Writing Workshops Times Two

I was honored to be asked to conduct two workshops recently. The first was a month-long online workshop for the Celtic Heart chapter of Romance Writers of America. The subject was Point-of-View, one that's near and dear to my heart.

The second was a chapter meeting workshop for the Dallas Area Romance Authors and the subject was Building Brand You: Creating a 5-Star Online Presence.

As different as these two experiences were, they were similar in a few ways, too. And I loved them both.

Both required advanced preparation of materials: a series of written lessons to be posted on a loop every few days for the online and a powerpoint presentation for the in-person.

I had to work to make the information relevant for the particular audience, knowing that in both I would find expereince, published authors and very new writers at the beginning of their careers.

And I had to work both into my very busy schedule at our store.

But the rewards were great! Not only did I learn more about both topics, which I do every time I conduct at workshop, but I also got PAID! And in both cases, the audience was receptive, participatory, grateful and interested! I didn't bore them!

My goal is always to give them information they can actually use!

Okay, So I Lied

I said I would do a better job of keeping up and then I didn't.  So mea culpa. In my defense, the new store has been crazy busy and every spare minute has been spent doing marketing for it, instead of my book bizz.

But there is actual writing news to share:  I am deep into an agent search for someone to represent Sensible Shoes, my nearly finished women's fiction manuscript.  I identified a list of New York agents who are accepting women's fiction and have sent a number of email queries (which are the new enviro-friendly way to submit, thank heavens) to them. So far I have received 3 rejections (sad, but I'm used to it after all these years.)

The good news is that one of the agents I sent to used to handle Erma Bombeck. As you may or may not know, there is a strong Erma Bombeck presence in the book and it would be oh, so, serendipitous to have them represent me, too. And I haven't heard back from them, and no news is good news. We used to say that where there is outstanding mail (or email in this instance) there is hope.

Hopefully, that hope is not too far-fetched as I would love to get a "real" New York agent for my "real" serious book (which isn't too serious if you know Erma Bombeck, or me, for that matter.

Anyway, I'll try to do a better job of keeping up. Yeah, right.