FINDING OUR SPACE

Greetings, fellow travelers in an ever-changing world . . .

This month, eleven writers found their way to our haven in the upper room.

The call to order came in the form of a question. "Does anyone object to Rich Barley becoming our vice president?"

There were no objections. Rich's first duty was to take over the meeting since Carol, our president, was late!

Several subjects needed to be discussed. Our usual space will not be available for the meeting in July. Meena is making arrangements for us to meet in the community room of her apartment complex near the Hershey Country Club. There will be food! Directions are to be posted, soon.

Details for our annual writers contest will also be posted soon. We would like to start accepting submissions in January of 2009. Give it some thought.

Membership dues are $15.00 and payable by the end of the year. What membership means is still evolving. It is up to all of us to define it. Further development of the web site will be a big part of the discussion. Please e-mail your suggestions and ideas.

Carol, who is happy to have such a capable vice president, read her monthly letter from the president to be posted on the web page. She had lots of thoughts on how we are adjusting to a rapidly changing world.

Meena announced that she has been given her own column in the Dauphin County Edition of 50plus Senior News! She will also be able to include her web site, www.tumbledowntales.com. If you haven't been to her site yet, go there. It's a nice place to visit.

A discussion began about making your presence known on the internet. Last month, Ralph Bieber and George Appelt attended a meeting of the Horror Writers Association, where much of the emphasis was on the importance of establishing your own space on the Web. Facebook is one option, but if you ever plan on having your own web site, now might be a good time to secure your domain name.

George, who was planning to attend a writers conference and make his pitch to an agent, told us of his adventures in creating a last minute web site. You can see the fantastic results of his efforts at www.georgerappeltjr.com.

Energy in the room was high as Mike Bender began reading a second installment to the short story he started last month. This set off a lively discussion on how to handle a deviation from reality, the importance of researching your subject, "how long should a short story be, anyway" and how to cut down on the number of words.

George also attempted to read an updated version of a short story from last month. The conversation continued. We decided to make an effort in future meetings to bring copies of what we plan to read, so comments can be written down and none of this good stuff gets wasted.

Ralph let us in on a top secret project, but if I tell you about it, one of his characters will have to kill ya.

As usual, Ed Guion came to our rescue. This time, with an enlightening poem. The subject was the Model A Shay which is a replica of the original Model A. Apparently, there's a whole club full of people who own them and Ed's poem will appear in the July/August edition of the club's publication.

Mostly, this month, we learned the value of having "a safe place to come and try things", as Rich defined our gathering.

Just as we come with different levels of writing ability, we are also finding ourselves in a world that requires us to overcome our varying degrees of intimidation when we face that great entity, the internet.

Be brave. You are not alone.
-Rita Morrow
Secretary CPWO