Mining the Muse

Here's the book.

Mining the Muse is a collaboration of work by the Chesterfield Writers' Club, a not-for-profit writers' group in Chesterfield, Virginia. Cover art by writer and graphic designer, Bonnie Watson. The book is available at our Lulu.com storefront. Enjoy!

Meet the Pen Folk

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

It's that time of year again! Time to meet up with the folks we're kin to. Who doesn't have a weird cousin, or a relative who talks loud, but has nothing to say?

Eccentric family members help writers build character(s). Face-to-face interaction with them makes life more interesting than clicking a button to send an email.

Speaking of pushing buttons, blogging here makes for interesting interaction, but wouldn't it be nice if we could meet up? We can. We've got a few days until the next meeting.

We're a little wired because we just finished our first anthology, but drop by. Don't be shy. Come back and visit, or visit our Yahoo site to see what's fueling our writing.

Why We Write

Now that we're nano-ed and na-blo-wn out, why are we still writing?

As we tie up the loose ends on our first book, we're counting the million reasons amongst ourselves for continuing to show up. We're not just scribbling because the voices in our heads say, "Write." We've got to do it. If we didn't write, we wouldn't be writers.

voices in our heads (developing foreheads and nodding): 'nuff said

writers (perking up): thank you

voices in our heads (developing fingers and wagging): keep writing

writers (crawling back into our caves and muttering): okay, okay

Keep writing! It's fun! Be sure to come to our next meeting. 12/15/07.

You Know You're a Writer When...

The best gifts come in teeny packages. Adair Lara, who taught us that Normal is Just a Setting on the Dryer , has written a quick and witty read, You Know You're a Writer When..., that'll have writers laughing as they recognize themselves in Lara's list of quirky hallmarks.

You know you're a writer when...

"...All your bedspreads have ink stains on them."
"...You secretly love your own handwriting."
"...You accidentally sign a check with your pen name."

This book, which came out in September, would make a great gift for any writer in your life...even if you are that writer.

Unexpected Writing Resources

At Saturday's meeting, Greg asked what writing resources we were using. I didn't realize until after the meeting that the answers were at my fingertips (in my notebook) the entire time. Here are a few of the "offbeat" tools I'd taken for granted.

1) timeanddate.com

Maybe you're in the middle of scribbling the next great American novel, when you discover you can't write another word--and the story isn't going anywhere. Well, when was it set?

The Time and Date Calculator helps. I'm the type of writer who wants to know what day of the week Christmas fell on in 1976 and what day my character's 40th birthday will fall on in 2015.

I want my writing to ring true after I'm gone. If 20 years from now I'm writing that September 11, 2001 was on a Friday, rather than on the devastating Tuesday that it actually took place, readers may lose faith in my abilities.

Also, if I write that a soon-to-be evicted character has 40 days from Valentine's Day to get out of her apartment, I want to know what date is 40 days from February 14th.


2) Personal ads

I find many potential characters in the personals. I underline their positive qualities in green ink, and their negative ones in red. I tape my marked ads to index cards where I list 3-5 questions that may lead to a story.

Example ad: "SM, father, seeks new friends to begin a new life. I like...fishing, sitting at home, watching movies...Want to join me?"
Question 1: What was wrong with his old life?
Question 2: How many children does he have, and where is their mother?
Question 3: Who has he met sitting at home? I'd really like to know...

3) Song lyrics

Sometimes I'll jot down 5 words from a song and use them in a poem or short story.

Example 1:
The hymn: "Amazing Grace"
The words: amazing, wretch, blind, sing, sun
Possible outcomes: Those 5 words could be written in love, suspense, horror, anything...not necessarily Christian writing.

Example 2:
The nursery rhyme: "Miss Mary Mack"
The words: black, buttons, fifteen, high, July
Possible outcomes: Suddenly, you're writing a mini-mystery about a summertime military heist or your own version of "Mary Poppins."

Example 3:
The popular song: "Nick of Time," by Bonnie Raitt
The words: night, babies, folks, change, choices
Possible outcomes: A poem about teenage pregnancy or an article for the local paper.

4) Jump the Shark This website has a forum that allows TV viewers to air their complaints about their favorite and least favorite shows. Did "The Brady Bunch" go wrong when they added Cousin Oliver? More than just an online complaint fest, this site helps me see what more than a few people saw as "bad" writing, and try to avoid it in my own (writing).

5) The Yellow Pages
Lots of writing books will tell you to look in the white pages of the phone book, pick a name, and create a character just from that name. I like to go to certain page numbers and pull a word or two a page from the yellow pages.

The last time I tried this was in October. I went to pages 11, 22, 33, 44, 55....you get the idea. Here's some of what I found:

11: airport, visitor
33: alarms, muffler
99: garage door opener, hardware
111: carpet, florist
222: museums, gravel
333: thrift store

One of my story ideas from the "yellow pages" prompt: A woman who leaves her car unattended at a yard sale, doesn't realize her garage door opener is missing until she gets home.

6) Stock Photo Prompts
When I noticed that fast food restaurants and insurance companies sometimes used the same photos of models in the same poses, I learned about stock photos. In addition to the ones in the clip art gallery in Microsoft Word, I use pictures from fotosearch.com and istockphoto.com for inspiration. Stock photos are expensive and rights have to be purchased to use them. However, rights don't have to be purchased to look at them and ask a few questions that will help you write your next story.

Click here for the picture source for the following questions about a picture of a pregnancy test.

• She's not wearing a ring. Is she or isn't she pregnant?
• What if she is single and childless and wants to be pregnant? What circumstances brought this desire about? Turning 30? A broken engagement?
• There's a colorful, seemingly child-friendly piece of art behind her? Does she already have children? How will the outcomes of this test affect her and those around her?

Surely, there are other offbeat and unexpected sources of inspiration. If you know of more, let us know. Until we meet again, happy writing!

Heading Into The Home Stretch!

Well, guys and gals - it's time to do what we said we were going to do - put together our own anthology! What an exciting project! And just think how motivated we'll be to see our own words in print!

But the Anthology is not the end of the process. It's just the beginning.

Now we have to move to the next logical step. The one outlined by our fearless leader. Get published! Put ourselves out there and make the editors/publishers realize just how much talent there is in Chesterfield County. A few of our members are already doing it, so why not you?

There is a venue for each of us--young adult, faith-based, flash fiction, memoirs, self-help, DIY, pop and literary fiction--it's all out there waiting.

Where, you ask? Well, there are lots of places to look. Writers Market, Ralan's website (www.ralan.com), Spicy Green Iguana (www.spicegreeniguana.com) to name a few. Go to the bookstore magazine racks--Ellery Queen, Asimov's, Fantasy, Glimmer Train. Check the spines on your favorite books, look inside at the Dedications, ask around, Google. It's all out there and waiting for YOU.

Let's put our best best foot out there with this anthology, but don't let that be your only step! Take that BIG step! Take that Leap!

Yes, Virginia, there are writers in Chesterfield.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many pictures is a word worth? Mark Twain once wrote the following words in a letter to George Bainton:

"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

We're jotting and counting words for our first anthology, hoping that the pictures we paint convey the messages we intend. We're writing with the purpose of encouraging each other to write. We're showing the world that yes, there are writers in Chesterfield County....the one in Virginia.

Sure there are writers in other Chesterfields, writers who sit on chesterfields, and writers who wear chesterfields, but we're part of a special bunch of writers. If you don't believe it, we dare you to join us at our next meeting, Saturday, November 17, 2007 at 12 pm.

October Octaves

That was worth tons more than two cents, my friend. Here it is:

We scribbled
flash fiction.
We shared
mixed reactions.
We listened.
We learned.
The meeting
adjourned.

“Adjourned” works, considering that November wraps the anthology.

4 familiar faces:

• the improv /computer guy, “editor and chief whip cracker."
• the fantasy weaver/word diva, creator of an angry, armed chick.
• the nonfiction/comic book penman, java jams leader. (More later.)
• the Christian writer/poet (that's me), who serves God in ink.

4 new faces:

• the country chef/soul food author, who candied us at the end.
• the poet/country-western lyricist, who also writes kids' lit.
• the father-daughter writers:
• The dad, who told us of orphanhood and the Halloween of 1949.
• The daughter, his "moral support," who can write flash fiction.

Real writers write. United, we discover invaluable tools and lessons.

4 tools for writers:

1. Book: Pen on Fire
2. Book: Writer’s Market.
3. Workshops/classes: James River Writers
4. Workshops/classes: Studio Unlimited Virginia

4 writing lessons:

1. We can write in a flash, chop it in half, and still have great stories.
2. Be willing to promote your own work, even with larger publishers.
3. Just getting the ISBN doesn't ensure publishing success.
4. We don't have to get stuck in one genre.

Writing Exercise at Yesterday's Meeting

I'm going to toss my two cents into the blog arena, so bear with me, folks!

I won't go into much detail about yesterday's meeting other than to say that I was delighted to see so many new faces! I hope to see you all again next month. Nedra will probably post something outlining our activities.

I wanted to say that yesterday's short writing exercise really sparked something. I seem to be running into a lot more people writing for the Young Adult (YA) market and well, a story kind of leaped into my mind that might be marketable to that market (how many times can I use "market" in one sentence ;o). I ended up coming home from the meeting with the skeleton of a story plot and then slammed out a 1,500 word story. I'm actually pretty pleased with the result. It has to have been one of the easiest short stories I've ever written and while it's still in first draft, I feel it has potential.*

That's one of the things I've had to learn on the road to becoming a writer. I had to learn how to give myself permission to write, and write badly if necessary, as long as I write! You, my fellow writers, all know what I mean. At one point, back in the formative years, we're all taught that if we can't do it right, don't do it! But the need to do it right can sometimes keep us from doing it at all. We self-edit, over-critique, denigrate, etc.

Don't do it! Adopt the Nike slogan for your own and Just Do It! Get it out, get it down and get it finished! Then, you can do the nasty "edit" thingee!

Yeah, it's just that sometimes a person has to hear it about umpteen hundred times, get hit over the head with the ol' "clue by four" and then maybe in a "sudden flash" realize what everyone's been saying. Just write.

Write and then rewrite and then rewrite again. Nothing leaps forth fully formed and perfect - well, nothing written by anyone I know or know of (most of the famous writers speak of the necessary evil of revision/edit). Just write and tell the ol' critic sitting on the back of your chair to take a chill pill, shut up, and let you do your stuff.

So, that's it for now. I'm going to get back to it. Happy Writing!

*OMG, I just realized that the exercise produced what could be considered an "outline" of a story that I then translated into a fully fleshed out story! Wow! And I thought I couldn't do it that way! See-yet another fun discovery!

3 Reasons, 2 Ways, 1 Day to Go

Three reasons to join us at tomorrow's meeting at Central Library at 12 PM. :

1. You've always wanted to write but you've never found the time. See Too Busy to Write?.

2. You're writing and you're stuck...that bad ole' writer's block. Come get writer's block tips from other writers.

3. You've got a manuscript that you've read a million times, and you need another pair of eyes.

Two ways to join:

1. Click on one of the links to the right, either Meetup or Yahoo .

2. Come to tomorrow's meeting. Click here for directions.

One day to go:

Our next meeting is Saturday, October 27, 2007 (tomorrow, tomorrow...) at the Central Branch of the Chesterfield Public Library in Chesterfield, Virginia.

Central Library

Chesterfield County Public Libraries

9501 Lori Road

Chesterfield, VA 23832

October Meeting

The Chesterfield Writers' Club's October meeting will be Saturday, October 27, 2007 at 12:00 PM. We're still building an anthology of stories mined from the brains of different writers in Chesterfield County, and welcome submissions. For more information or to join the club, visit our MeetUp site.

Haunted Richmond

October is almost here with its spookiness and spine chillers. Check out Haunted Richmond, a book recently released (June 2007) by one of our very own club members, Pamela K. Kinney.

Kudos, Pam!

Too Busy to Write?

Are you too busy to write? We are, too.

Are you too busy to build or strengthen a support group for your writing? We... Oh, wait, we do that now. Five writers came to the Chesterfield Writers' Club meeting Saturday. That's five people who in addition to writing, work, go to school, meet deadlines, raise kids, etc., etc.

We are important to the people in our lives. Sometimes writing takes a back seat, but if we want to be writers who write (rather than wishers who wish), we can't force writing to always take a back seat.

Treat yourself well, by, creating support for every area of your life. No person is an island. If you're interested in joining us, you can do so at our MeetUp site or if you Yahoo, you can join us there.

Until we meet again, happy writing!

2 Days, 20 Hours, 0 Minutes, 0 Seconds

Just 2 days, 20 hours, 0 minutes, and 0 seconds according to the clock at www.timeanddate.com.

The next meeting of the Chesterfield Writers' Club is Saturday, yes, this Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 1:00 PM.

We're working on our first anthology. A few of us have attended some major conferences this past summer, and a couple of us are planning to participate in the James River Writers' Conference in a couple of weeks.

Want to know more? See you Saturday.

Central Library

9501 Lori Road

Chesterfield, VA 23832

4 Writing Prompts

1) Use a sentence starting with the word "I."

-I remember when...
-I had forgotten about...
-I wish I'd never...

2) Find a random picture and make up a story about it. Stock photos are a great source, and at www.fotosearch.com you can do a keyword search for interesting images. Perhaps your keywords could be: balloon, Italian, salad, or snow.

3) Use all the letters of a proper name to create your first sentence.

A few examples:

SHEILA: Sandra Hampton erased Ian's letters again. They weren't exactly letters, since they were emails, but they were...

EDWARD: Every day Whitney allows Ron Denmark to make her feel like losing her religion.

ZOE: Zach owes Ethan. Again. Big time.

4) Write something really off the wall and keep going.

-The first time I married Dan, culottes were still in style.

-Thirty years ago I died giving birth to Imogene Elizabeth Cunningham. At least that was supposed to be her name...

-It was time for my 12:00 feeding.

-The rain in Spain caused pain for Lorraine.

-Four thousand, six hundred, twenty-eight dollars and seventy-two cents ago my integrity was still intact.

-Today when I leave to go to work, I'm not coming back.

-Barbara Bell Bivens believed bad boys belonged behind bars.

The Butler Did It!

Writers get stuck sometimes. The right writer's prompt can help you get the story going. Later, if it doesn't fit, you can ditch it, and you've still got a great story. This prompt, "The Butler Did It" is inspired by the old movie murder mysteries where you found out in the end that the butler did it. Let's try it in reverse. Pick any of the following "butler did it..." statements, and start your story with the butler's action.


1) The butler arrived first.
2) The butler broke the lock.
3) The butler did it.
4) The butler erased the files and continued his dusting.
5) The butler jumped into the pool.
6) The butler kicked off his shoes and stared at the body in the pool.
7) The butler lurked beneath the stairwell.
8) The butler opened the box.
9) The butler quit.
10) The butler rode in silence.
11) The butler stabbed Mr. Lexington.
12) The butler unlocked the gate.
13) The butler walked with a limp.

The Chesterfield Writer's Club is Blogging!

The Chesterfield Writer's Club is blogging!


Together this group of Chesterfield Writers which meets the 3rd Saturday of the month at the Chesterfield Public Library is helping writers in Chesterfield County go deeper and deliver honest, clearer, truer writing. (Even fiction, fantasy, sci-fi and poetry needs to feel true to our readers.)


Writing is a lonely business. This is more than just a worn out cliche'. It's the truth. Writers can handle the truth. There's safety in numbers. (Pardon the second cliche'.)

Writing with others reminds us that we are not alone. We're not the only people on the planet (or in Chesterfield) , compelled to write down our stories as only we can tell them. Writing with others stretches us, forcing us to grow as writers. How could support ever be a bad thing? With support, we get the feedback that helps us strut our best stuff on the page.


Our next meeting is Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 1:00 PM.

For more information about the club visit http://writersclub.us/. For directions, visit the Chesterfield County Library's website. See you there!