Holiday Gathering!

Join us for our holiday party on December 3! The party will be from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Middleton Library.

Set-up starts at 1:30, so please come help with that. Food and festivities will run from 2 to 4, clean-up 4 to 4:30. The party is a potluck, so bring your favorite dish to share. The "pencil box" will provide plates, cups, utensils and beverages. Donations are encouraged to help cover the costs.

We'll once again be holding a Book Exchange/Secret Santa for anyone who wants to participate. Just bring a wrapped copy of a book or two that you'd like to give (value basically equivalent to $10-ish dollars).

(This is highly flexible, and you should let your judgment guide you. We recommend you give books that you love, regardless of "cover" value. If you have any questions, please contact Bobbi or ask someone who's been to the party before.)

Hope to see you all there!

November 19 Meeting: Exploring the Heroine's Journey with the Tarot

The Tarot is often used for divination purposes or for personal growth. But it’s also a valuable tool for tapping into the unconscious and drawing from it a wealth of creative inspiration. Using the Tarot as our guide, we will explore its archetypal images and use them as a basis for writing the stories we are longing to tell. This workshop will focus on using the heroine's journey as a plotting device, particularly for romances and women's fiction. The hero's journey has long been used as a way for structuring stories. Recently, however, books have been published that are now exploring the heroine's journey as well.

All you will need for this workshop is a Tarot deck, pen and paper, and a willingness to open your mind to your possibilities as an intuitive creator. There will be a Powerpoint presentation followed by a workshop where you will be provided handouts. If you have your own tarot deck or oracle cards, please bring them along. If you don’t have a deck yet, but would like to purchase one, check out the Aeclectic Tarot website for guidance on selecting a tarot deck.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/themes.shtml

Tarot decks will be on hand for the workshop, but if anyone wishes to bring extra decks for other to use, please feel free to do so.

October Meeting: Contracts!

Join Alison Downey, writing contract consultant with her own company, Alison Ink, as she gives us an overview of contracts and leads a roundtable discussion for the group on what to look for, what to look out for, and what it all means. Bring lots of questions!

(October 15, State Bank of Cross Plains)

Schedule Update - Save the Dates!

Be sure to add these upcoming meeting dates to your calendar:

• October 15




• November 19




• January 21

All of these meetings will be held at our new meeting space in the bank.

We're still determining how we'll handle our traditional holiday party in December, since the bank would like us out of the building by noon, and we often schedule the party past that time. Stay tuned for updates on that!

New Meeting Space!

Here's the official word on our new meeting space!

The group now meets at the State Bank of Cross Plains, on 455 S. Junction Rd., Suite 100.

Junction Road is the road you turn on from Mineral Point to get to the Target, etc. Instead of turning right to go to Target, turn left. (Some online map sites do not show this correctly!)

Please park facing the road, leaving the spaces directly in front of the front door open for their customers.

Come into the building and take the elevator to the basement. Go right and you'll find the room!

All meetings will be held in this space unless otherwise noted!

June Meeting: Bring A Favorite Romance Novel

Bring a romance you love. If you're comfortable doing it, explain what the characters' core fears are, and why they work so well to create conflict in the book.
And/or, try to find a few descriptions or writing passages (sometimes they can even be a sentence, or phrase) that highlight a character, and we'll read some out loud to examine the writing and why it works so well. 
The meeting is scheduled for Saturday, June 25 from 9 to 12 at the Middleton library.
See you there.

Join us on July 23, 9:30 am at Middleton Library - Rachel Berens VanHeest will present a rendition of The Elevator Pitch

"So... what's your book about?"

We've all heard this question, right? Well, come to the July meeting to work on your answer!

This meeting, based heavily (with permission) on Carrie Lofty's WisRWA conference Elevator Pitch class, will go over the basics of how to create a short (35 word!) description of your book that you can use with potential agents, editors and readers.

Come prepared to work! We'll introduce the concept, and then everyone will start actively working on their elevator pitch. We'll wrap up by helping each other refine our newly created pitches.

Nothing ready to pitch? This is also a great technique to help you think through your current WIP and get some focus and clarity!

May Meeting! Creating Sexual Tension and Writing Sweet, Seductive or Sizzling Sex Scenes

The next Mad City Romance meeting will be held May 21, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sequoya Library located at 4340 Tokay Boulevard, Madison, WI
http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/about/sequoya.html#map

Please Note Location—Meeting Moved for this Meeting Only!

Creating Sexual Tension and Writing Sweet, Seductive or Sizzling Sex Scenes

Workshop lead by: Jenna Reynolds

No matter what kind of romance you're writing, whether it's erotica, suspense, contemporary, urban fantasy, science fiction, historical or Christian, you'll going to need sexual tension. You may or may not have a sex/love scene or, if you do, you may choose to write it in all its graphic intensity or demurely close the bedroom door, but the sexual tension has to be there because that's one of the things readers are looking for when they pick up a romance or read a novel with a romantic subplot.

In the workshop Jenna will cover the following:
• Creating and maintaining sexual tension through the use of dialogue, interior monologue, word choice, the five senses and your characters' needs and fears.
• The Twelve Steps of Intimacy and how they can help with both sexual tension and sex/love scenes
• Sexual fantasies of both men and women and the ways they can help you write sizzling sex scenes.
• Sexual Personality Types and how they can help you create both internal and external conflict when it comes to sexual tension and your sex scenes.
• A list of helpful reference books and examples of sexual tension and/or sex scenes from books and movies.

If we have time, Jenna will also talk about how to integrate sexual tension and sex scenes into your plot and/or character arcs.

Warning: Due to the nature of the workshop, which may at times include the use of graphic language, please do not bring children to the meeting. Seriously!

Upcoming Meetings

This Saturday, Amy Knupp will be presenting Plotting, Post-Its and Panic:

Is your writing process bumpy at best?  Do you fall somewhere in the non-descript middle of the pantser vs. plotter scale?  Are you a layerer but not so much of a linear thinker?  Does pondering turning points make you long to scrub toilets?  The good news is you’re not alone.  More good news… you, too, can craft a marketable story in spite of the chaos known as your process…and yes, there will be storyboarding.

April 23rd - Ann Voss Peterson - Character Mining

Readers want stories with electrifying plots and crackling emotion.  The secret to achieve both is deep inside your characters.  Romantic suspense author Ann Voss Peterson will show you how to mine your characters' darkest fears and use the gems you discover to build emotionally satisfying character arcs and fuel great plots.

Also, please note that the MAY MEETING WILL BE ON MAY 21 AT SEQUOYAH LIBRARY from 9 to 12. 

We couldn't get the Middleton library for that day, so I've reserved Sequoyah instead.  PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS TO REMEMBER. (Info. on meeting to come soon.)

Thanks, hope to see you Sat.

March and April Meetings!

March 19th  - Amy Knupp - Plotting, Post-Its and Panic

Is your writing process bumpy at best?  Do you fall somewhere in the non-descript middle of the pantser vs. plotter scale?  Are you a layerer but not so much of a linear thinker?  Does pondering turning points make you long to scrub toilets?  The good news is you’re not alone.  More good news… you, too, can craft a marketable story in spite of the chaos known as your process…and yes, there will be storyboarding.

April 23rd - Ann Voss Peterson - Character Mining

Readers want stories with electrifying plots and crackling emotion.  The secret to achieve both is deep inside your characters.  Romantic suspense author Ann Voss Peterson will show you how to mine your characters' darkest fears and use the gems you discover to build emotionally satisfying character arcs and fuel great plots.

Upcoming Meetings

January 22:  Plotting Party led by Kathy Steffen
From Kathy:

I don't know about everyone else, but I need some INSPIRATION to start off the Writing New Year! And nothing inspires me like ideas and plotting with my peeps, which is what the next meeting is all about. We'll briefly talk about different ways to approach plotting, then break into groups to brainstorm with and for each other.

The beauty of this meeting is that you can be anywhere in your writing. Stuck at a point, wanting to ramp up your story, or do you have a few characters wandering around with nothing to do? Perhaps even just a sparkle of a new idea? Participating in a plot party is the answer.

Come with whatever ideas/problems/stuckness you have and let your writing comrades help. Everyone who participates will leave with a flip-chart sheet bursting with ideas that will spark your own.

Oh, and it's loads of fun.

Middleton Library lower level, Saturday January 22nd at 9:30a.m.

Be there!

February meeting to be held on the 19th

March meeting to be held on the 19th

Details on all to come. All meetings to be held at Middleton Library and run from 9:30 to noon. An optional lunch at a nearby restaurant to follow.