PAW PRINTS

    Happy New Year!  Have you made your resolutions yet?  Have you broken them yet? ;-)   I made the same old, same old resolutions:  lose weight, write more, yadda, yadda, yadda...One new one:  I hope to keep Paw Prints as good this year as it was last year (small pat on my back).
    This issue is a great start.  Pat Millette is continuing her “While Surfing the Web” contributions with a great article on “Action.”  New President, Linda Goodnight, has some great words for us on writing.  I’ve also included some insightful articles by Alicia Rasley and Pamela Morsi (OWFI’s keynote speaker in May).
    As always, send any ideas or articles to me via e-mail at kellimcb@chickasaw.com or give them to me at the meeting.  Please note the new officers and their e-mail addresses in this issue.  If you have any ideas, contacts, or programs you’d like to see/give, send them to Pat.  Let’s make this year one where all of our members get involve and help strengthen our club.
     February articles are due February 5th.

    We stand on the edge of a long, clean, gleamingly empty new year, as pristine as a new sheet of writing paper.  A new year. A new beginning. A time to evaluate our past and to set new goals for the future.  You've probably made your resolution to exercise more or to be a nicer person, but what about your writing? If you are serious about the craft, set at least one meaningful, realistic goal for the coming year. Write it down. Tack it over your writing space. Work toward it.  After talking to, and reading interviews by, dozens of successful writers, I know one thing. Success came to those who worked at it the hardest. You'll never publish a thing if you don't write. There is an enormous amount of raw talent in PAWS, but we must not allow that ability to stagnate. Read, write, learn, grow. You'll never know how far you can go until you begin. Good writing, from now through the next millennium.

    The New Year is a good time to take stock of what went "write" for PAWS' members during the past twelve months.  Through personal tragedies, illness, and family problems, PAWS' members continued to bang away at the keyboards, producing publishable material and winning contests.  Dawn Prater, Ann Huguenin, and Linda Goodnight sold stories to the confession market. Linda Goodnight sold an inspirational story to Angels on Earth. Doris Novotny sold a nonfiction piece to Cappers' Weekly, while Ramona Raffety saw an article published in the Stroud American. The OWFI Report accepted a nonfiction article from Kelli McBride.  Patti Marshall published several articles in Par Excellence.
    PAWS' members were no slouches in the contest department either. Inner-club contests were won by Karen Anderson, Pat Millette, and Kelli McBride. Winners in contests outside our club include: Patti Marshall, Janis Imel, Kelli McBride, Linda Goodnight, and Dawn Prater.  Many of our members completed stories, articles, and novels during the year, and took that all-important step of putting the manuscripts in the mail.  The club as a whole sponsored a workshop, a contest, critique groups, and brought in a number of knowledgeable, informative speakers to help us hone our craft.  As a young organization, only four years in existence, we can look back with pride at what our members accomplished in 1998, and look forward with anticipation for what the new year holds.  See you at the meeting.

President Vice-President and Program Chair Secretary Treasurer Historian/Reporter Paw Prints Editor OWFI Representatives Research Historian (Honorary)

Linda Goodnight Pat Millette Doris Novotny Karen Anderson Elaine Carmen Wells Kelli McBride Linda Goodnight and Kelli McBride Lorraine Stone

    Linda Goodnight will be our speaker for the January meeting.  She’ll talk about the ends and outs of writing – including Scene and Sequel and Patterns in Your Writing and more.  Brings plenty of paper for notes.  Linda will also have handouts available.  Talk to you later.

    Ever felt like screaming at your characters, "Don't just sit there, DO SOMETHING!" But the hero and heroine just want to talk and the villain wants to plot. Yak, yak, yawn. Don't worry, you're not alone.  Some days, I feel like it'd take a ground zero nuke to get my characters moving.  Oh okay, it's not the characters' fault, even though it's fun to pin the blame on them. What we need here is… ACTION.
 

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    I was a professional writer for many years before I discovered the difference between "which" and "that." Ever since correcting my mistaken notion of the usage of these words, I have noticed that many people do not know when the use of "that" rather than "which" is appropriate. Training yourself to differentiate and employ these words correctly can ensure that you will make a better impression on a reader who has a proper grasp of English grammar.

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    I just turned off the television.  I was watching “The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder,” and his guest, George Carlin, said something that connected with thoughts I’d been having.  He said all children should have a mandatory hour a day when they shut everything electronic off and just daydreamed.
    I’ve been thinking of daydreams ever since I read an article on the Romantic Times web site by Pamela Morsi.  She talked of daydreaming as a child [note: that article follows this column].   I remember daydreaming, wishing I were a beautiful princess rescued by a handsome knight (one who often resembled Errol Flynn or Cary Grant).  Or I was a doomed, tragic figure separated from my one true love by my evil, scheming relatives a la Romeo and Juliet (I really loved tragedy in those days).  I even remember my first grade teacher Mrs. Coburn swatting me over the shoulders with a yard stick for daydreaming instead of working on math.  She was my own Wicked Witch of the West.  I still refer to her as Mrs. Cobra, my first grade class’s nickname for her.
    I’m sure part of my daydreaming resulted from an unhappy childhood.  We moved around a lot, so I was always the new girl in class.  That coupled with my chubbiness and height always made me stick out.  I invariably hung out with the other “odd balls” – a group whose only common denominator was the fact that we didn’t fit in the other social cliques.  I spent a lot of time alone and took refuge in reading and watching wonderful movies from the “Golden Age” of Hollywood – those great “B” films set in exotic locales with strange magic, gossamer costumes, dashing heroes, and dastardly villains.  Then I’d daydream, spinning fabulous tales in my mind – how I would lift the curse, win the prince, defeat the wicked Hoolagu Khan, and remain as fresh as a daisy throughout it all.
    Yes, I loved to daydream myself out of the confusing and angry world I lived in.  I guess it isn’t very surprising then that I want to be a writer, for aren’t most writers daydreamers at heart?
    Think back to your childhood.  Did your parents scold you for not paying attention?  Did you love having nothing to do but lie on the grass and drift?  When you read a book, did you become so immersed in the story that all else around you faded?  You could forget worries, fears, and hurt by slipping into that timeless realm where you controlled everything.  And when something didn’t work out right, you simply restarted the dream.
    But somewhere along the way, I forgot to daydream.  Other outlets for creativity took its place.  Plus, I couldn’t let myself go and slip into oblivion during the day; there was always too much to do.  Besides, only children daydream.  Right?
    WRONG!!  We need to reclaim our daydreaming.  Start spending time on doing nothing but letting our thoughts go, relearn to tune out the world.  Believe me, the world isn’t going anywhere that we can’t find it.  And daydreaming will help our writing.  Let out all the stops; don’t let yourself be boxed in by rules and regulations.  Let your dreams take you where they will.  Think how refreshed you’ll feel after such a session.  Doctors say that all adults should take a thirty-minute nap a day.  But if you’re like me, thirty minutes only makes me cranky.  My mind is generally too busy to shut down so fast.  But daydreaming would let my mind expand and relax.
    Right now, I do my daydreaming in bed before I go to sleep.  It helps me wind down.  Oh, the books I’ve plotted during these times.  Whoo, baby! the men I’ve created (who often resemble Benjamin Bratt or Michael T. Weiss – I’ve given up on Errol Flynn and Cary Grant).  In fact, the opening scene for my current novel came from one of those sessions.
    So I’m making a New Year’s wish for all of you.  I wish that you recapture your daydreaming gifts.  And it is a gift.  Not everyone can lose himself or herself in a fantasy.  I hope your fantasies are as wonderful as mine.
    Just keep your daydreaming hands off Benjamin Bratt.  He’s mine.

    I am a storyteller. Every day, for all my life, convoluted plots float around my head. Characters pop in at any time of the day and night as I determinedly go about my real life doing laundry, washing dishes and cooking meals.
    'Daydreaming' is what my mother called it when I was a child, and it was an activity for which she had little tolerance.
 

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