Froghound Writers Group

The Froghound Writers’ Group.
Maple Valley, WA
KD@KDmarie.com
www.kdmarie.com

Purpose:

The Froghound Writers’ Group was established in 2007 to foster the development of local authors. We strive to provide honest but fair criticism; to provide inspiration and encouragement to our members as they write. We also want to help authors as they submit their work for publication; especially those trying to get published for the first time.

The net goal is that we provide a support network for our members.

Membership Requirements:

· Our focus is fiction so members should be working on fiction, either a novel or short stories.

· Members should be actively working towards publication.

· Members must be able to take criticism of their work, and give effective criticism of others’ work.

· Members must be able to consistently attend the meetings.

· Members should be willing to participate in the group’s activities.

· Members should be willing to give as much as they receive.

Meeting Schedule:

· We plan to meet every other week from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00-10:00 p.m.

· The exact schedule will be established once we have grown in initial membership.

Meeting Structure:

· A meeting facilitator will conduct the meeting. Initially this will fall to N.B.Breeden until the group is up and functioning well.

· Before the start of each meeting, all members must report their past 2 weeks' writing activity. One member shall be assigned the duty of taking down the reports.

· Each member will bring multiple copies of his or her work to be discussed. Each member may bring up to 10 pages for group discussion. The member will read the piece aloud to the group, and it will be critiqued immediately following the reading. All copies are to be returned with written comments to the writer.

· Criticism must be fair, and reasons for the critique provided.

· Meetings must stay on the subject of writing. If anyone gets off on a tangent, the meeting facilitator will politely redirect the discussion to writing.

Member Expectations:

Each member should attempt to have something written for each scheduled meeting/reading date. If the member does not have something written, he or she is still expected to attend the meeting to provide critiques.

Each member can submit their manuscript for the next meeting in advance via email or as a printed handout at a regular meeting.

· Each member is expected to be able to read their work to the group; we recognize this might be hard for some of us. By reading your work to the group you will gain confidence in presenting it and it presenting to a group as a whole.

· Each member will recognize that other members are at different skill levels and will be patient with members who may not be at the level they are.

If a member cannot attend a meeting, he or she must notify another member of his/her absence.
When a member completes a full draft of a novel, he or she may request that group members critique it outside of the meetings.

Facilitators Expectations:

· I honestly don’t see the group I want to form having these kinds of issues; still I feel it’s better to state them ‘just in case’.

· The facilitator is accountable to keep the meeting moving forward, on time and useful to the members.

· If the facilitator states that we need to move on then we will move on, this is not up for discussion. If a conversation is tabled for the end of the meeting the members are expected to respect this allowing the meeting to move on.

· If a member feels the facilitator is not maintaining fair and proper control the member will mention why they feel this way to the group. In the end however the facilitator has the final word.

· Any members wishing to facilitate a meeting will be given the opportunity to do so.
The facilitator will be the last person to have their work critiqued. The facilitator will ask for a volunteer to facilitate while their work is critiqued.

· We may also consider setting and enforcing a time limit on each person’s critique. This is helpful in large groups, and has the benefit of preventing anyone from monopolizing the critique time.

Membership / Addition of New Members:

Membership is set at a maximum of six members, as the group matures this number may change.
Initially new members will be approved by K.D. Marie and N.B. Breeden as the founders of the group. Once the group has matured and is operating well petitions for new members will be accepted from the membership and will come to a group vote.

Retreats/Events:

Annual Retreat: Attendance is encouraged, but not required. Members attending are expected to devote the entire retreat to writing and participation in group writing exercises.
Novels Days: Attendance is encouraged, but not required. Members attending are expected to devote the entire day to writing.
Attending the Whidbey Island Writers Conference is encouraged, but not required.

Special thanks to the 6’ Ferret Writers Groups, the Calhoun-Gordon Country Writers’ Guild and D.M. Rosner for the material I found on the internet. These materials formed the basis for these bylaws.

[Version 1.01]
[04/03/2007]
[nbb/KDM]