What's on Tap for the next Writers Conference?

We meet January 22nd from 6-8 at the Hill Country University Center. 

If you have been attending, you might realize that we have settled into three themes for each meeting:

What have you been up to?  What are you writing, what meetings or conferences have you been to, what have you learned, and what of your writing is getting published or read?

Craft skills: perspective v.s. point of view, adjectives, trite expressions, powerful words, and so on.

And, Our feature presentation:

Cosmic justice, emotional stimulus, music, and nesting boxes: How do these words fit together to strengthen your writing?

In the process of weaving these ideas from brain science discoveries, music, and coaching together, Sheila Kale proposes strategies to deepen the impact of your writing.

Plan for an interactive and provocative session at the Writer’s Conference on January 22 at 6:00 in the HEB room at the Hill Country University Center.

Presented by Sheila Sattler Kale.  Sheila is a friend of mine from Toastmasters.  She is a life coach and public speaker.  Her presentations nail it every time.  Join us and see for yourself.

 

Robert Deming

Mara Fox Moretti

Conference Meets September 25th.

The Fredericksburg Writers Conference will convene on Thursday, September 25^th, from 6-8 PM at the Hill Country University Center.  The program will include a guided discussion about point of view and updates by members on their progress.  The feature presentation will be presented by Ken Esten Cooke, Editor and Publisher of the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post.  Attendance is open to anyone interested in writing.

Questions may be addressed to Robert Deming, rcdeming@gmail.com.  There is no fee for the event.

Speaking: Fredericksburg's Most Prolific Writer

The next quarterly meeting of the Conference will be 6-8 PM at Hill Country University Center on Thursday, September 25.  Our featured speaker will be Ken Esten Cooke, Editor and Publisher of the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post.

We will have other discussions as well, including the opportunity to tell about your project and recent successes and challenges.  Plan to come, tell your friends, bring your questions.

Write or Die

 

 

We have at least 6 people interested in a version of Sit Down, Shut Up, and Write.  I'll go over this concept with the FWC Brain Trust and we'll set a meeting, as well as another Open Critique Group.

We are looking at September 18 or 25 for the next Conference meeting.  I am hoping to get Publisher and Editor Ken Esten Cook of the Fredericksburg Standard Radio Post as our speaker.  I messed up the planning for that, we did the Shameless Self Promotion Workshop with Eva Pohler instead, but I forgot to announce that and tell the speaker it wasn't happening.  Eva put everything she told us about promoting our work in an ebook.  If you couldn't make the class, buy the ebook and take notes as you go. 

There is a good blog on writing by a sassy and irreverent Canadian at http://bareknucklewriter.com/  "I like to have the grunt writing work done before noon, pouring out all the novel stuff in a caffeine-fueled rush like a hail of word-bullets."  She recommends downloading http://writeordie.com/ and setting it to kamikaze mode, which deletes words if you don't keep typing.

You might wonder what Fredericksburg Writers Conference is all about.  Here you go:

Support and encourage writers of all kinds by:

- quarterly meetings with interesting speakers.

- building relationships through critique groups and other meetings.

- holding an annual agent and editor conference just like the big guys .

- holding seminars on related skills (as in the recent promotion seminar, in which we net $250 towards that goal).

I believe we are finding a core group of writers to build this program around.  The way it works so far is that Mara Fox Moretti has the ideas, and I know how to make them happen.

Calvin and Hobbes on Creativity

"Our idea of relaxing is all too often to plop down in front of the television set and let its pandering idiocy liquefy our brains."

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/20/bill-watterson-1990-kenyon-speech/

Great advice even if you aren't a writer.

Marketing is complicated. Eva makes it do-able.

 

 

Members and friends of the Fredericksburg Writers Conference spent most of last Saturday learning about marketing at the Shameless Self Promotion seminar.  Eva put this material into book form.  This is the latest on the concepts and processes she has learned in her trek over the last year from selling dozens a week to selling thousands a week.   It isn't easy, but it is do-able.  The alternatives are: 1 Don't sell many books or 2 Pay someone thousands of dollars to do this for you.

Available on Kindle for $3.99.

Shameless Self Promotion

Fredericksburg Writers Conference Workshop
No one noticed!  You have an awesome book or idea or business, and NO ONE KNOWS!  You're on Facebook, you've put an ad in the paper, you've sent an email to all your contacts, and you have 1 sale (your mother?)  If you have a book to promote or a business or an idea, but not a lot of money, this workshop is designed for you.

Dr. Eva Pohler has a day job as a professor of writing and English at the University of Texas in San Antonio, but she is also a wildly successful indie writer.  She didn't find this success by accident, but after a steep learning curve in generating publicity and readership for her Gatekeeper series of young adult novels.  Writing a great book is just the beginning; getting readers is a bigger challenge.

The Fredericksburg Writers Conference has heard presentations by Dr. Pohler twice in our year plus of existence, and it was clear that her strategies take much longer than an hour to lay out.  Because we found such value in her advice for self published writers, we have set up a workshop:

Saturday, June 28th, 2014.  Holy Ghost Lutheran Church Fellowship Hall (across from courthouse)

8:30 AM: Register/Coffee and Pastries/Introductions

 Creating Brand Awareness

 Using Social Media

 Soliciting Reviews

 Make Amazon Work for You

 Form Alliances/Box Lunch

 Format Your Book to Sell

1:30 PM:  Go home and get to work!

 

The fee is $60 including lunch.  This is our first attempt at a project like this, so we don't know what we are doing, but if anything, this is underpriced and it will be worth your time.

 

Robert Deming 830-992-5676 rcdeming@gmail.com

Mara Fox Moretti