Meeting Minutes – October 8, 2009

Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara
Borders Books, downtown
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The meeting began at our new time of 7:00 PM, and at our new, upstairs location. The management team at Borders graciously agreed to our request to move all future meetings to the more private location and the evening went well.

After a brief, “get to know you” chat among tonight’s attendees – our new format – Rashi formally convened the meeting at 7:30 PM, and reiterated our new start time and upstairs location. Before turning over the formal introductions to Chuck made the following announcements:

1. November 12, 2009 will be our last meeting this year, with Starshine Rochelle speaking.
2. Ernie Witham is hosting a book signing on Saturday, October 17th at Tecolote Books in Montecito from 3-5PM.
3. Ted Rhodes is having a photo show titled Mirror Images at Porch Vault Gallery in Carpenteria. The show runs through November 8th.

With no further announcements on the agenda, the meeting was turned over to Chuck who then introduced our speaker, Jim Williams and his talk titled “Writing for Audio Books, Magazines, Movies and Sometimes Money.” Jim’s humorous and informative anecdotes on his extensive background from radio announcer, to publicity information officer at Santa Barbara City College and author, to voice-overs and books on tape made for a lively and entertaining evening.

Jim also shared his personal interactions with magazine editors when sending query letters via email, which “puts you on a personal level with editors.” He advised us to write “Story Query” in the subject line, and how to find individual submission guidelines via Google by simply typing in the name of the magazine and guidelines (i.e., “Redbook Submission Guidelines”). He also advised to include the “hook” and synopses in the body of the email unless the guidelines differ, and that a 720-725 word count is the average number for magazine submissions.

Jim’s upbeat personality and humor moved the evening along and he left us with this consistent advice:
a) Write whenever you can. b) Have a deadline, and c) Read aloud; keeps the story moving forward.

The meeting ended at approximately 9:20 PM.