March Madness, or Just Do It

My husband is deep into March Madness. He pursues the legendary dozen Krispy Kreme donuts offered as first prize by our son's Bracketology contest. I'm not interested at all in basketball, college or otherwise, so March Madness is a chance for me to have some time to myself.

I'm spending March hard at work on a sequel to Gatekeeper. The new novel is half done. I had given it up a couple of years ago to finish one I had also half finished a long time ago. I love world building. The book is a contemporary fantasy, set in the real world, but I get to develop the rules for magic. I've invented deliciously evil creatures that resemble spiders—of which I'm terrified—but these are the size of dogs, with an occasional one as large as a horse.

That comparison with horses made me remember where this interest in storytelling all began.

In fifth and sixth grades I attended school in the tiny town of Ismay, Montana. There were 8 of us in fourth through eighth grades. My teacher was a caring and nurturing woman much ahead of her times. She encouraged each of us to follow our dreams. My dream was writing stories.

I hadn't yet read the Island Stallion series so I wasn't interested in being shipwrecked on a faraway island with only a horse for company. We were too far from civilization to have television. Aside from angleworm races with a friend and never-ending Monopoly games with said friend and my father (who brazenly cheated), I delved into my imagination and wrote stories.

One story became a saga about a girl growing up on a ranch and somehow finding the best wild horse in the world just wandering the prairie. It, of course, learned to love me, followed me home and became my best friend. We did something heroic. I can't remember what. Perhaps we rescued a lamb from a bear (I always had a soft spot for lambs). My teacher helped me turn the story into a little chapter book with a cover and table of contents and all. All hand made and illustrated by me. She helped me enter it in the State Fair. I won a blue ribbon. I still have the story and the ribbon somewhere.

My mother always told my brothers and I that we could do whatever we set our minds to. We may not achieve our dreams in quite the way we anticipate, but we'll have a wonderful time along life's highway.

Think about a time when you felt eager to write, when you felt a passion for telling stories--fiction, nonfiction or poetry--and just do it.

Maybe I'll never be a rich and famous author, but my stories are out there. And I'm having the time of my life building my worlds, be they real or fantasy.

THE WRITER, THE QUILL, AND THE FLOWER

Even though winter is almost here, I still have flowers. The roses are on their way out, but mums and viola and snapdragons have taken their places. By spring, the roses will take over again and the cycle will continue as long as all things that bloom get what they need.

Writers are a lot like flowers. They produce under the right conditions, they need creative sustenance to thrive, and they grow best surrounded by other writers who offer good honest critique and encouragement.

In an effort to offer our membership those same amenities, The Quill will undergo some changes. While our monthly newsletter will continue to promote your successes in “Member Chatter” and provide timely information about our annual conference, as of January 2012, The Quill will no longer be strictly conference oriented.

But in order to make those changes, I need to hear your ideas on what you’d like to see in The Quill. What kinds of craft issues would you like to see addressed? What kinds of contests are you interested in? Do you know someone who is a contest hound who would make a great resource for The Quill? Do you know of someone who would be a great columnist but might need a little arm-twisting? Or would you be interested in writing a monthly column?

If you’re a gardener, you know there are always to-do-lists, and, for many of us, the holiday season is no different. After talking to several SCWW members, the general consensus is they’d love to see more Quill articles on ways to sell yourself and your manuscript, on craft and contests.

As you make your lists over the next few weeks, think about what you’d like to see in The Quill. How would you make it better? What could we add to The Quill that would help you blossom artistically and publish? Most importantly, what do you need to grow?

Please Email your ideas to scwwquill@gmail.com.

Many thanks, and have a wonderful writing season.

Kim Boykin

Quill Editor

Can I Get A Witness?

Okay, so I really needed a laugh today and I decided to do my blog rounds to find one.

Found this on George RR Martin's Not A Blog.



I don't know this guy, but I'm on the way to buy one of his books. You gotta give this dude some credit.