2024: Enid Writers Club Annual Workshop

Posted on November 3, 2024 by peggylchambers

Yesterday was the annual writing workshop for the Enid Writers Club. For the last few years, we’ve gathered at St. Matthews Episcopal Church thanks for Fr. John who is also a member of our club. It’s a perfect facility with room for speakers and lunch. Writers are a special group of people and we’re always ready to learn more about our craft.

The first speaker was Rene Gutteridge Rene says…. Rene has been a novelist and screen writer for 20 years and is the head writer for the Skit Guys. She’s involved with the Oklahoma Film Industry and has written for Hallmark. She talked about pitching your work and being confident about your writing. She is an inspiration and works hard at her craft giving herself time off when needed.

Laurel Thomas About – Write with Laurel talked about characterizations and how they make the reader feel about the story. She had great examples about making your story character driven and giving it depth. She’s written for inspirational magazines and is a writing coach.

Peggy Doviak About Peggy | Peggy Doviak is a certified financial advisor and writes both non-fiction and fiction. She has a new line of cozy mysteries but started teaching people to use their money wisely after her mother was cheated out of her life savings by a sketchy financial advisor. After three degrees in English, she went back to school and became a financial advisor herself. Now she’s branching out into fiction.

It was a great day and I loved learning something more about writing and meeting the new people who joined us. This is becoming an annual event and we hope to continue it. We ended the day with a panel discussion with all the speakers until the Oklahoma weather threatened and we adjourned early. Rain and storms across the Sooner state made for sketchy travels, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Craft Shows and Halloween

Posted on October 27, 2024 by peggylchambers

I am always amazed at the creativity of people. I write stories and that is about as creative as I get. But I spent Saturday in Enid at the Stride Craft Show. I was so impressed with the vendors and their abilities. The sights and sounds made me look around every corner. On top of the creativity were the Halloween costumes.

As I drove downtown to meet my sister, I realized that the beautiful warm Saturday morning before Halloween was a festival in itself. There were kids in costumes all around the downtown square.

And there were more at the craft festival.

A man and his son dressed in matching Superman costumes sold cheesecake. A woman across from us had elderberry juice squeezed from homegrown berries. Children’s clothing, candles, food, and three-D printed trinkets were around every corner.

My sister sells stuffed animals made by hand: dragons, gnomes, wolf pups, and puff balls with googly eyes. They sit on a dragon mountain and attract a lot of attention.

You can buy stuffed animals and clothes at any department store downtown, but the handmade ones are special. People pour their hearts and souls into their art and they not only sell it to their neighbors, they form a community. People from all walks of life show up and sell their wares and bond with like minds. A community of artists and consumers come together, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Relaxing the Mind

Posted on October 20, 2024 by peggylchambers

We all need a weekend (or more) away now and then. Someplace away from the madding crowd. Someplace quiet. Our souls were meant to work that way. You can’t constantly barrage your mind or your soul with stress without overloading.

There’s something about sitting around a fire that relaxes the body as well as the mind. Just walking out into the woods and collecting acorns for no apparent reason, just works. It is good for the creative as well as the logical mind. It gives them both a rest and an opportunity to meld.

Creative people are sometimes looked down on for being lazy or not participating in life. There’s work to be done! But I believe both sides of the brain are necessary. I am a mixture of the two, creative and logical. I love music and literature but realized early on I had to make a living and that for me required logic. And I am sometimes logical. I have to-do lists which have to-do lists. I write everything down, not trusting my memory, but knowing I must follow the path: one, two, three. It’s logical. My computer teacher told me that in programming, “I’s just logical.” And eventually, I molded my creative brain into a logical one, right brain vs. left brain. I had two sides to my brain, and I needed to use them both, no matter how hard it was. And I learned. But the creative side, though it never made a living for me, had to be fed now and then.

There is nothing like getting back to nature to get the creative juices flowing. There area acorns to be collected and bird songs to be heard. It is an opportunity to stretch my creativity and give my logical brain a rest, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Author Peggy Doviak at Enid Writers Club Workshop

Posted on October 13, 2024 by peggylchambers

The Enid Writers Club will present their fall writing workshop on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church, 518 West Randolph, Enid, OK 73701. We have three speakers lined up that day. There will be books to buy from the speakers and the club members and they make great Christmas presents. Lunch will be provided.

Best-selling personal finance author Peggy Doviak Amazon.com: Peggy Frazier Doviak: books, biography, latest update will be our final speaker of the day. She started reading mysteries when she was a child. Now, she is an experienced financial planner who changed careers when a stockbroker exploited her mother. Peggy is thrilled to be realizing her dream of writing a cozy mystery series featuring a savvy financial planner who solves financial crimes and murders. Her award-winning personal finance books, 52 Weeks to Prosperity (2018, The RoadRunner Press) and 52 Weeks to Well-Being (2023, Centerboard Press), break financial concepts into digestible bites. Her first cozy mystery, You Can’t Cheat Death, was released by The Wild Rose Press on September 16, 2024. Peggy’s social media and newsletter links are on her website, www.peggydoviak.com, and her podcast, “Ask Peggy About Your Money,” is available wherever you listen.

The workshop begins with registration at 9:00 with coffee and doughnuts and the first speaker begins at 10:00. We have 3 speakers, Rene Gutteridge, Laurel Thomas, and Peggy Doviak.

We are offering pre-registration and payment electronically or by check. But pre-registration is a must, so we have a headcount. The price of the workshop is $20 and that includes lunch. The boxed lunch from McAlester’s offers a choice of ham, turkey, or vegetarian sandwich with a cookie and chips. Please mark your choice when you pre-register. Drinks are provided.

You can pay by using the link, https://serendipitylanecreates.com/products/enid-writers-club-registration (online registration handled by our friends at Serendipity Lane) or by mailing a $20 check and your choice for lunch, before October 28. The check should be made out to EWC and mailed to St. Matthews, 518 W. Randolph, Enid, OK 73701.

The workshop is coming up quickly so don’t miss the deadline to register of October 28. I can’t wait to see you and spend time with like minds at our workshop, because that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Speaker Laurel Thomas at Enid Writers Club Workshop

Posted on October 6, 2024 by peggylchambers

The Enid Writers Club will present their fall writing workshop on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church, 518 West Randolph, Enid, OK 73701. We have four speakers lined up that day. There will be books to buy from the speakers and the club and they make great Christmas presents.

Today I want to introduce you to Laurel Thomas who speaks second at 11:00 am. Her presentation is titled Write Your Heart Out! As a writer’s coach and novelist, Laurel Thomas loves crafting stories about ordinary characters who rise against impossible odds to accomplish the extraordinary. She’s written for inspirational magazines, ghosted nonfiction and currently enjoys her favorite role as storyteller. Three of her novels, River’s Call, When Stars Brush Earth, and Stones of Promise have won numerous awards. Through Write Your Heart Out! she teaches and supports emerging novelists with one-on-one coaching, a weekly round table, and small group intensives. You can find her at www.writewithlaurel.com. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.

The workshop begins with registration at 9:00 with coffee and doughnuts and the first speaker begins at 10:00. We have 4 speakers, Rene Gutteridge, Laurel Thomas, Peggy Doviak, and Nick Lyon.

We are offering pre-registration and payment electronically or by check. But pre-registration is a must, so we have a headcount. The price of the workshop is $20 and that includes lunch. The boxed lunch from McAlester’s offers a choice of ham, turkey, or vegetarian sandwich with a cookie and chips. Please mark your choice when you pre-register. Drinks are provided.

You can pay by using the link, https://serendipitylanecreates.com/products/enid-writers-club-registration (online registration handled by our friends at Serendipity Lane) or by mailing a $20 check and your choice for lunch, before October 28. The check should be made out to EWC and mailed to St. Matthews, 518 W. Randolph, Enid, OK 73701.

I hope to spend the next few weeks getting you acquainted with our speakers, because that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Heavener Runestone Book Signing

Posted on September 29, 2024 by peggylchambers

One fall, many years ago, my husband and I took a road trip to southeast Oklahoma to see the autumn colors. Thanks to an Oklahoma travel show on tv, we stumbled upon the Heavener Runestone State Park (now a city park). I have always been fascinated by Vikings and I was hooked. We had to see the runestone they said was carved by Vikings.

We drove to the park and finally found the sign and the road up the hill and walked down the stairs to the stone itself. I was in love. The forest is magical—I knew that from the time my feet hit the asphalt parking lot. And inside the little gift shop was a book, In Plain Sight by Gloria Farley that told the story of the runestone and her similar findings across the United States. While I roamed around the shop, a man came in with his son, a pre-school boy. I overheard him say he was an archeologist and wanted to see the Farley book, too. The shop was out of any to sell, but one could get a copy from Amazon. I ordered the book once I was home, but a story was born. A boy in the magical forest because his archeologist father was studying the stone—and the Glome’s Valley saga became more than just an idea.

I’ve sold that book several times at the Viking Fest and in the gift shop. But lately, I met a new person, Lynn Webster, who is involved with the park, and I was invited to come have a book signing at the park once more. They have a new coloring book by a local artist, Spencer Pierce, dedicated to the park. I look forward to meeting her and sitting at the signing table with her. It will be an honor to meet another fan of the park.

We will be at the park on Saturday, October 5, 2024, from 12:00 to 2:00. Come see us and get copies of the books. But mostly come absorb the magic of the valley, because that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Rene Gutteridge Speaker at Enid Writers Club Workshop

Posted on September 22, 2024 by peggylchambers

The Enid Writers Club will present their fall writing workshop on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church, 518 West Randolph, Enid, OK 73701. We have four speakers lined up that day. Today I want to introduce you to Rene Gutteridge who speaks first at 10:00 am. She will talk about pitching your work to a publisher, agent, etc.

Rene has been writing professionally for over twenty years, with diversified expertise in fiction, non-fiction, comedy sketches, novelizations, and screenwriting. She is the multi-genre author of 24 novels plus several non-fiction titles. Her indie film SKID won deadCenter’s Best Oklahoma Feature, and her novel My Life as a Doormat was adapted into the Hallmark movie Love’s Complicated. She is co-writer on the feature film Family Camp, a Movieguide award winner and a Dove Award nominee for 2023. She is also a Screencraft finalist in true crime. Rene is co-director of WriterCon in Oklahoma City, senior contributor at Writing Momentum and is the head writer at Skit Guys Studios. Find out more here:

ReneGutteridge.com

FamilyCampMovie.com 

Co-Director of WriterCon

Be sure to attend our workshop and meet our speakers. It is a lot of fun and you might learn something! You can pay online by using the link, https://serendipitylanecreates.com/products/enid-writers-club-registration (online registration handled by our friends at Serendipity Lane) or by mailing a $20 check and your choice for lunch (ham, turkey or vegetarian), before October 28. The check should be made out to EWC and mailed to St. Matthews, 518 W. Randolph, Enid, OK 73701.

I hope to spend the next few weeks getting you acquainted with our other speakers, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: November 2 Enid Writers Club Workshop

Posted on September 15, 2024 by peggylchambers

The Enid Writers Club will present their fall writing workshop on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church, 518 West Randolph, Enid, OK 73701. The workshop will begin at 10 am—registration, coffee, and doughnuts at 9:00. We have 4 speakers, Rene Gutteridge, Laurel Thomas, Peggy Doviak, and Nick Lyon.

We are offering pre-registration and payment electronically or by check. But pre-registration is a must, so we have a headcount. The price of the workshop is $20 and that includes lunch. The boxed lunch from McAlester’s offers a choice of ham, turkey, or vegetarian sandwich with a cookie and chips. Please mark your choice when you pre-register. Drinks are provided.

Above is the detailed poster. You can pay by clicking on the QR code on the poster, by using the link, https://serendipitylanecreates.com/products/enid-writers-club-registration (online registration handled by our friends at Serendipity Lane) or by mailing a $20 check and your choice for lunch, before October 28. The check should be made out to EWC and mailed to St. Matthews, 518 W. Randolph, Enid, OK 73701.

Feel free to print out and share our poster where writers are found.

I hope to spend the next few weeks getting you acquainted with our speakers, but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: Colorful Gardening and Brown Snakes

Posted on September 8, 2024 by peggylchambers

It is already the beginning of September. The kids have gone back to school and the nights are getting cooler. And my flower bed is overgrown! I had no idea that periwinkles would reseed, but they have, and I have tons. I planted moss rose and periwinkles in pots and they both fell out and reseeded to come up in the dirt around the pot. I also have volunteer petunias from last year.

There’s only one reason for this: I am trying to pair down the flower bed and just have bushes and rocks. They know! I’m trying to streamline the garden and make it easier to care for and they are rebelling. Flowers are growing everywhere.

My plan was to clean out the big flower bed and move the bulbs to the little flower bed. I would get rid of the pots (and the blue wine bottles) and make the life of a gardener a little easier and now I have an abundance of flowers. I water in the evenings unless it rains and that is all. They like it here.

Yesterday I walked out onto the sidewalk and was accosted by a DeKay’s Brown snake about six inches long. I thought it was a worm, and as I tried to step over it, the little critter coiled and prepared to strike! I have night crawler worms twice as big as the little snake. I called my husband, and he shooed it off into the garden. I know he’s lying in wait for me, now. Even though he is nonpoisonous, I don’t want him around. All snakes can kill you when you run into a wall trying to get away from them.

But back to the original thought for this blog, fall is just around the corner. I plan to start digging out unwanted plants and cleaning out the fall garden. Let me know if you need any petunias, periwinkles, moss rose, or a pet DeKay’s Brown snake. They are going cheap but that is Another Story for another Time.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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2024: It’s Writing Season!

Posted on September 1, 2024 by peggylchambers

It’s once again the beginning of the writing season for me. I don’t really take off and not write, but club season is a renewal. My club, The Enid Writers Club, breaks for the summer months though some of us continue to meet for critiques. But come fall, we once again get together to get our creative juices flowing. School has started once again, summer is winding down, and fall is in the air, even if only in my mind.

Next week is the September meeting of the Enid Writers Club. We meet on the first Thursday of the month from September through May at NWOSU in Enid. Like minds with the need to create come together once again. Come join us and check out what we do. You might find a home there.

This month, we will have an exercise to get us started thinking about story writing and we will renew old friendships. We’re planning a workshop on November 2, 2024, at St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Enid and have four speakers scheduled to speak that day. Lunch will be provided. I will have more information on that in the near future. But we always have a great turnout and learn a little something.

If you’re a writer and not a member of a writing club, you are missing out. It’s not just the camaraderie, but a great way to meet new people with like minds and knowledge to impart. We help and encourage each other. We read each other’s work and offer criticism, and mostly we just offer moral support. Writing can be lonely craft, but when we get together we realize our ideas are good and we should be proud. There are so many kinds of writers and so many stories to tell, that we never run out of material, but that is Another Story for another Time. Join a local writing group and let the stories flow.

What are you reading/writing/creating this week?

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