The WhipCity Wordsmiths met on Saturday, November 17th with eight members present- Susan Buffum, Melissa Volker, Glen Ebisch, Claudia Turner (new member), Lindsay Stenico, Bill Westerlind, Russell Atwood, and Sue Foley. Kelly was in Washington, D.C. on vacation. Rhonda was at the Westfield Farmer's Market and sent her regrets.
(I always feel weird writing I this and I that, so excuse me- I am referring to myself in the third person throughout!)
Susan introduced and welcomed new WhipCity Wordsmith, local author Claudia Turner. Claudia was at PumpkinFest with her book
Scars and Stripes Forever. Claudia has a sequel written that will be published soon.
Susan talked a little about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. Kelly is again a Western MA Municipal Leader. There is another ML, Jackie who is also here in Westfield, and Kayla in Greenfield. All three MLs are hosting write-ins and keeping western MA writers motivated and writing. Susan reached 50,000 words on day 6 and then bogged down due to distractions, vacation, being swamped at work, but hopes to finish her novel by November 30th. Kelly is on track with her novel at this time.
Susan had been a vendor at a church holiday bazaar in Agawam from 9AM to 2PM just prior to the meeting and related a story about what transpired at her table ten minutes before the bazaar ended. n elderly couple came to her table to look at her books. They asked her if she had written all those books and she said she had. The gentleman (who had to be in his eighties) then looked at her and stated, "I've never met a real live author before." He then seemed to get flustered and tongue-tied.SheI stretched out her hand and said, "Let me shake your hand." They shook hands and she said, "Now you have not only met a real live author, you've also shaken hands with one." They then talked about cats and squirrels (Susan had mentioned that she was also an artist.) She had a few unmounted black squirrel art prints that had been in the bottom of a bin of decorative items she'd brought for her table so she let them choose the print they liked best. They were delighted and went away excited and happy to have met an author. It was a sweet experience.
Susan asked Melissa Volker to talk a bit about her just released YA novel
How the Light Gets In. Susan had been asked to beta read the novel and been happy to do so.
The book is about a seventeen year old young man who has anxiety and is bullied at school to the point where his anxiety has caused him to see the world around him cracking and breaking away in chunks. He finds escape in his art. Within his art he discovers a "broken" girl and they explore his art and talk, a kindred spirit sort of relationship developing between them. The book follows Wyatt's path toward recovery from the bullying and relief from his anxiety-related visual hallucinations of the world cracking and falling away. The support of his family and close friends helps him- he is one of the fortunate ones who has a strong and supportive safety net, whereas other young people do not have a support system and fall away. It's a powerful novel and should be mandatory reading in high school. Anxiety is epidemic in today's teenagers and young adults, and bullying continues despite schools trying to curb it.
Bill Westerlind asked what it's like for an author to write something completely outside their normal, familiar genres. Melissa described how she had to world build, and then create a fantastical beast reference companion book to her magical Moya books
The Thirteenth Moon and the
The A'chiad. An idea that had seemed simple rapidly grew complex as she had to invent magical characters and spells, and realms beyond the 'real' world Moya and Fritz live in.
Susan talked briefly about
The Worth of a Woman, her new novel, which is a total departure from her usual writing style and genres of paranormal, supernatural, holiday, light romance, fantasy, and magical realism. The new novel takes place in a dystopian not too distant future when males have regained total dominance over females, using them primarily for their own pleasure, discarding them like unwanted dogs when tired of them, or simply killing them and buying another. Jade is bought at auction at age 15 and is expected to obey her owner/master, catering to his every whim and desire. But Jade is unlike the meek, complaint females men enjoy. She bristles at being dominated and resists. She wants something more from life than serving a man. This of course leads to punishments and confrontations as Archer struggles to gain the upper hand over her, but Jade remains true to her own self. Gradually Archer and Jade's relationship changes in small increments as he realizes that his expectations for her are never going to be met, that she will never be meek and compliant. She is sent away to learn the healing arts from Old Rose so she can be useful to the members of his compound as territorial skirmishes are occurring more frequently. Before she is fully trained, Old Rose is killed and immediately, men go after Jade. When her younger sister and Archer's younger brother are attacked, Jade does what she feels she has to do, she kills three men to save Lem, Pearl and herself from certain torture and death. This is cause for execution in the world they live in, a female deliberately killing three men. Things change, Archer and Giant come for her, and to find Pearl and Lem who should have returned to the compound. Jade's homecoming to the compound is less than friendly. The men resent her and feel she has weakened Archer, their leader with her continuing resistance to submitting to him. But Jade, in her own way, is loyal to Archer. When the son of the man who had wanted to purchase her for his own use, the man Archer killed in the auction hall, approaches Archer for help (after ordering Archer's murder and the elimination of Jade) it places Archer and Jade in a precarious position. Jade suffers horribly at Mann's hands, but finds it within herself to save Archer and other men from his compound...it's a raw, disturbing novel full of violence as Jade stands her ground and remains true to herself and her beliefs. She is the catalyst for change but at a steep cost. The book was emotionally wrenching to write and had to be done in three sections with long breaks between them.
Glen Ebisch spoke about what led him to write
Dearest David, his recent historical fiction novel. His usual genre is mystery. Sometimes authors need to do something different to challenge themselves- they get too cozy writing the same genre over and over again.
Sue Foley then talked about the difficulty she's having getting something written. She has a tendency to be a perfection and begins to nitpick her work before it's even written. The group talked about taking a leap of faith in oneself and just writing something, even a few sentences. Sue also doesn't have a lot of time to write, so we suggested writing breaks once a day where she sits down with a cup of tea or coffee and a pad and pen and just writes a few thoughts or sentences. The next day she can tinker with the sentences or add a few more. Writing is a discipline. A writer has to dedicate time to the craft. It cant be forced, but it can be nurtured. It's something one has to self-train for. Find a quiet place, a scenic view, a place with no distractions and devote ten to fifteen minutes a day to writing something, anything. Susan suggested instead of writing a story she try writing brief vignettes about her extended family. If each s written on a separate piece of paper Sue can later sort them and put them in some kind of order to create a series of vignettes that flow from one to the next.
Susan had been asked at the holiday bazaar if she ever gave talks or did programs with middle school children. The woman's info was gathered and passed along to Melissa at the meeting because she is interested in doing that kind of thing and more in tune with middle-school to high school aged kids. This is a good demonstration of how the WhipCity Wordsmiths work for and with one another, sharing information, passing along contact info,
Despite only seven members in attendance the meeting was lively, spirited and flowed with the energy that authors and writers need to keep their creative batteries at full charge.
Lex Volker took several pictures of the group during the meeting which were posted on facebook on Susan's page and also on her Susan Buffum Author page.
The bookstore calendar will be checked this coming Saturday to see if there are any openings available. Blue Umbrella is open on Sundays from this Sunday until Christmas, so a Sunday afternoon meeting may be possible instead of trying to find time on a busy Saturday as Christmas rapidly approaches.
