Hi, I’m Lottie. I’m a word – aholic. You can call me “Lex.” I talk a lot and write a lot. I read three or four books at a time. I follow blogs and Facebook when I remember I’m in the 21st century. Words buoy me, often dunk me, and sometimes drown me. But, recently, words fail me.

Last June, my rescued breeder-mommy Boston terrier was diagnosed with cancer along with some treatable ailments, incontinence, enlarged heart, and glaucoma. She had tiny bumps on each nipple, eight nipples, not two like humans with breast cancer. Our vet advised us that Lola was too old for any major operation and to take her home to rest. Lola would let me know what to do next.

No, Lola didn’t tell me she was in pain; she didn’t limp or cry out. She stared at me out of cloudy eyes and peed on the floor. Lola sat so close to me that I could feel her heart beat against my thigh. She ate expensive senior dog food, peanut butter by the Kong-full, yogurt to disguise her medicine, and bizarre backyard detritus too disgusting to mention. She still lost weight to the point her backbone showed like a mountain ridge through her red-knit sweater.

A month ago, Lola began barking and growling at 1:30 a.m. to be let out of her “house.” I‘d get up to discover she had awakened me to clean up a mess. Soon, she added 4:30 a.m. and finally, 6:30 a.m. to the routine. My husband, Hap, and I took turns with “the baby.”

Were we sleep-deprived? Yes. Were we cranky? Yes. Would I admit it was time to take action? Of course not!

I asked a couple of dog-people at work what we should do. I was not looking for permission but absolution. I wanted to feel I was doing the right thing, not for me, but for Lola. It didn’t work.

Saturday morning, I drove Hap and Lola to the vet to discuss our “options.” On the way, I remarked that most people know what the right thing to do is; the hard part is having the strength to do it. Hap sat with his hands folded in his lap. He knows how to be there for me.

In the office, I sat cuddling my skinny, tired, wrinkled, timid old girl. We were all deflated, like week-old balloons.

www.nightwriters.org

Lottie Wilds

The Commander in Ink

, EditorJim Laughter February 2014 NightScripts

Suddenly, a young woman burst in the door with a sleek, muscular, wiggly, smiling Boston named Jill. Yes, Jill had a brother at home named Jack. I laughed out loud and said, “Now, that’s a Boston! This--- is a former Boston.” Hap smiled at Lola and touched my arm.

The vet had kind eyes and gentle hands. She assured us we were doing Lola a favor. I held Lola and rolled her loose skin between my fingers. I touched the silver-dollar-sized cancer that had wasted her. I smelled her neck. “You smell like flowers, Lola.”

The doctor offered to give her a shot and then let us say goodbye. Horrified, I said, “Oh, no! Once she is dead, she isn’t Lola anymore. I want to remember her alive!”

I kissed Lola’s white lips and said, “Good bye, Lola Palooza Radiant Joy!”

***

Last Saturday morning, after months of hemming and hawing, I decided to put my 14-year-old Boston terrier, Lola, out of her (or my) perceived misery. I hate euphemisms, but the truth is even worse. I killed my beloved dog that loved me unconditionally. I hate those words, but I haven’t been able to think about anything else.

Anais Nin’s words haunt me: The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

A genius may be able to say what we are unable to say. Then, there are the rest of us.

"Words can be like X-rays if you use them

properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read

and you’re pierced." — Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)

Are you writing a book, a screenplay, a memoir, or anything else that requires more of you than just sitting at a keyboard and watching words magically appear on your screen? Do your characters or locations require a certain degree of depth to make them believable? If so, you don’t want to miss our February 18th meeting.

Our very own Bill Wetterman will be speaking to us about researching our work. He’ll show us why locale and character authenticity is absolutely essential to draw a reader into our story. Can you imagine reading a book and run across a detail, even a minor one that the author got wrong because he or she didn’t do the proper research? I’ll tell you a truth on myself (Jim Laughter, since I’m writing this article). In my book The Apostle Murders, I have one of my characters sitting in a McDonalds eating a Big Mac meal, along with his drink and onion rings. This book moved over 50,000 copies in 2013. I can’t tell you how many emails I received telling me that McDonalds doesn’t serve onion rings. I also have two of my characters drinking Jack Daniel bourbon instead of Jack Daniels whiskey. I could argue that I don’t eat enough fast food or drink enough whiskey, but the truth is I blew it on my research. Little details gotten wrong can detract from the whole story. Thank goodness publishers can correct eBooks so future readers can read revised versions. Paperbacks are a different story. They live forever, glaring our mistakes.

Bill Wetterman is an accomplished and meticulous researcher who spends two months researching before starting a new manuscript. He doesn’t write your standard novel. He is a blunt—tell-it-like-it-is—author. He prides himself on this and the fact that his research techniques, outlining, fact searches, and worlddevelopment gives life to the characters he creates. He will show us how to use the internet and other tools to research our work so our book can be the best we can make it. The information he will share with the group will make us all better writers. See you there… February 18th…. Don’t miss it….

Tulsa NightWriters January 2014 Speaker

Don’t Start Writing Without It! –Planning and Research Bill Wetterman

Thanks again to Heather Smith Davis for sharing her expertise about how to enter the OWFI writing contest (and others) online at our January meeting. On her blog ‘Minivan Momma’ (http://www.minivan - momma.com ) and through her books TMI Mom: Oversharing My Life, (http://www.amazon.com/TMI - Mom - Oversharing - My - Life - ebook/dp/B00C52UK88 ), TMI Mom Bites The Big Apple: Essays (http://www.amazon.com/TMI - Mom - Bites - Big - Apple - ebook/dp/B009FNE4WI/ ) and her latest TMI Mom: Getting Lucky (http://www.amazon.com/TMI - Mom - Getting - Heather - Davis ebook/dp/B00GYH1EH6 ), Heather finds the humor in the day-to-day experiences of being a wife, mother, and all-around funny person. She is also the co-founder of the website Oklahoma Women Bloggers (http://www.oklahomawomenbloggers.com ), writes a syndicated humor column, writes for the Bartlesville newspaper, is a regular featured contributor on parenting issues for the local Tulsa Fox 23 television station, and is a co-producer of the annual motherhood empowerment theatre production Listen To Your Mother (http://listentoyourmothershow.com/oklahomacity/about/bios/ ) for the state of Oklahoma.

If that’s not enough to keep her busy, Heather is also the webmaster for Oklahoma Writers

Book bonanza

Beginning this month, we are making a change in an old tradition. As you know, we’ve always had our book bonanza, which means we offer

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everyone the opportunity to donate a dollar at the sign-in table to help

support our club. For this dollar, you’ve always been able to select a free

book from a collection of books on a table or on the stage, just wherever we had room to set it up. But over the past year, our donations have dwindled to two or three dollars a meeting, not

making it worth the effort to lug that giant bag of books back and forth every month.

Even though we still welcome donations, here’s what we

did. Lottie took those books to Gardner’s Used Bookstore and sold them for $40, which equals about a year’s worth of donations. That money went into the club treasury to help cover the cost of our door prizes, etc. Now instead of our old traditional book bonanza, we’re inviting our published authors to create your own book

bonanza. Here’s how it will work.

If you’d like to make your books available to the club, please bring them to the meeting. We have plenty of room to set up a table to display

and sell your books before and after the meeting (not during). You’ll need to arrive early enough (around 6:30) to get set up. You’ll be responsible for providing your own change, and taking down your table. There

are plenty of tables available in the closet at the back of the room unless you want to provide your own. All we ask for the

benefit of the club is a 15% consignment paid to the club from your book sales. If you don’t already have it, may I suggest you get the PayPal swipe device

for your

A Pioneer Christmas Collection, in which Vickie McDonough has a novella, has been on the CBA

Bestsellers' List for two months. Vickie’s latest book, South Carolina Brides, a collection of three novels set in historic Charleston, released this month. Please click on the covers to order your kindle copies.

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"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the

smartphone? Writers always carry credit cards. Cash seems to elude us.

Our Members Have Brags

In mid-January, Carla Stewart attended the annual Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend in Jefferson, TX where she spoke on a panel about her most recent title, Sweet Dreams. When not chatting up the more than 250 readers who attended, she was picking the brains of NYT authors Melanie Benjamin, Jamie Ford, and Julie Cantrell. "I love this event more than any other single one I do each year. It's such a pleasure to meet with readers who return every year and ask about my books, but I also admit that I'm a little star struck by the celebrity authors I've met there the past four years. The three evening sessions are theme-driven. Here I am on Rock and Roll night - the evening when the authors served the readers." Karen Graham has been asked to speak at the University of Arkansas on their

Morrilton Campus to the students about being an author and an entrepreneur/opening Books-A-Daisy, LLC. April 4th.

"Excellence is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution: it represents the wise choice of many alternatives."

Jim Laughter’s novel Polar City Red was mentioned this month in an international blog as being the first novel ever to be described as a cli fi (climate fiction) novel in press releases and publicity material before and after the novel's release. It also helped prompt the Macquarie Dictionary include climate fiction as one of its new words for 2013.

If you were at the January meeting, you know we discussed a special project concerning our club and a deployed Oklahoma military unit. We discussed the idea of the Tulsa NightWriters banding together and sending books to a deployed unit. However, this cannot be a one-pony show. It will require the participation of all of our published writers.

And if you’re not published, that’s ok. You can send books as well. We’ve not worked out all of the details, but once we do, we want to hit the ground running. If you will participate, please send an email to jimlaughter@att.net.

The Tulsa NightWriters have always sponsored book baskets at OWFI. It’s pretty simple. If you’re a published author, we ask you to donate an autographed copy of your book to the club. Pam Wetterman will include it in a beautiful book basket which will be auctioned off at the OWFI banquet. The monies raised goes toward helping fund scholarships and other worthwhile ventures of OWFI. It’s also a good way to get your work and name out there. Besides, it’s a boatload of fun…. So bring a copy of your book to the next meeting. It will be the best one in

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." — Oscar Wilde (The Happy Prince and Other Stories)

Jim Laughter, Editor

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Bill Wetterman, Treasurer

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Do you have an idea to strengthen the Tulsa NightWriters? Send any ideas,

suggestions, speaker recommendation, etc. by email to the officer of your

choice.

Click on this banner to visit the Tulsa NightWriters website.

Schedule of 2014 Meetings

January 21 – Humor author Heather Smith Davis – how to submit to OWFI contest electronically.

February 18 Bill Wetterman: Researching for your new novel. The fun behind the words. March 18 Lottie Wilds: Poetry night April 15 – Jim Laughter: Writing dialogue

May 20 – OWFI contest winner recognition June 17- John Taylor: Blogging

July 15 – Pending August 19 – Jackie King & The Foxy Hens

September 16 –Pending October 21 – Margaret Daley

November 18 – Pending (officer elections December 16 – Christmas Party

TNW Officers for 2014 President Lottie Wilds lottiewilds@yahoo.com Treasurer Bill Wetterman

bwetterman@cox.net Greeter Pam Wetterman

pwetterman@cox.net NightScripts Editor Jim Laughter jimlaughter@att.net