HELLO AGAIN

My cyberfriend and creator of the FundsForWriters newsletters (they're awesome- you ought to subscribe!) C. Hope Clark keeps urging me (writers) to publish a blog. Well, the trusty Cauldron has been around for a while- but I get busy and forget about it.

However, I am thinking Hope is right: a blog can be a powerful vehicle for writers- more than an online journal. A place to try out ideas, connect with other writers, work out the bugs.

Since my last blog, I've had the pleasure to meet some wonderful writers and get a couple of semesters of writing classes under my belt.

About writing classes: what a great way to get out of a writing slump and bust your writing hump! I went back to school because I had several projects sitting in the hopper half-finished, notebooks full of unrealized ideas, first lines, character names..... you get the jist. Taking a creative writing class forced me to take an idea, think it through, write it and FINISH IT. Write the ending. If you want the grade, that is. Writing classes focus me, get me excited, connect me to other writers and get critique on my work- valuable critique. For me, the decision to go back to school was a shot in the arm.

I was also blessed to meet Jeff Vande Zande, a writer and poet (and pretty awesome writing instructor). Jeff made me think about what I was writing, where I was going, and encouraged me to forge on even though (as he will say with a wry smile) the writing business "stinks". I'm not sure stinks was his actual word- but what he was saying was, YOU GODDA LOVE DA WRITIN' . You have to do it because it's in your heart and you can't imagine NOT doing it.

Some others: (and yes, I am mentioning your names) Deborah Welch, an amazing fiction writer, Josiah Lonsway and Rick DeBats, my filmwriter/film maker fiends....I mean FRIENDS (!), Tristan Kayne Parks and Cody Kizis, also putting out some great screenwriting, Katy Haas, what a poet (!), Jon Berger, graphic novelist, Trever Bennett, one edgy MFing fiction writer and Lady J, who throws away everything she writes. (She really does.)

I've met so many more talented writers - people who are part of The Tribe, who get what it's like to sit in front of a keyboard or piece of blank paper, to have your head so filled with ideas you can't get them down fast enough, what it's like when those ideas lock themselves away from you, run away and hide like naughty kids, in other words, the block that frustrates the shit out of us. We get it. It's always good to know other people who get it.

My current projects- PLURAL. Plural because I've found that is what works best for me- working on multiple projects keeps me unblocked, fresh and WORKING, which is the key. I float between them- when I get blocked or stuck on one, I move to another- generally a different genre. That's really the only way this screwed-up method seems to work. So, my current projects:

GIGANTIC (Comedy/drama) Started out as a short story, started turning into a novel (characters took over and decided they had more to say/do), now becoming a television series. I've gotten to about the middle of the first episode.

THE ZONE (Horror/short story) There are a lot of dead animals.... and possibly an old Abenaki ghost/monster running amuck. That's all I can tell you right now.

TAMING JANE (erotica/short story) Hey, I actually get paid for this stuff, so I write it. Sue me. Or check me out. I write under the psuedomym Nadia French. Oh- angry, high-powered female executive gets hijacked by a substitute chauffeur. You do the math.

BURN (poetry) Working on a chapbook, even though I think my poetry is my weakest genre. It's good for all writers to be familiar with poetry I think- it makes your other writing more, well, yeah- poetic.

And as per usual, still writing for the web- articles about toe fungus and grant writing and the root systems of olive trees and whatever else I can for $$$$. That's what we writers do.

Please join me- I'd love to hear from you. Hit me up on FaceBook, or email me at:

robindeveraux@gmail.com