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April President’s Message

April 1, 2009 by in category Archives

It’s Spring; the season of renewal!

You caught my double entendre, yes? Of course you did if you read the announcement that came with this newsletter. It’s time to renew for your chapter. Past time actually, and we wouldn’t want you to miss out on this coming year!

Your new Board has brought a plethora of new energy and ideas to your chapter, and they’re open for more. Several of those ideas are based on need and reflect fundraising approaches. And many of you have already offered up suggestions on raising money. These are timely, as our numbers are not as strong as we hoped. You can view a synopsis of this year’s budget in this newsletter. We welcome your thoughts and questions.

You will see new items at the Ways and Means Table, on-line at Café Press, and at a Midnight Madness table in Washington DC. You will see more special one-day events such as the ones led by guest speaker Diane Pershing earlier this year. On-line classes will continue to bring you fresh voices and new outlooks to improve your writing and boost your career. We will continue to bring you monthly speakers who will motivate and inspire, provide you basic to advanced tools, and set the stage for your writing efforts.

Last month your Board approved a survey which will come to you in April, asking you what you want from your chapter, both in person and on-line, so we can continue to serve you in the best ways possible. Please, please, please take the time to fill it out and send it back. I truly want to see this Board setting the stage for the future, ensuring we are keeping pace with the times, and providing the most current and comprehensive assistance that you could ever want from local RWA. At the same time, I don’t want to see anyone left behind. We are all different, some technologically astute, and others a little techno-phobic. We are here to serve both, and all in between. But we can’t do this effectively without your help. Your Chapter exists to support you. Here is your opportunity to tell us how we can continue to assist you over the next five years.

It’s the season of renewal (did you?), the season of new ideas, of rebirth. Help your chapter be reborn as the springboard to your success. Please fill out the survey and lend us your thoughts and ideas to how we can best assist you, as an individual and a part of Orange County Chapter, to attain your writing goals.

Randi

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OCCRWA April Online Workshop – Show and Tell w Shannon Donnelly

March 26, 2009 by in category Archives

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Hi everyone! Check out the exciting online classes offered by the Orange County Chapter of RWA!

Show and Tell: An Interactive Workshop

With Shannon Donnelly

April 13, 2009 – May 9, 2009

Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassApr09.html

COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members

Enrollment deadline: April 12, 2009

If you have specific questions, email occrwaonlineclass@yahoo.com

ABOUT THE CLASS:

“Show, don’t Tell” is a cliché that has almost lost its meaning. But “showing” and “telling” are both valuable tools for any writer. In this workshop, we’ll use writing examples to figure out the truth hidden in this tired phrase.

The “telling” part of the workshop includes tips, tricks, and techniques to help improve narrative and identify when it’s time to tell your story. The “showing” part blends a set of exercises to strengthen an understanding of what makes a scene come to life.

TOPICS:

1) Telling: Use of the Narrative Voice

2) Showing to Pull a Reader into Your Scenes

3) Descriptions: How to Make them Vivid

4) Deep Viewpoint to Show a Character’s Inner World

5) Time, Transitions & Word Count–where Telling Helps

6) Showing and Telling–Not Absolutes

7) Write to Your Strengths: When to Show, When to Tell

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Award-winning author of romance novels, children’s books, video games, and non-fiction books, Shannon’s work has earned praise from Booklist and other reviewers, noting: “simply superb”…”wonderfully uplifting”….and “beautifully written.” Her numerous awards for writing include past finalist in the RWA’s RITA for Best Regency, winner of the Golden Heart Award, Grand Prize in the “Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer” contest, (judged by Nora Roberts – which gave her a trip to Paris), the Laurel Wreath, Winter Rose, and multiple finalists in the Bookseller’s Best, Orange Rose, Holt Medallion, Colorado ACE, and other contests. Shannon is a member of Los Angeles Romance Authors (LARA), Orange County Chapter (OCC) of RWA, East Valley Authors (EVA), and the Published Author Special Interest Chapter (PASIC). She regularly teaches online workshops, including a class for UCLA, and has spoken at RWA’s National Conference, as well as at RWA chapter meetings and other conferences.

She can be found online at http://www.shannondonnelly.com/ and www.myspace.com/randomfreshink.

Enrollment Information at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassApr09.html

COST: $20 for OCC members, $30 for non-members

Enrollment deadline: April 12, 2009

Coming in May – “Writing the Synopsis” with Camy Tang

Whether you’ve got a complete manuscript or you’ve just started one, this class will help you write a complete synopsis for your story. She will take you step by step so that by the end of the class you will have written a one-page synopsis, a 4-6 page synopsis, and also a more organic “character” synopsis.

For a full class roster, go to http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.html. Check out our full 2009 list of workshops. Want to be notified personally two weeks before each class? Be sure you’re signed up for our Online Class Notices Yahoo Group!

Sign up at the bottom of http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclasses.html or send a blank email to OCCRWAOnlineClassNotices-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Unexpected Benefits

March 25, 2009 by in category Archives tagged as ,

by Lori Pyne

I knew that studying character and character development would assist with the creation of three dimensional people in my fictional worlds. What surprised me was how understanding fictional characters’ goals, motivations, conflicts, fatal flaws, and so on helped me gain a deeper insight into living, breathing individuals: co-workers, friends, family, other parents on the playground. Real people.

Let me give two examples of writing lessons and how they have assisted me beyond my writing.

During an online class on the differences between males and females, the instructor explained that most men have poor peripheral vision and can focus on something to the exclusion of everything else. There was a discussion on evolution, men being hunters, women being caretakers and how the differences aided those separate roles.

After I finished reading the lesson, I went in search of my husband. I asked him follow me into the office to read an interesting lesson. He rose from his easy chair, stepped over the pile of newspapers at his feet and followed me to the back bedroom. When he finished, he raised his eyebrow. I explained that I now understood that he truly did not see the pile of newspapers that he’d just stepped over. I promised that I would not complain about such future oversights, if he would not feel I was nagging him when I pointed out a previously unseen mess. Mutual understanding was reach and a more collaborative partnership was created because of a writing lesson.

In a workshop on secondary characters, I learned that every character, even the villain, is the hero of his or her story, even if not the Hero of the current story being written and that secondary characters’ actions are motivated by that viewpoint.

So all of the villains in my life: my girlfriends’ ex-husbands, the backstabbing co-workers, the erratic drivers during my commute, all are the heroes of their own stories and view their actions as justified. My outrage is a waste of time and energy. Therefore, unless it is a life threatening or job threatening situation, I have learned to shake my head and go on with me life.

Have any writing lessons helped you in your day to day life or your own person relationships?

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Information on the Google Settlement

March 24, 2009 by in category Archives tagged as

As some of you may know, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Author’s Guild launched a lawsuit against Google. Here is some background and info that may impact you:

Publishers have been asked to help in the task of notifying authors about the Google Litigation Settlement Agreement. In October 2008, AAP announced that a Settlement Agreement had been reached which, upon court approval, would resolve the two pending Google Book Search copyright infringement lawsuits – a class action suit brought against Google by the Authors Guild, and a separate suit brought against Google by five AAP members supported by AAP.

Because it resolves a class action lawsuit, the Settlement Agreement, if approved, will affect the rights of all book authors, book publishers and other persons – both inside and outside the United States – who own a U.S. copyright interest in books or certain other copyrighted works that Google, without permission, has scanned or may scan and display. It is important that such “class members” receive timely notice of the Settlement Agreement so they may exercise their rights and options, including whether to opt out of the settlement or, if not, claim their books.

With AAP, the Authors Guild and Google are coordinating notice efforts to ensure that their combined actions will satisfy the class action legal requirement to provide “the best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members who can be identified through reasonable effort.” Publishers have been asked to provide notice of the Settlement Agreement to their authors and direct them to the official settlement website at http://www.googlebooksettlement.com.

Please share the information with anyone you think might have had their work impacted.

Thanks!

Isabel Swift

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Member at Large

March 19, 2009 by in category Archives tagged as

by
Monica K Stoner

Recently we spent most of the weekend in Santa Fe. Not, alas, strolling through galleries drooling over what we can’t afford. Nor were we taking advantage of the multitude of museums. Instead, we were watching our state government at work, while waiting to hear a bill read in committee, at which time our group intended to stand in support of an amendment.

What does this have to do with writing?

Until this weekend, I still had some foolish idea our laws were made by people who paid attention one hundred percent of the time. When in fact the time we spent watching the House in action was more like watching study hall with the teacher absent. The Legislative Committee spent a lot of their time trying to catch up on the mountain of paperwork in front of each of them, and often were reading an amendment as it was being presented. This in addition to grabbing a bite to eat, slurping down drinks, and catching up on other business, prior to being called down to the Senate floor for an afternoon session.

Not to take anything away from these people, they have a year?’s worth of work to cram into sixty days, and they need to try to please both their constituents and their fellow legislators. The entire experience was eye opening to say the least.

Which got me to thinking, if this is what happens in what is generally presumed to be a gathering of serious people, what goes on in a publishing house? Again, not taking anything away from those overworked and underpaid in the publishing business. They certainly earn every penny of that paycheck. However, recent conversations in an excellent on line critique group concerned a disconnect between what people are told at conferences is wanted by a certain editor and what is actually accepted. Leading, of course, to frustration, angst and outright confusion on the part of those who dutifully submitted what they were told was wanted. How, they ask, can we know what to write if the editors don’t know what they want? Good question, one which has plagued me for many a blank page.

How can I write what they want?

Epiphany here, boys and girls. I can’t. What I can do is write what I want, what I believe in, what comes tripping off my arthritic short nailed (okay, ragged nails!) fingers at a rate ranging from slug to smoking. I can send it hither and yon, obviously not sending light fantasy to dark suspense but otherwise casting my children to the wind, and watching them fly away, to come back with good tidings. Hey, I write fantasy and romance, I have the right to high expectations. Eventually what I write will resonate with someone on the other end who needed just that book to fill out their day. Dang, now I’ve taken away my best excuse NOT to write.

Happy writing, and maybe I’ll get a manicure one of these days.

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