Should we cancel Sunday's meeting?

Lauren and Lynette, you so rock! Your comments, letters, and all have been great, and I'm so sorry I haven't responded sooner. You need to know that this is the end-of-term for Mark and I, and end-of-MA for Brent (go, Brent! Good luck on your orals next week!); we're all swamped. In fact, Mark and I are  in the same mock-publishing house group (for the Intro to Publishing class) and will be meeting this Sunday to finish our group portfolio. Mark's going to teach us how to do InDesign as he puts our mock books and presentation into final form. Thus, I know Mark and I won't be able to meet on the 8th, and Brent has already let us know that he won't be able to meet Sunday 3/08.

I propose that those of us who can meet up the next Friday (12th). Brent, you'll be officially a Master (ooooh...), and hopefully Mark and I will be nearly finished with our papers, and we'll have had a chance to look at the queries more closely. Brent, if you can't meet at your place, Lauren had offered hers (is that still okay, Lauren?). Another cool place might be Palio's, or we could meet at Vivace.

So, sorry for not responding sooner! You were very kind about my story (which was rejected, but not to worry! I sent in a query to Ooligan about doing a whole book on the subject), and it gave me the courage to pursue it further. That's what writing groups are for, right? Write!

All good things to you, my friends. We shall see each other soon. Cheers, Jen

Alternate meet-up date--Wednesday at Tiny's

Lauren suggested (and Lynette and I agree) that we meet up this week to make up for none of us being able to meet last Sunday. (And if I persist with that contorted grammar, I'll never be a famous writer.) So, the venue and time, if you're up for it, is Wednesday, February 25th at 5:00 p.m. We thought we'd meet at Tiny's on 11th & Hawthorne (or is it 12th? I can never remember) because: Lauren lives a stone's throw from there; Lynette works a stone's throw from there; and I stow thrones over there. (Just checking to see if you're reading closely.) Remember that Tiny's serves $1 Pabsts and $2 Red Stripes from 5-7 p.m., if you don't want coffee. So, be there, or be somewhere else!

Director's Cut made the first slash...

Just thought I'd let the group know that the novel I sent in for the ABN award, Director's Cut, made the first slash (10,000 entrants to 2,000). (Whoo-hoo!) The next big cut is March 16th, when that 2,000 goes to 500, and excerpts of the book will be online for Amazon members to read and choose which one they like best. I'm counting on you guys to vote for me if I make it that far. Vote early; vote often! (As good old Mayor Daly would have had you do.)

We have another new member!

Lynette Hanson will be joining us at our next meeting. She already has the "write every day" mentality--check out her blog site. She'll be an inspiration to us all, I think! I've not met her yet myself, but I've met her son Lamont, and he's great. (He's a friend of my son J.R., who is, of course, a man of impeccable taste, just like his mother!) Brent, I'll send you an email with Lynette's address so you can invite her to All Write Now. Cheers, everyone, and happy writing!

Thanks, Jen!

For the teriphic werk editting my buk.

Yu rawk!

~Mark

Seriously:

Your work on my book was fantastic. Not just having an eye for meticulous grammar issues, but your suggestions for less ambiguous meanings in some of my writings was invaluable. Thanks again for all of your help. I would definitely recommend your services to others who need a well trained editor!

~Mark

Sandy Blvd.

From, Car Dogs (a Real Life Fiction)

The wind was a torrent of darkness
Among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon
Tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight....

-Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman

Sandy Boulevard cuts diagonally across the city, an impatient afterthought of city planners, eager to please campaign contributors by making access to Portland's downtown business distrct as quick and easy as possible from Portland's newish, "international" airport. Screw bothering with the tidy north-south, east-west grid that otherwise describes most of Portland's streets. Sandy is a great way to get from Northeast Portland to Northwest (and vise-versa) especially if you are drunk. It's a straight shot with no turns, few cops and lights that are timed to easily anticipate the next one.

It would be the route of choice if you've just scored some dope down by Skidmore Fountain and you want to land at a non-descript strip joint far away before your connection figures out that four of the six twenties you handed him in the shadows will look a lot like photocopies in the light.

Or, you would have chosen the hotel out on 82nd and Sandy as the location you mutter into the office phone for the escort service to send your "date" because, if you make the lights on Sandy, you'll have enough time for a good quicky after work, before you meet the wife and daughter downtown to celebrate your anniversary at Jake's.

Or, you'd be headed up Sandy around midnight this Monday if you are Kenny Lawson and you've been screwing your 20 year-old boyfriend in the Slaughterhouse District with plenty of Evan Williams (following the shots of Makers Mark you'd bought in public), and you are nearly incapacitated before you drive back to your office at 26th and Sandy. You'd be hoping beyond hope that the alcohol will somehow make twenty-hundred-thousand-and-something dollars look like the sixty-hundred-and-something the auditors need to see. The forty-hundred having vaguely dissappeared over the last six months of pretending to be a member of the Rat Pack in Oceans Eleven, and, too drunk to remember that all the money the Pack heists in Vegas gets cremated with their dead buddy in the end, it gets spent at Sammy The Russian's invite-only poker games. It would be hard for a narcissist like Kenny to believe that the movie he's starring in could end so badly.

Kenny. Kenny Lawson. General Manager of Sandy Motors, son-in-law of the owner, Big Al, President of the Metropolitan Automobile Association, contributing ($) member of the Forsquare First Christian Church, father of two, husband of one, and lover of as many as possible. Kenny doesn't yet realize that his current financial fiasco will be his biggest yet, ending in mayhem and death for hundreds he won't care, or even know about.

Welcome to Sandy Motors! If I can't make you a deal, I'll eat my hat!

Getting Started

Hello my fellow writers. So I have set this blog up as a place for us to communicate our thoughts, feelings, and struggles about writing. If you have something you want to get off your chest between our meetings, do it here. If you find an interesting bit of information about writing or anything you thing is pertinent to All Write Now, post it here. For those of you that don't blog, this is a good place to practice. Okay, let's go!