Welcome

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Welcome to the website of Writer's Block, the writing club of Naperville Central High School.

We are open to members of all skill level and experience who currently attend NCHS. You can join any time during the year.

Meetings occur twice a month. At meetings, we generally write to a prompt, critique each others' writing, and do a fun activity or writing-related game, time-permitting. We maintain a Google Documents account to which we upload our writing. Before each meeting, each member reads the pieces that have been selected to be critiqued. Then, at the meeting, we discuss the chosen pieces.

If you are interested in joining, fill out this simple form and you will be added to our email list. We sent out emails before every meeting. The emails will tell you what to read for the meeting and give you other important information and updates!

(Note: You will be taken to a Bravenet.com page and asked to confirm your information. This is normal. Just click "Continue" and you'll be on your way.)

News

May 20, 2009

Unfortunately, our year is over! Come back next year for a fun-filled, creatively stimulating year of Writer's Block! If you have ideas for next year, please tell us as soon as possible so we can get working on them immediately!

Meeting Schedule

During first semester, we meet every first and third Monday of the month. Our meetings are held in Room 310, generally begin at 3:30 PM, and end around 4:30. However, adjustments must be made in second semester due to the large amount of Mondays when school is not in session.

Here is a schedule for first semester -

  • September 15
  • October 6
  • October 20
  • November 3
  • November 17
  • December 1

    • Here is our (tentative) schedule for second semester -

  • January 12
  • January 26
  • February 9
  • February 23
  • March 9
  • March 23
  • April 13
  • April 27
  • May 4
  • May 18

    • Typically, meetings will follow this schedule -

    3:30 - Write to a prompt
    3:50 - Voluntary sharing of prompt-related stories
    4:00 - Critique of members' writing
    If there is any time left, we may play a game or do a fun activity

    Our Work

    This is a section where we'll occasionally post writing by members of the group.

    Our Writing

    The poems written as part of the poetry game from the October 20th meeting can be found here.
    The plotting activity we did for the November 3rd meeting can be found here.

    Writing Resources

    Here's a smattering of links relating to writing -

    Writing Advice by Lawrence Watt-Evans - Provides a number of short, humorous essays on all steps of the writing process.
    NaNoWriMo - An annual challenge to all writers. 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. The site also contains some resources and forums.
    Creative Writing Prompts - 329 creative writing prompts, some more interesting than others.
    Dragon Writing Prompts - A blog with some very interesting story ideas. Be sure to check this one out!
    Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America - The website of the SFWA. It contains a lot of writing resources by a number of sci-fi/fantasy authors, warnings of publishing scams, and other interesting information.
    Robert J. Sawyer's Webiste -The author of many science fiction novels including Calculating God, Sawyer's site contains many articles on pages about writing.
    Seventh Sanctum - A useful page with a variety of random name/place/technology/etc generators.

    If you're interested in local author visits, check out the Events Page on the Anderson's Bookshop website.

    Some good books about writing (email me if you'd like to add to the list) -

    Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine (HarperCollins, 2006)
    From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler (Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2005)


    Contact Us

    The two Presidents for the 2009-2010 year are Ike Swetlitz and Lily Hislop. Our publicity head is Claire Jia. Our staff supervisor is Mrs. Dolan. You can contact us .