yophotoman's diy projects

Ijoined a writers group, in 2015, at the encouragment of my wife and a few friends, since I was writing books and had already published a couple. As fate would have it, at my first meeting, it was announced that the guild needed a new webmaster, the old one was moving up north to be with her children. Without thinking, I volunteered ... and I was not even a member! Little did I know what a mess I had gotten myself into. Their Wordpress website was grossly out of date, ugly and barely functional. I spent the next month overhauling it into at least functional with a new banner and theme so it could serve to inform members of meetings, speakers and events. I had to add widgets and install a few other dodads like Google visitor trackig and a photo album, so we could figure out how useful it was and do more than it had been. All in all, a fairly successful project, while it lasted. See last paragraph below.

At this point (Dec. 2018) it is hard to tell what we will be doing since we've just had a change of leadership with new plans and renewed ambitions. In the past, the Guild has sponsored high school writers events with the Poynter Institue in St. Petersburg and participated in various book fairs with authors displaying their books and offering them for sale. The Guild was also focused on getting members hired, but the nature of the membership is shifting away from career writers. So in the works are seminars, workshops and other events to inspire young writers and would be journalists. No one knows how all that will pan out since, so far, they are just ideas with no structure or steering commitee as yet.

As of March, 2019, the Guild has steering committees and are scheduling their first workshop: Self Publishing featuring your's truly as the presenter. See page 8 for a brief on my book on Self Publishing which will be the text book for the April Workshop. A Blog is also in the works. We have a coordinator and a topical starting point.

We're half way through the year and the new direction for the Guild is taking shape! The Guild now has committees with events and activities planned. The Guild has sponsered three of four workshops with a forth scheduled in the Fall. We've developed promotional materials with a consistent look and feel. Other projects are still in developement. The Bylaws are being rewritten to include job descriptions for officers and a new membership applications is in the works. When all these things are complete, there will be a "force download" page to download the revised documents. Meanwhile the Guild is adding new members who focus on fiction and editorial and copywrite work.

Like most businesses and clubs, the Writers Guild went to Zoom meetings by mid 2020. In person meetings were resumed in 2021 but the Zoom meeting was retained. The blog idea fizzeled and new seminars weren't developed. By then it was apparent to me, that I probably was not going to publish another book. So, I didn't attend the meetings anymore, but I still maintain the website which gets updated once a month. As a non participating member, I probably still did more for the guild than most members, who don't have a job in the Guild. LOL!

As of March, 2023 the Writer's Guild ceased operations as a club ... lack of participation. As of August 2023, the website stopped working and my involvement was over. Sad.