The Foothills

Every writer needs a support group. That's a given, especially for those who are just developing the craft. Let me tell you about one of the groups I belong to that has really stretched my writing abilities. We call ourselves the Foothills Writers. We meet weekly, in person for a year at the library, then by zoom for months and now in the fellowship hall of a local church, spread apart, an eight foot table per person. Yes, we do write, there, on the spot with topics thrown at us by devious prompt finders who snicker as they read the assignment of the week. Six minutes later we share our results. I am humbled at their responses. So creative. So polished. A complete story, plot, characters, dialogue. Six minutes! 

A year ago we self published a booklet filled with examples of our writings. By self published, I mean, Self. Published. As in run off, folded and stapled at one of our meetings.

This year we've had time to investigate a little more about self publishing and have moved up to independently publishing a book through a company. It's still in the works as each of us finish our particular submissions. We chose broad topics like sports, poetry, history, even sci-fi. (yes, me! See what I mean about stretching my writing.) The theme that ties those together is The Foothills with the majority of our entries somehow featuring the Foothills of North Carolina.

At our meeting a couple weeks ago we discussed how we would present the technical term of Foothills to the reader. We want to clarify exactly where on earth we are located. Since I am a former fourth grade teacher who taught North Carolina social studies for years upon years, I was tasked with writing a succinct definition of the Foothills using all our input. Easier said than done.

Fourth grade basic lesson here: North Carolina has three regions, the Appalachian mountains to the west, the Atlantic coastal plain to the east, and sandwiched between them, the Piedmont Plateau. Word derivation is one of my interests, so of course I taught my children a little Italian/Latin background, pied, pie, pede (foot) mont, montium (mountain). We even discussed the connection with the derivation of the word "pedicure." That, my students could relate to. 

In North Carolina the Piedmont Plateau is higher in altitude than the coastal plain and made up of rolling hills leading westward to taller foothills at the base of the Appalachians. The Blue Ridge Escarpment makes a definite cut out of the ancient mountains that clearly shows where the foothills end and the mountains begin. It can be seen in county after county along interstates 40 and 77, mountains in the distance, hills between.  

The Piedmont of the eastern United States

That's a bit TMI for our purposes. We want to show through our writings how hills have influenced the three counties making up our writer's group - Alexander, Caldwell and Burke to be exact. The reader is in for a treat! 

A sample of what our Foothills Writers see every day

I'm still writing and rewriting a definition of the Foothills to go in the introduction of the book. I'll keep you posted as to the progress of the book. Meanwhile in writing as well as in real estate, it's all about one thing:

Location. Location. Location.

Catch of the day, 

Gretchen