of quitting. I would be a writer no matter what it took. I visualize my success. I day dream it. More importantly, I want it. I can’t let go. Writing does not come easier with each new project. It is exhausting work. Don’t give up. Regardless of how rough it gets.

III. GOALS

“Success has always been easy to measure. It is the distance between one’s origins and one’s final achievement.” Michael Korda

The philosopher Santayana said you will at least catch a mountain if you each for the moon. The lower you reach, the less you are likely to get. You have to have that feeling, “I’ll show them,” to succeed.

Why do writers who have difficult lives succeed? Because they have passed and applied, discipline, inspiration, goal setting, the use of ideas and have developed the craft. They know what they wanted. They set goals and didn’t let anything stop them. I set my goal early in life. “I want to live many lives—and write about it.” Eagles don’t flock. (They fly.)

Goals are like New Year resolutions—useless unless you commit to them. Commitment means an investment of your soul and your heart as well as your intellect…Writing is not merely something you do, it is what you are. Life and writing are not two separate entities. However, you don’t have to give up your life to be a writer. I did things for experience…I write to live and I live to write. One is inconceivable without the other…Setting goals and making a commitment to achieve it is both difficult and a tremendous risk. It can be very scary. It can be even scarier not reaching your dream. You have set your goals high. You prepared yourself with discipline, inspiration, ideas and craft to support your goal and now you are ready to do it. Make the break to option three and become a full time free-lance writer. I am a risk taker. I climbed Mt. Rainier, one of my goals, and felt the accomplishment.

IV. IDEAS

“Every person you meet—and everything you do in life—is an opportunity to learn something. That’s important to all of us, but most of all to a writer because as a writer you can use anything.” Tom Clancy

The well does not run dry with ideas…I don’t wait for raindrops but I dig deep in the well and tap into the underground springs. So when you draw out an idea, another falls right in place.

Curiosity is the cornerstone experience that helps curious minds to know the answer. Curiosity and the ideas curiosity generate begin with what the newspaper business

calls the five W’s and the H: who, what, when, where, why, and how.

I became a homeless person to see how they felt and lived. Curiosity about people, things and events about life lead to involvement which leads to ideas. Ernest Hemingway was curious about the Spanish Civil War. He went to see and wrote “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Few ideas come from a shallow mind, just as little water comes from a shallow well. While curiosity might be the cornerstone of ideas, reading is what deepens the well of ideas…I read everything, books, magazines, billboards, and even the back of a Jell-O box. I like everything. I write everything, therefore I read everything.

The well is always full of ideas while curiosity is the cornerstone of ideas and reading deepens the well of ideas, it is observation or paying attention to what is seen, heard, touched, smelt, tasted, then having the dexterity to recall or imagine these feelings and sensations that provides not only ideas, but also improves the writer’s ability to record these ideas and the world they represent so others may experience them as well.

Pact Cummings said, “I am a willing observer of everything under the sun.” He also said, “Writing requires acute observation skills, the development of “true seeing.” Plots of authentic and real prose depend upon a wide knowledge of not only how others respond to words, gestures, events, but also how we feel and respond to them and to our surroundings.

When two people walk across town together, one merely moves from one location to another. The other, right-brained, observes and senses all through which he passes making use of all of his senses, constantly maintains a child-like wonder, then literally absorbs the world through his senses. (This can be used later at will.) Observation is a skill in which the more you invest, the more it returns. It is skill that can be learned, improved and fine-tuned through practice.

All writers are admonished to write about what they know…I followed the caribou in Alaska, not to hunt but to learn about their livelihood and when I had the opportunity to write about Alaska—I knew.

Failure to use observation skills can be crippling to the writer. Some writers are well up in grammar and craft, in communication and analysis, but nonetheless remain destitute of ideas because they fail to exercise feelings, empathizing, observing, and other ways of knowing reality directly.

Thinkers learn to translate ideas generated by these tools of thinking into writing to express their insight. The most important tools for digging your well of ideas deep are curiosity, reading, observation and imagination. Ideas flourish with deep thought, with introspection and time spent alone getting to know yourself while you let your imagination run wild.

I’ve done a lot of daydreaming. Frances Parkinson Keys was asked the question, “What is the necessary ingredient from which to build a successful writer?”

“One must have at least a tiny spark of talent (this is God-given), a flexible and extensive vocabulary; a natural sense of word values and phrase forms; an aptitude for factual and rapid observation and the ability to record observation clearly and convincingly a knowledge of human nature and attitude of

sympathetic understanding toward it; a sincerity which is so complete that, since it never permits self-deception, never fails to leave its imprint on others; a varied imagination; a retentive memory; and an empoisoned sense of humor.”

Without imagination all of the world is flat.

V. CRAFT

“There will come a day, if you persist, when you will move nimbly and you will feel elated, and exclaim to yourself, Now I know that I can write.” Arnold Bennett

Writing like a carpenter demands know-how. Craft. You may be as disciplined as Gandhi, as inspired as Mother Teresa, have your goals set on the moon and be flooded with ideas, but the house you build or the novel you write will never sell unless you possess the craft to build or to write properly. Learning that craft is a process that continues throughout your career.

One of the best ways to learn about writing, I have always maintained, is to read. Craft evolves out of a love of reading and the printed word. You must read not only for enjoyment but also with a critical eye and ear for narrative, dialogue, transitions, suspense, character development, scene building and other carpenter tools of the trade.

See how an author sets a particular mood and it affects a scene. Read to see what he did or failed to do in constructing the finished product….Read….Read.

To be continued in the next newsletter…

Charles Sasser’s book can be ordered through AWOC or Amazon.com. ?

WRITER AINSWORTH HONORED BY A&M-COMMERCE

Excerpted from a press release 6-03-09:

COMMERCE, Texas – Northeast Texas writer Jim Ainsworth is a 2009 distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Ainsworth of Commerce, Mary Spencer of Dallas, and Dr. James Turman of Austin were honored at a recognition dinner recently where they won the highest awards given by A&M-Commerce for their career achievements.

A 1962 graduate of Cooper High School, Ainsworth graduated from A&M-Commerce with a B.B.A. in 1965 and practiced public accounting in this area for over 20 years. He founded and co-founded several accounting and financial services firms, and authored four books in the financial services field.

In 1997, he sold his business interests and made a journey across Texas by covered wagon and horseback. He wrote about this in a memoir, “Biscuits Across the Brazos.”

Two books in his “Follow the Rivers” series, “In the Rivers Flow” and “Rivers Crossing” take place in Northeast Texas.

The third novel, “Rivers Ebb,” was a finalist for best mainstream novel of 2008 and the Writers League of Texas Violet Crown Award. It was also selected as a finalist for the best mainstream/literary novel in the Writer’s Digest International book contest.

On being named a Distinguished Alumnus, Ainsworth said, “I am honored, grateful, and humbled to be named a Distinguished Alumnus of Texas A&M University-Commerce. This university, its people, and the campus have been part of my life since I attended basketball games here as a boy.” t