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Volume: 17.02 • The South Carolina Writers Workshop Newsletter • February 2006 |
NEWS |
Board BulletinsThe Editor's Inbox"Whoa! Thaleia, what are we doing way up here?" "Take it easy. I know you're not afraid of heights or you wouldn't try to climb every mountain in the Carolinas." She pointed to my laptop screen. "We've got mail!"
"Wow! Looks like Santa delivered more than presents last month." "You know what they say, 'Good reviews feed the Muse.'" "Whoever 'they' are, they're right," I said. "But what are we doing at the top of the page. We're usually the caboose on this train of thought." "This month, I decided we need a guest Musing so I...." "Wait a minute! You decided? Who's the editor here?" Thaleia snatched the laptop away. "Relax! You've been stressing too much lately. I thought I'd do you a favor." "Hey, I won't complain. And, speaking of feeding, what's for lunch?" "Poor baby! You are stressing too much." "What do you mean?" She grinned. "Clearly you've forgotten where to find the peanut butter." Chapter ChatterNew Chapters in the WorksInterest has been expressed in forming new chapters in the Florence and Lake City areas. If you are in the area and are willing to help these new chapters get started, even if you are already a member of an active chapter, please let me know. Together, we do the write thing better. Aiken
1) Joy Thomas has rejoined SCWW after an extended absence. She is now retired and lives on Fripp Island. Since there is not a chapter within her driving distance, she has affiliated with the Aiken chapter. 2) Lygia Hyre received a certificate for completing a 52,000 word novel during National Novel Writing Month. 3) Early in 2005, the Aiken chapter members were challenged to write a fictional story about a 42-year-old driver picking up an 18-year-old hitchhiker. Gender, vehicle type, plot, and genre were left up to the writer. Those stories are now being collected for publication.
Anderson
Charleston
SCWW Night @ East Bay Coffee HouseEllie Davis at East Bay Coffee House in Charleston (159 East Bay Street Between McCrady's & South End Brewery) has offered to let us have her Monday Night Blues spot on February 20th! Typically the fun starts at 8 PM. What this means is any SCWW member who is interested can do a reading of his or her work of about 4 to 8 minutes, depending on the number of folks interested. OR you can offer to read someone else's in our own Catfish Stew! Here's what you do: Contact Mary Harris at wordnotes185@hotmail.com. Let her know WHAT you will be reading. Leave your email AND phone number. She'll take sign ups until February 12th. So come on and join in the FUN.
Columbia I
Our group had a new attendee on January Fourth to help kick off the New Year. Mrs. Hope Clark, the author of The Shy Writer and the Funds for Writers newsletter participated in our chapter meeting. Longtime SCWW member, Bill Kaliher, is a subscriber to her newsletter and realized Mrs. Clark was from South Carolina. He wrote and invited her to attend one of the chapter meetings. Kaliher, who follows markets closely, finds her newsletter one of the most helpful in providing outlets for his work. He often recommends her newsletter and website to group members. Writer's Digest has listed her website in the top 101 websites for writers for five years in a row.
Needless to say, the Chapter members hope Mrs. Clark will attend future meetings and even join the SCWW.
Columbia II
Dillon
Greenville
Sundays at Coffee UndergroundCoffee Underground's ad says, "Enjoy regionally renowned poets - from slam champions to poetic professors! Events also include themed slams and open mic slots... Plus monthly poetry workshops." John Helfrich has appeared there, and others from our group may perform in the near future. If interested, Theatre Doors/Sign-up open at 7:00 PM, and shows are from 7:30 to 8:30 each Sunday. $5.00 cover charge. 1 East Coffee Street, Downtown Greenville.
Irmo
Lexington
Myrtle Beach
Rock Hill
Sandhills Writers Group
I'd like to introduce a new face that appeared at this meeting, and hope to see her many times in the future: Her name is Julie Thompson-Adolf. She has written professionally for approximately 20 years, but primarily as a corporate PR writer. She edited and authored the first editions of the South Carolina Tourism magazine, Smiles. She is interested in working on fiction and children's literature, and that certainly fits the profile of a lot of our other members. I hope to see you in February. I've been scheduling the small conference room, but I'd likd to see us outgrow it!
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OPPORTUNITIES |
South Carolina Writers Workshop
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FEATURES |
Ask the Book DoctorBy Bobbie ChristmasAsk the Book Doctor: About Capitalization, Plurals, Consistency and Trademarks Q: When I refer to a specific chapter in my book proposal or in my book, do I capitalize it? For example, when I say, "See Chapter Three for more information," should it be chapter three or Chapter Three? I'm going to rely on intuition rather than going through a bunch of books to look up the definitive answer. As used, Chapter Three is the title of the chapter, so I would capitalize it as I would any title. Q: I had an encounter with an English teacher the other day and hope you can clear it up. Driving past Pickens County Middle School, I read a sign: "PCMS Loves our Teachers" Nice thought, although it sounded wrong grammatically. Should it be "PCMS Love our Teachers?" A: Because PCMS stands for Pickens County Middle School, a single entity, the verb should be singular, too ("loves"). The "S" is the problem in the initials; it makes you want to make the verb plural. To clarify, the correct statement would be "Pickens County Middle School loves our teachers," so the abbreviated form would also be "PCMS loves our teachers." I won't even get into the discussion as to whether a school can love or not. I'll leave that question to philosophers. Q: Bobbie - Which is correct? His patience and soft-spoken sense of humor helps students make sense of the sometimes confusing world wide web.
His patience and soft-spoken sense of humor help students make sense of the sometimes confusing world wide web. The latter, right? Lucky I don't teach grammar, but the latter sounds correct. A: The latter is correct, because of the plural subject (patience and humor). l. Strip the sentence of the extraneous words and use just the two abstract nouns as the subject, and it's easier to see that it is plural: "Patience and humor help students ... " Warning: World Wide Web is the name of a specific entity. Capitalize it as well as references to it, such as the Internet and the Web. Q: I am a writer and editor with five chapters of a nonfiction book written. It seems my style is a combination of AP and Chicago style. Should it be consistently one or the other when submitting for publication? A: Absolutely. Consistency is vital, and most book publishers prefer Chicago Style. Periodicals-magazines and newspapers-tend to prefer AP Style. The biggest differences are how commas, capitalization, and numbers are treated. For a report on Chicago Style and how it varies from the style we learned in school, e-mail me and ask for Report #105 Chicago Style Variances. (Folks, this offer is open to all readers, and check my Web site at www.zebraeditor.com for all sorts of free tools for writers.) Q: I was wondering about your trademark for the Find and Refine Method(tm) you discuss in your book, Write In Style. I've placed a TM after [the name of my workshops], and several other names of methods I've conceived but have never filed any legal paperwork. Do I need to? Is yours legally registered? How much does it cost? A: I'm not an attorney, but as I understand the law from a layperson's point of view, official registration is not required to use the trademark symbol. I use it so others won't steal the names from me, and I must admit it adds a sense of legitimacy to the products I conceive. I have not registered the trademarks legally, but I can prove when I began using the trademarks, so I can defend them, legally, if necessary-I think. You can register a trademark easily by going to the government site for the Trademark Electronic Application System at http://www.uspto.gov/teas/. Here's some information I gleaned from the site regarding costs: The filing fee is $325.00 per class of goods and/or services for an electronically filed application, but $375.00 per class if filed in paper, per class (i.e., an application may only have one mark, but may cover multiple classes; e.g., an application with two classes would be for both computer software in Class 9 and T-shirts in Class 25, making the filing fee $650.00 if filed electronically). Do you have questions for the book doctor? Write to me today at Bobbie@zebraeditor.com. Copyscape is dedicated to defending your rights online, helping you fight against online plagiarism and content theft. Copyscape finds sites that have copied your content without permission, as well as those that have quoted you. Copyscape provides the following:
More information about Copyscape and Copysentry is provided in the FAQs. Read reviews of Copyscape in the press, and testimonials from users like you. Copyscape is provided by Indigo Stream Technologies Ltd. 7Adinkras: A Collective of Creative WomenThere’s no doubt we women are strong, smart, and amazing. As we juggle multiple responsibilities and rack up career successes, we keep pace in a fast-moving world with the best of them. Still, in doing our best to succeed, we too often keep silent about what we truly feel inside, and deny our own creative yearnings. Instead, we play the dutiful daughter, the model citizen, the polished professional, the supportive spouse, the selfless mother -- then one day realize we’ve been following someone else’s life script. This realization awakens the hungers of our hearts, and we decide to take the starring role in our own lives. Our actions may shock a few. Others may say we’re selfish or insane. But we’re claiming our creative power and won’t be stopped. We’re taking action on the questions and desires burning inside us. 7Adinkras supports every woman’s right to express her authentic self, whether on paper, behind the camera, on stage, in the studio, or on the airwaves. Few places exist where we can express truly who we are, so we must take initiative to create these spaces for ourselves. The more we speak our truths, the greater our courage to break free from society’s life scripts. We create vibrant alternatives for ourselves and for all around us. We women, after all, are innately creative. Our bodies create the next generation of children, and our spirits create the next generation of thought. We are powerful Mothers of Vision, birthing ever-greater possibilities for ourselves and our communities. With our creative power, we can inspire. We can beautify. We can change the world. The responsibility may seem daunting, but as women we carry this secret, whispered to us by our bodies… To be pregnant is to hold the vision of what is to come. From this are we emboldened to bear the labors of birth. We give thanks for our elder sisters who have granted us the freedom and courage to express our authentic selves today. We celebrate all women who are bringing their creative dreams to life, and we urge our silent sisters around the world to lift your pens, your paintbrushes, your microphones, and all individual forms of creative expressions. To all we say, "Sisters, go do your thing!" PITCH-A-STORY!The board game PITCH-A-STORY! follows a path around a show business star, which depicts a fast rising career from childhood storyteller to Hollywood mogul. The first "pitch place" is the "Garage Theater," where children perform their earliest imaginings for friends in the neighborhood. We study storytelling at "Claptrap College," scrape together meager resources for "Shoestring Films," mix with beginners and seasoned professionals alike at the "Cornbread StoryFest," and put our talents on stage for a debut performance at the "Rigmarole Theater." New opportunities arise when we add animation and funny voices to create "Gadzooks Cartoons," try for a bestseller at "Bamboozler Books," and go for a primetime hit at the "Big Bug Network." Many show business careers take people to New York and a "Broadway Matinee" and to Hollywood for a blockbuster hit at "Lost Century Movies." The goal of PITCH-A-STORY! is to earn as many credit and review points as your team's story pitches are worth. The team with the most credits and reviews wins! In addition to the fun of creating and acting out stories, educators endorse PITCH-A- STORY! because it supports the development of reading, writing, language and presentation skills. So, there's our pitch! We hope you have as much fun creating your stories, as we have had in creating our story pitch! Between the LinesThe Editorial Department’s new E-zine for writersFor 25 years, The Editorial Department has been helping talented authors turn promising manuscripts into salable properties. In our new e-zine, we’ll be sharing some of the tried and true techniques and principles that have helped our clients improve their work and find agents and publishers. The e-zine also provides a forum for professionals within the publishing community to share relevant advice and insights. We invite you to sign up to subscribe to Between the Lines, and we encourage your participation: send us your thoughts on future article topics you’d like to see covered, submit questions for our editors or other industry professionals we’ll be interviewing, and share with us any outstanding writers’ sites from which you think other writers might benefit. We look forward to hearing from you! |
MUSINGS |
The Shamburger ProjectCharles P. ReeveThey lay unconscious on the table in my den-Brad in a tee shirt and shorts, Lola in a two-piece bathing suit. Neither was breathing. My fingers blurred across the keys. A minute later, Brad's chest heaved. He sat up and blinked. "Welcome to the world, Brad," I said. He slid off the table and wandered into the kitchen. My fingers fluttered another minute, and then Lola's chest began to heave. She sat up and glared at me. "Welcome to the world, Lola." "Go to hell, Shamburger!" "That's the spirit, babe. Go see what Brad's doing in the kitchen." Lola hopped off the table and scurried away. I listened. "There you are, Brad, you lazy bum. Why haven't you bought me a new washer and dryer?" "I've been thinking, Lola. I want a 48-inch plasma television instead." "The hell you do!" Lola grabbed a butcher knife from its holder and lunged at Brad. "I ought to cut you to ribbons, you good-for-nothing jerk." "Easy now, woman," said Brad, circling into the den with Lola on his heels. "Let's talk this over." "Good idea, Brad," I said. "Put the knife down, Lola, and listen to me. You two are living, breathing characters in my new story-the protagonist and the antagonist. You're doing great with the conflict angle, but we need to work out a plot." "Why, you...you meddling bastard!" shouted Lola, lurching toward me with the knife. I fled into the hallway, afraid that I had written her too well. [No authors were harmed in the making of this story... yet. - Ed.] The Quill is the newsletter of the South Carolina Writers Workshop www.scwriters.com. Copyright 2006 by Leland Beaudrot, Editor. Contributing writers retain all rights to their work. |