Hello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and we’ll be kicking it off with a write-in THIS SATURDAY! Meet us at Pizza Ranch at 11:30 a.m. for some prompts and writing time. Scroll to the bottom of the newsletter for more information.
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
We’ve got some exciting events coming up, so be sure to read all the way through!
This month we are featuring Jess Witkins. Jess is the facilitator for the Rewrites critique group and past president of MVWG. She loves the writing community she's found through the guild, midwest writing conferences, and author events. Her favorite thing about her critique group is how she always leaves more energized and inspired by her fellow writers than when she arrived. Jess worked as a freelance writer for several years, and occasionally still does, but shifted into public library work almost eight years ago, where she enjoys ordering and unboxing new books, hosting author events, and of course recommending what you should read next.
Jess is currently working on a memoir, several picture books, poetry, and whatever essay or short story is inspiring her at the moment. You can often find her journaling in coffee shops or listening to audiobooks while walking her rescue dogs.
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
This month we highlight MVWG Board Member, Scott Blanke. Here’s what he has to say, “I'll never know why a retired surgeon, who previously wrote some medical newspaper and journal pieces, thought he could be a writer. But with my ego, I decided to try. I have written and had published a humorous Oz novel, a medical murder mystery, several short stories, and flash fiction pieces. I always type my work, because I can't read my own handwriting.”
Now that you’ve met all of our board members, we want to learn about you! Send your bio to mvwguild@gmail.com and we will feature you in an upcoming newsletter!
Read on for your monthly motivation, news, writing prompt, and events.
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
This month we are highlighting board member Tracy Schuldt Helixon. Tracy began her writing career at age five, when her parents found her writing all over her little brother. When they asked why, she said, “Timmy thought he was a piece of paper.” To Timmy’s relief, she now uses a computer to write. Tracy is the author of a faith-based historical romance and two sequel novellas, a collection of contemporary romance short stories, an early chapter book, and a picture book—all traditionally published. When the small press for her children’s books went out of business during the pandemic, she purchased the art rights and began a self-publishing adventure. Tracy has been teaching writing, creative writing, and speech full-time at Western Technical College since 1999. Grateful for her Rewrites critique group, she writes because it makes her a happier and more creative teacher, spouse, parent, friend, and human.
Read on for more great writing stuff!
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
This month, we are highlighting our board president, Amanda Zieba. She likes to call herself a word nerd and is a part of the Express-Oh MVWG critique group. She has written over a dozen feel good fiction books for readers of all ages and also creates educational resources for middle school ELA/Reading teachers. When she’s not writing or creating content, you can likely find her watching her sons compete in some sort of sporting event, usually with a good book in hand! You can learn more about her and her work here: www.amandazieba.com.
We’ve got some fun events coming up this month, so read on to find out more!
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
This month, we are highlighting our board treasurer, Heidi Griminger Blanke. Heidi has been with this group since 2005, when it was known as Women Writers. She authored a romance e-novel and has been published in a number of anthologies. Over the years, she’s written feature articles for many area magazines (most now defunct), a few articles on the national level, and she taught business writing at Viterbo University for over ten years. She leads the Express-oh group and participates in Thursday Scribblers. She’s not much of a fiction writer, but she keeps plugging away at a women’s fiction novel regardless. She won a city-wide writing contest in sixth grade, but also failed to make it onto her high school’s newspaper team every year. Keep on truckin’.
This month’s newsletter is packed with great stuff from the guild, so read on to find out what our members have been up to!
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome back to the newsletter!
I thought it would be fun to introduce our board members over the next few newsletters and who better to start with than, well, me! My name is Kristen Nyholm and I am the Social Media Chair and a member of the ReWrites critique groups. I am currently writing a historical fiction novel set in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s about a woman who marries into a circus family. I’m originally from Baraboo, so I essentially grew up with the circus in my backyard and I decided to take my knowledge of and passion for the circus to tell the lesser known stories of women in the circus. I’ve been working on this novel for about 5 years, but I am determined to finish in 2024!
Next month, we’ll feature another board member. Until then, keep reading for motivation, news from the guild, a writing prompt, and guild events!
Read MoreHello Writers!
Welcome to the first issue of our Newsletter!
We are working to build a more active guild and wanted to start by connecting with you through a newsletter. Each month you’ll receive:
Motivation (tips, tricks, resources, memes)
Victory! News from the Guild
Writing Prompts
Guild Events
(Get it? MVWG!)
So read on to find out more!
Read MoreWritten by MVWG Member Tracy Helixon
A few years ago, on a family summer road trip, we passed a section of rolling hills along a country road. Sunlight cast a glow on the hillside, highlighting several soft and vivid shades of green. I told the kids to take note. It felt as if we were driving through a painting.
I glanced over at my husband in the driver’s seat. “Jonathan would love this,” I said.
Jonathan is not a real person. He is the protagonist in my debut novel, Fields of Promise, which had yet to be finished or published on the day of that road trip.
Realizing what I had just said, I shook my head and grinned. I had spent a lot of time on my manuscript that summer. Clearly, Jonathan had come to life for me during that process. Hopefully, he would someday come to life for readers too.
Read MoreWritten by MVWG Member Amanda Zieba
** This piece previously appeared on Amanda’s blog back in 2017!
I spent last weekend in Denver, visiting my sister-in-law and her husband. It was a great, adult-only, getaway, full of all the typical Colorado tourist destinations. We watched a Rockies game, toured the Coors Brewery and wandered through the shop and restaurant filled Union Station. We had a lovely dinner at my in-laws’ house, enjoying good food and good company, without the presence of Midwestern mosquitos. One of my favorite moments of the trip, however, came on the last day of our trip when we visited the historic bookstore: Tattered Cover.
Read MoreSeveral years ago, after reading Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ poetry book, Red Clay Suite, for a poetry course and thinking about the annotation I would need to write, I realized just how like a music composition her book was. I even titled my annotation, “Southern Lament, A Sonata Cantata.” Jeffers borrowed a musical structure for her book of poetry and applied it beautifully. There was a rhythmic feel to her poems and throughout her composition she used words reminiscent of the musicality of her piece, such as “suite… tune…wails… hymn… song… singing… blues.”
Poetry is a work of art that comes in many forms, as do other types of art, such as painting, music, sculpture, etc. For most forms of poetry there is an infrastructure. For example
Read MoreAre you a strict plotter? Or do you approach your writing journey as a pantser? If you are an established writer, churning out books, then you are probably a plotter. Not sure what I’m talking about? Then read on!
What Is a Plotter? Simply put, a plotter is someone who plans out their novel before they write it.
My first, unpublished novel took nine years to write and was done as a pantser. My second novel, (December 2021) was written as a plotter. I knew the ending, and broke the novel into three section, each one-third of the book outlined carefully beforehand.
The writing approach as a plotter helps you generate ideas.
Read MoreWritten by MVWG Member Heidi Blanke
Are you longing to try your hand at writing romance? Perhaps you want to write 50,000 words of
happily-ever-after or maybe you just want to add a bit of spice to your murder mystery. It’s the month
of so here are some websites to help you pencil in affection, infatuation, or even raw passion.
Stephismith.com has everything you need for writing romance, from her own blog to lists of agents to links to dozens of writing websites.
Romancejunkies.com reviews the latest romance novels and sorts them by sub-genre. Want to know what’s being published in paranormal romance or contemporary romance? Read the books listed here to learn what today’s publishers might be after.
Looking to spend those holiday gift cards on some new writing books? Well you are in luck! The members of the Mississippi Valley Writers Guild board are here to share some of their favorites! Grab a pencil to jot down the titles that sound appealing to you (spoiler alert, that was alllllll of them in my case!) and then bust out those gift cards and get shopping… so you can read… and then write.
Recommended by Guild President: Jess Witkins
This newer craft book has been getting tons of well deserved attention for its modern …
Read MoreJoining a writing group can be daunting, especially for a beginning writer. At one point, we were all newbies in the writing world! Read what some of our most recent Mississippi Valley Writers Guild members have to say about joining a critique group.
The Tuesday afternoon group swooped me under their wings a few short months ago. Starting out I was a little nervous. My genre is non-fiction writing and I wasn’t sure
Read MoreWritten by MVWG Member Jess Witkins
Fall is a wonderful time of year for writers as it includes November’s National Novel Writing Month. All around the world, writers write their hearts out trying to reach 50,000 words in a month!
Here in the Mississippi Valley Writers Guild, we know not all our writers are working on novels. We have playwrights, poets, picture book writers, memoirists and more! So, wanting to create something inclusive, educational, and community oriented, we partnered up with local libraries, writing groups and arts organizations to create our very own Great River Writes fall writing series.
You’re invited! Events start up in October and run through most of November. With thanks to our Great River Writes committee members: MVWG, Winona Public Library, La Crosse Public Library, La Crosse Area Writers Group, River Arts Alliance, and University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.
Read Moreby MVWG Member Christy Wopat
If you’re anything like me, writing can be an emotional roller-coaster.
Some of us are happy to write simply for our critique groups while others, like me, are extremely motivated to become traditionally, NY-Big-Five published. No matter where you fall on that continuum, though, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of us write for the feeling of an audience reading our words, and for their approval.
I’m ambitious. I do a lot for the writing community without a single dollar as payment. I take classes and attend writerly events. I enter contests, and I submit articles and essays to different organizations quite often. For me, this means a LOT of rejection. A LOT of silence in my email inbox. I try to remain hopeful, but often it can feel like I write things and send them into the void, never to be seen again.
Read MoreWritten by MVWG Member Scott Blanke
When I retired from my medical practice at Mayo Clinic, I was told by my wife, Heidi, that I had to do something to keep me out of her hair. Just watching TV, reading fiction novels and comic books and stalking her around the house was not allowed. Since I had been working on a murder mystery novel for ten years, I decided to become a writer.
After reading multiple writing aid books, finishing many flash fictions and short stories, I learned what it means to be rejected. But my novel was now finished. Both my beta editor and wife both said, “boring and too autobiographical,” so I sought outside help. I decided to go to my first writing course in Madison.
The courses were great and I pitched my novel to several agents. Each one said, ‘interesting, we’ll call you, don’t call us.’ No one ever called. So, I figured another course was needed. As a birthday gift, Heidi and I went to Mexico for another great course. Both the lectures and the food were amazing, but no agents thought my novel was Bueño. I put my novel on the virtual shelf.
Read MoreWritten by MVWG Member Tracy Schuldt Helixon
I’ve always wanted to have my own lilac bush. Last year, in the midst of the pandemic, in an act of defiant hope, I mail-ordered one. I pictured it. It would arrive in the mail in full bloom! I would inhale its sweet scent, plant it in the front yard, and enjoy it all season long!
Turns out, I had a lot to learn.
Weeks later, I crouched next to its withered leaves and dry branches, holding a watering hose at its base. It hadn’t exactly grown as I had expected. “If you can just get it to hang on until winter, it will bloom much better in the spring,” my friend Sue had told me. I studied the few remaining green buds, moved the hose even closer to the roots, and hoped she was right.
Seven months later, on a cloudy spring day, I’m sitting on my front porch as I write this. The lilac bush is thriving. The warm breeze carries its sweet, fragrant scent. I savor it.
My assigned topic for this blog post is the publication of my debut novel. I can’t help but see the parallels to that lilac bush.
Read MoreDuring my critique group (with the Mississippi Valley Writers Guild) last week we were talking about the passing of time. We were specifically discussing best practices for showing the passage of time in our stories.
It is easy to fall into the trap of telling each and every little part of our characters’ days. They woke up; they ate breakfast. They went to work and had a meaningful conversation, and then went out to happy hour with a few co-workers and blah, blah, blah. The career pivoting conversation was the important part of the scene, but if we didn’t say the character ate scrambeled eggs and was annoyed by their morning commute, did it really happen? What could you leave out? And when could you hit the fast forward button? What should you absolutely not skip? Most importantly, what kinds of signal words should you be using to tell your reader the chronology of events without boring or confusing them?
We talked for awhile, mentioning points of our own manuscripts we felt could be improved, and then I had an idea. As a middle school reading and English teacher I often employed a strategy called “using a mentor text,” and it worked GREAT! By looking at published stories we admired, we saw what the desired end result could look like, and my students were able to make better attempts at achieving the goal we’d set out to pursue. I suggested to my critque group we do the same thing. “Let’s look at how the pros do it,” I said.
Read More
