Energizing the Tuesday Fiction Writers

Our writing group, Tuesday Fiction Writers, has been around for quite a while. Probably more than 12 years, but its membership is dropping. We used to be promoted in the library's print magazine. Then budget cuts occurred and our listing is now pretty hard to find on the library's website. When I finally got off my rosy cheeks and looked at the listings, I discovered the location was incorrect and, sometimes even the days and times were wrong. This has probably been going on for a long time. I found someone at the BPL who would take the time to correct the information, so that's finally done, but now what?

We need approximately  10 to 14 members to insure that writers who are having their work critiqued can get a good mix of comments. For years our problem was having too many members. Getting 18 to 23 people through 30 pages of writing in slightly more than 2 hours was almost impossible, so I didn't mind when the number of attendees was around 8 as long as it was 8 people who knew how to critique.

At first I put up notices on bulletin boards, but I don't get to Boulder too often these days. Tuesday Fiction Writers meets in Boulder so it's expected that most members will be from the immediate area. Then I got the bright idea to pay some money to list the group on a "meet up" website. Today is the first day of the listing and I've gotten 8 inquiries so far. I'm wondering if I've done a good thing or a thing that's going to backfire on me. I won't know until the next meeting on May 13th.

I want the Tuesday Fiction Writers to survive but at what amount of effort on my part? A librarian has approached us about someday taking over the group, but I fear it would lose its ability to be uncensored and a little bit wild.

Rootin' Tootin' Wyoming

 I was watching the news this morning and learned some things about missiles. There are 420 armed nuclear missiles standing ready to go in Wyoming. The silos are surrounded by farms and ranches, with no attempt to hide them. The military uses computers from the 60s with floppy discs because terrorist hackers can't access them. The missiles can only be launched by a direct order from the President, and there is no way to cancel the missiles once they are launched.

That's a lot of armed missiles.

I also learned that I didn't know how to spell missiles. I have corrected my lack of knowledge and will try to do a better job with my spelling, and my pronunciation. You never know when you'll have to scream out, "Look out for the missiles, Y'all!" I don't think "Duck and Cover" is going to be much help.

A World of Crazy-Making Going On

I've been remembering and researching the 60s lately, so the past is on my mind a lot. I've had 44 years to process the past, but the present still confounds me. We were afraid of so much after the trauma of the wars. The Soviet Union was a threat, the cold war and bomb shelters were something even elementary school children knew about. We had Duck and Cover drills in case of a nuclear attack. I look at the broad history and think that the people of that era have every reason to be anxious and maybe even pessimistic. As the character of a nation is shaped, so is the character of its children.

Self-medicating and an infusion of self-centeredness are the most obvious results of my generation's fearful upbringing. (among others)

But the children in our present time are just as fearful, if not more so. An overwhelming amount of information and disinformation is a keyboard away. Our media bombards us with tragedies from around the globe. So people withdraw and focus on taking care of their own, turning a suspicious eye on others who might need some help. Stranger Danger annoys the shit out of me, since the facts don't support the need for the paranoia, and neighborhoods suffer because of the insular nature of the fear.

Today my heart broke a little bit for a blogger I follow. Her 4th-grade daughter brought home a letter stating an email had been received that there would be mass violence at an unnamed elementary school in their district. These schools already stage  regular lock-down drills to teach the children how to silently hide during an attack, how to barricade the doors, and what to throw at the attackers to slow them down. The evil they're afraid of doesn't even have a face.

We just observed the 15th anniversary of the Columbine Massacre. Thirteen years have passed since the 9/11 Attack. It's too horrible to think of all the attacks that have happened since then.

So instead of pondering the past, I'm going to devote some time thinking about how to help our children to be strong and confident in their ability to deal with the world.

Working Weekend

We're always in a rush around here. It's been years and years since we woke up on a weekend and just read the New York Times and drank coffee. There's always a to-do list that ebbs and flows, but never gets finished.

Steve is giving up his office and has moved two rooms of equipment into one bedroom upstairs. Two strong family members helped him move the stuff down two flights of stairs, and up the stairs here. I am exhausted by association, although I helped move boxes in the morning. Now Steve is in the attic, running wires across the attic in this old house. The new office only has one outlet, since this house was built pre-electricity, and is still behind the times. You would not believe the mess from this project. I'm going to have to take him to the car wash to hose the dust and grim off of him.

However, I am the lucky recipient of his old desk. It fits nicely in the corner of our sunroom. The cat is happy to once again have her two windows to look out of. This photo doesn't show the godawful pile of stuff that was moved out of this corner to make room. I took the photo early in the day. Now its surface has a lot more stuff on it. I think it's a good spot for writing.

Heron Rookery at Crane Hollow

We have a lot of physical labor to do today and tomorrow so, at the time we would have gone to a coffee place, we went to a drive-through and took our coffee out to Crane Hollow. Getting out to enjoy the natural world is the best way to prepare for work. Puts everything in perspective.

There are ponds to the west of Hygiene (the actual name of the town) that serve a large population of Great Blue Herons. It's a large colony and a bird paradise of sorts. There are also Red-Winged Blackbirds, geese, ducks, hawks, and owls there. Alas, no Cranes at Crane Hollow, misnamed by pioneers a long time ago.

The Heron Rookery at Crane Hollow

The Ogallala Road: A New Memoir

The Ogallala Road by local author Julene Bair is my latest discovery. It amazes me how many extraordinary writers are out there that I have yet to read.  Quite a while ago, I read a short essay by Bair in an anthology titled: Leaning Into the Wind, but I had no idea she'd become such an accomplished writer.

After doing some heavy-duty babysitting this week, I was jogging between the kitchen, where I was making dinner, and my computer, where I was catching up on general communication. I reread the email from the Longmont Library and was surprised that a reading I thought I missed out on, was actually happening that evening. We quickly ate dinner and headed to the library.

The title alone would be guaranteed to catch my attention. I wrote a paper on the Ogallala Aquifer while I was going to Metro State in Denver. It's horrifying and fascinating watching the damage being done to this ancient aquifer. It's like watching an environmental train wreck. In the book, The Ogallala Road, is the story of a family farm in Kansas, the Ogallala Aquifer, and a woman's life, and all are interwoven.

If you'd enjoy reading some well-written nonfiction, I recommend Julene Bair's work, and The Ogallala Road in particular.

Nature as replica, but you can't fake water.

The Sixties

I was trying to write a quick synopsis of the sixties for a new piece of fiction I started, so I quickly knocked one out as an example for the rough draft I was submitting to the writing group. It may work, but it certainly got me remembering and thinking about what the world was like for my younger self.

Here's a new version, that's more inclusive, of some events that took place between 1960 and 1969:

The birth control pill was approved. The Soviets send the first man into space. A CIA U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace. Sit-ins began in Greensboro, N.C., helping to launch the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Act was passed. JFK was elected president. The U.S. breaks off diplomatic relations with Cuba. The Peace Corps is established. The Bay of Pigs Invasion takes place. Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space. The Berlin Crisis. The Viet Nam War begins. OPEC is formed. John Glenn orbits the earth. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs. The SDS is formed. Marilyn Monroe dies of an apparent overdose.The March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech. Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique. President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. The Beatles arrive in the U.S. Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison. The Tonkin Gulf incident. President Johnson proposes the Great Society reforms. The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Anti-war marches begin. Voting Rights Act. Higher Education Acto. Malcom X is assassinated. Miniskirts scandalize the country. The Watts Riots in Los Angeles last for six days. The Black Panther Party is formed. Mass draft protests. NOW is formed. Muhammad Ali declares himself as a conscientious objector. Detroit race riots begin the "Long Hot Summer of 1967" when there are race riots in across the country. Che Guevara is killed. The first heart transplant is done. Stalin's daughter defects. Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice. The Summer of Love happens in S.F., with over 100,000 young people arriving in the city. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated. Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated two months later. The My Lei Massacre. A nerve gas leak in Utah kills 6,000 sheep. The Zodiac Killer makes his first appearance. The spy ship USS Pueblo is captured.The Tet Offensive begins in Viet Nam. The Civil Rights Act of 1968. Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Anti-war protesters fight with police at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Richard Nixon is elected president.The Stonewall Riots in NYC are the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement.  Senator Edward M. Kennedy drives off a bridge in Chappaquiddick, killing a girl. Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.The Manson Family murders occur. Yassar Arafat becomes the leader of the PLO. Woodstock rocks the nation.

I wonder if history seems as changeable and complex to the young people today. When I graduated from high school, I could only see the world as a dangerous carnival of smoke and mirrors. The community I was raised in was immersed in treacle sit-coms, and trying hard to maintain a fifties set of expectations. I never once in my life fit into that reality.

If I had to pick one word to represent the experience of growing up in the sixties, it would be exhilerating.

Peace, Love, and Flowers.

Boulder Writing Group

Since the library quit promoting our Boulder writing group, except in tiny print on a website, we've had our numbers drop. You need between 6 and 8 critiques in order to get useful information on your writing. This means that you need at least 12 members to allow for absences. I've been trying to put up notices on coffee-house bulletin boards, but I'm not the latte addict I used to be.

Our Boulder Writing Group is congenial and very knowledgable about all thing involving editing and copyediting. We have new writers, experienced writers, and some published writers. It's free but the quality is better than some Boulder Writing Groups that actually charge between $10 and $25 for each meeting. The price to you, the writer, is your participation.

The Boulder Writing Group meets at the Meadows Branch of the BPL in Boulder, Colorado. We meet on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of each month, beginning at 6:30 PM.

If you write, want to write, or know anyone who would enjoy a writing group like this one, please check out the guidelines and send an email. We'd be happy to meet you.

To receive a copy of the guidelines, write to us at: tfw_bpl@hotmail.com

The Boulder Writing Group meets next Tuesday, April 22nd.

You Belong 2014: Words and Images from Longmont Area Residents

The Longmont Library Literary Festival ended yesterday. They published a nice-looking book containing a lot of local talent. There were 61 writers there, for the final event, to speak to the public, as well as to promote and sell their own books.

I was happy to have two of my short stories published in the anthology titled You Belong 2014: Words and Images from Longmont Area Residents. The perspectives on the Flood of 2013 were quite moving.

I submitted my two best, and favorite stories, to the anthology. Doing so limits my ability to get them published someplace else, but I needed to let them go so I could move on.

Now we're waiting to see what happens when Colorado's 150% snowpack melts off this year. It could be The Flood of 2013: Part 2. There has already been some basement flooding in Boulder and the warm weather hasn't really arrived yet.

Congratulations to all who were published and belong in Longmont. Many thanks to Steve Kenworthy for editing You Belong 2014, and kudos to The Friends of the Longmont Library for publishing the anthology and for everything else they do for us.

Ospreys in Longmont

I went to have coffee with three friends yesterday. We lamented, we learned, and we discussed the possibility of having a writing retreat of sorts up at the cabin.

Tired and hungry, I bought a sandwich on the way home and headed over the fairgrounds to park next to Cattail Pond. I went there last week to see if I could watch the nesting ospreys but only saw one goose. Not exactly a rare sighting around here. This time I saw both of the ospreys, and watched one hunting for quite a while. Finally it came back to the nest with a large snake dangling from its beak. I initially felt bad for the snake but, of course, this was good news for the birds. It was a good place to eat a sandwich.

I came home and looked up the live cam that faces their nest.  There is one chick so far, and I learned that it is very rare for an osprey to eat a snake. I'm sure last year's flooding has done a lot of damage to their hunting grounds.

The pole in the distance is where the nesting platform is.