Update

Just got a call from my mom and my grandpa passed away early this morning. He had told us he was ready and wanted to be with grandma, so there's comfort in that. I won't be able to do any admin. stuff for the blog until next Monday. So, if you have any issues/problems, hang tight and I'll get with you then.

New Author

We have a new author joining our ranks. Let's all welcome Anne to our group. Hopefully, she'll post an note introducing herself. I know in her email to me, she said she was back to writing and would love some input. I know things have been a bit slow here lately, so hopefully everyone will be willing to give some constructive advice to our latest author.

Quick Update

Hi all! I'm so sorry for the long absence. Had some family medical issues after my grandma's death, so real life was pretty busy. I was all ready to come here and let everyone know how well my family was doing and then I got word that my grandpa fell and broke his hip. Plus, I've just received word of a new, huge project at work that's going to take up a lot of time. Goodness!!

Anyway, even if I'm not here much, please know I'm thinking about all of you and keeping up with your entries. I am still available as admin. if you have any problems posting or for new authors to be added. Just send me an email.

To keep this writing related, I've been taking the "Write Fiction Like a Pro" class (of course, I got a bit behind this week but will catch up. Hi Stan's Student!). Great class in terms of learning how to truly structure a story idea. Anyway, I thought this link would be of interest to all:


Developing Memorable Characters http://character-development.suite101.com/article.cfm/developing_memorable_characters
The more you know about your characters, the better you'll create believable characters who live and breathe on the page and in their own fictional world. Here are 45 questions to help you create your characters.

Hope everyone is doing well. Let us know how you're doing (and latest writing classes/projects) in the comments or with posts!

Back and Welcoming Another Author

Hi all! First, thank you for the thoughts and prayers. In the midst of everything, two of my family members in poor health had some major health issues arise in the wake of my Grandma's death. So, I'm afraid I had to be away a bit longer that I thought I would be. I FINALLY got caught up in the new writing class and am now trying to get caught up here. And GU, I LOVED the challenge...I have an idea in its barest written form right now (although I'm not sure it really has the "mystery solved" element strong enough) and have plans to add it to the comments in the next couple of days.

Okay, we have a new author to welcome. Dibbs should be getting an email invite and joining us here soon. Welcome, Dibbs! And, Lulu=Katie...sorry, Katie, I should have asked you what name you wanted to use here.

Also, from a comment in another post: many of us seem to be creating other blogs to give us an outlet for other creative expression that we're not able to post here. Someone asked if it would be okay to let the people here know about our other blogs and I don't see that being a problem. So, if you have another blog you want to let us know about, feel free to post it in the comments. Thanks!

Hi to another new author and a little business

Peglova just sent me an email asking to join us here. We should be seeing her name in our author's list shortly. Welcome, Peglova!

Also, if there are authors who haven't received an email invite from Blogger, please email me again and let me know. I have three invites in the queue and, as I've found out, I have accidently typed in email address incorrectly and people didn't get their invites. Just want to make sure I haven't left anyone out.

FYI... I'll probably be offline starting tomorrow and at least through Saturday. My grandma, who was battling late stage Alzheimer's, passed away late Monday evening. It may sound strange but it was truly a blessing. The world had become such a scary place for her in these last months and she was unable to do even the most basic things for herself. I know that everything she lost in this world has now been restored. Her funeral is Friday, so I'm travelling home to be with my family and especially my grandpa who is having such a hard time losing his wife of 68 years.

Author time!

Just sent an email invite to Lulu...you should be seeing her name added to the author's list soon.

Welcome, Lulu! Glad you're joining us here!

More new authors!

I just sent email invites to Nita and Maej from class. You should be seeing their names in the authors' list soon.

Welcome to both and we're so glad you're here!

New author

Just sent an email invite to another new author, Marita! You should be seeing her name on the right soon. Welcome, Marita!

New Author update

Jessica just got her email invite and should be joining us soon. Welcome, Jessica!

Welcome

I just sent an email invite to Nikki from the class, so we should be seeing her join the author's list soon. Hi, Nikki, and welcome!

Another author!!!

Hey everyone. NeiserDawn from the class has joined us. You'll see her as Denise in the author's list. Welcome!

Welcome to another author

Just sent an email invite to Rachel from our class. Hi, Rachel...hope to see you on the author's list soon.

Our authors' list continues to grow....

As I said in a previous post, I had sent an email invite to Robyn Kim and there she is in our list of authors as Robyn K. And, an email invite was just sent to Emerald Eyes.

Welcome to both!!!!

More good news!

We have another author joining us...just got an email from Val and she should be showing up on the author's list soon. Welcome, Val!

I'm finally back!

Oh dear! Work exploded all over the place with writing of grants, mission-driven strategic plans (I know all of you are jealous over that one), and a couple of unexpected twists including starting to outline and lead a task force which will present a analysis/report to the governor about the impact of Alzheimer's Disease on our state. Mmm-hmm, lots of creativity : )

Anyway, I've scrambled trying to catch up with class and get my assignments posted. I've started to leave some comments on classmates' final pieces and everyone did such an amazing job! I'm a bit upset, to be honest. I really didn't spend enough time on my 500 words but I went ahead and posted what I had. But, I'm also a bit excited as I know there's a lot of work for me to do, but I really feel like I have the tools now to keep improving it and, with our blog, I'll have the perfect place to post and get critiques.

I hope to spend so more time tomorrow catching up on comments here on the wonderful works everyone is posting and catching up in the discussion area for class. Also, I'm going to finish adding the links Ann provided for our class so we'll have them for our use as we continue writing.

And, in the best news, somehow my email stopped being crabby and let Robyn Kim in, so we should have her added as one of our authors soon. Welcome, Robyn!

For Robyn Kim plus some blog bizness

I'm so sorry you're having problems trying to sign up for the site!!! Maybe this is the issue: I have my email listed as jkcase_1999(at)yahoo.com. I spelled out the word "at" to stop companies who "fish" for emails and send you spam. So make sure, when you're when you're typing my email address to replace the word "at" with the actual "at symbol" located on the #2 on your keyboard. Also, don't forget the underscore (the line) between jkcase and 1999. Hope this makes sense and solves the problem.

And for everyone else....I'll be away from the blog for a few days. Work is crazy again/still and I'm writing a huge strategic plan PLUS yet another grant....both of which are due Friday. So, if there are any authors needing to be added or any other business-related issues, I'll be back in force Friday afternoon or evening. Thanks guys...I hope all of you know how much I'm enjoying reading, commenting, and being inspired by what everyone is doing here!

New Blog Labels

If you'll look at the bottom of the postings so far and in the middle of the right-hand side of the blog, you'll see new labels. I added them thinking that, as much as we're hopefully going to post, it would be nice to be able to search by your name or by a category. Listed are the labels which seem to fit so far including all of the blog authors' names.

Adding a label(s) is easy. When you're on the page typing out your new post, look at the bottom right of the box you're typing in and you'll see "Labels for this post." You can click on "Show all" in the right corner for a list of labels that have already been used, click on the label(s) you want to have added to your post, and you're done (like your author name). Or, let's say none of the labels listed really fit....you can always type in the new word you want to use as a label and, when you publish the post, your word will be added to the labels' list. The list is in alphabetical order, which should help with ease of use.

I also wanted to let you guys know that anyone (or everyone) can be a blog administrator. I've just done it so far to get the blog started...didn't want anyone to think I HAD to be the blog admin. If you want to also be an admin for the blog (we can easily have multiple ones), just let me know and it's a simple click of a button to have admin privileges added for you.

Welcome!

As you can see on the left, we have another new author to welcome to the blog. Hi, Randie...we're so glad you're here!

We have three other email invites out there, so fingers crossed there will be more people to welcome soon.

Another Interesting Writing Link and a Blog Bizness Note

(Everyone: Please let me know if you don't want these types of postings. I wasn't sure if any of you would be interested in links to online writing resources or not and didn't know if I should add any to our writing links section. We've got a great group of people here and we should all have a say so as to what should be posted here or not. I think we're all comfortable enough with each other to be able to express our honest opinions on these types of issues without hurting anyone's feelings.)

Another great writing site I'm falling in love with is http://www.writerswrite.com/ It seems overwhelming at first with the huge amount of information that hits you on that first page. But, I've found some great sections on the left hand side near the middle and bottom of the page. The two sections I've spent a lot of time in are the "Special Section" (which has every form of writing you can image) and the "Resources" section (which includes articles, interviews with authors, writers conferences, writers groups, writing contests, and, the bane of all our existences, grammar searches). Also, under "Jobs and Markets" there's an incredible "Guidelines Database" (for those interested in being published) which includes a search engine which lets you search by keywords (like specific genres), pay status, etc.

And just so you know, Ann Garci, I searched it by the keyword "Christian," checked all pay sources, and checked poetry and there were quite a few publishers to choose from.....HINT HINT!!!!!

Our blog is really picking up steam, which is incredible! I just wanted to let those of you who aren't familiar with Blogger to know that our page is only going to show a certain number of posts, which may not be all the posts for that day. If you scroll to the bottom of the blog, under the last post listed, you'll see "Older Posts" on the right. Click on that and you'll be able to see the posts before the ones on the first page so you won't miss any of the incredible writing being posted here (or the rants depending on how our writing went, haha!).

A bit more blog bizness....

First, a big hello to GeekUnderling! Our group is going to be great!

I wanted to let everyone know, in case you missed the message, that Ann had to delete a couple of posts where I included my email address and asked others to send theirs to me if they wanted to join. As part of the school's policy, exchange of emails addresses is not allowed on the discussion boards due to liability issues. However, we can direct people to the site itself (http://www.beginningwritersunite.blogspot.com/) and tell them that information on how to join is on the right-hand side of the blog.

Also, I've included the links Ann has shared with us on the right hand side...if there are any other links you would like added, just let me know. That's why I picked Blogger...the layout and changing thereof is incredibly easy. We can add all types of information and columns on the right.

Okay, this old woman is going to bed. Talk to everyone soon!