Earlier this week I published the first post from this winter’s online writing group, but since then, our group has gained three new writers.

I considered updating Monday’s post to include these three writers’ goals; I considered waiting to add them until our Week Two post next Monday. But since there were three of them and since two of them are brand-spanking new, I decided to give them their own mini-post and introduce them to you here!

First, we have Lisa, who is a returning member from each online writing group I’ve done since 2015. Lisa is a great writer and has contributed a couple of great guests posts in her time with the group. She also shares an office with me and is totally okay with my shenanigans, which makes her a valuable human being in the grand scheme of things.

Next we have our first brand-spanking new member, who, while new to the group, is not actually new to the blog: Noëmi. Noëmi is from the Netherlands, in a village just outside of Eindhoven, where she teaches English at Summa College. She visited the U.S. in October and stayed with me and Trevor as part of a scholar exchange program. We had many adventures (read about them here), and this May I’ll be going to the Netherlands to visit her; so you are guaranteed accounts of many more adventures.

Our second brand-spanking new member is another colleague of mine in MCC’s English Department (my goals is to recruit every single one of them, so…they have been warned): Cynthia. I admire many things about Cynthia, but mostly the fact that she is a consummate student and not only has a master’s degree, but also a J.D., and she’s currently working on her master of library science. She appreciates the value of studying, like, everything, and I would like to give her one million high fives for that.

Welcome new writers — we are happy to have you! Now, to their goals.

Winter Writing Group 2017 Goals:

Cynthia:

Okay, so as to four-week goals, basically, I’m hoping to write a little every day. I’ve been dinking around with this novel idea for about a year, and I work on it in fits and starts. So, some consistency would be good.

My Week # 1 goal will be unearthing my writing desk and making it a usable space once again. [We’ve talked about the value of writing spaces before — it’s important, so good luck, Cynthia, because it’s worth it!]

Lisa:

[Lisa was traveling in Arkansas when I harangued her about her goals, which is why she was late getting in and why these are short. Deal with it.]

Overall goal: Write one new story.
Week one goal: Write first three pages.

Noëmi:

I don’t have any writing projects I’m working on, though I would love to improve my writing. My goal for this week would be to finish my application to the university. I found out I also need to write about 500 words about relevant work, study, etc., experience. So I want finish that this week. And overall I just want to write and improve my writing.

Don’t they sound great? I think they do.

Come back on Monday for a new post of the whole group’s goals as well as new writing tips and exercises. We’ll also have a guest post from Sarah, so look for that in the weeks ahead.

Write on, everyone!