Meeting minutes for Thursday, September 13, 2010

Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Kurt Brown joined the Screenwriter’s Association on September 9th to speak on the topic of “Getting the Most Out of Your Writing.”

Preceding the evening’s presentation, general announcements were made as follows:

• If you haven’t already joined the association e-mail list, please do so at screenwriterssb@gmail.com
• The Connection: Creative Writing Workshops for Young Writers will be held at the Central and Goleta libraries. Please contact Janice Rorick, Program Coordinator or Marcia Meier, Creative Director for details.
• Saturday, September 18 – Patrick Horton, The Story Coach, will be conducting a seminar entitled “Giving Characters Voice” in Studio City at the cost of $15.
• Fred Klein will host Literary Gumbo, a half hour interview show about writing and publishing. Future shows will include many local writers as guests. The show can be viewed on the Internet and Cox cable Channel 17.

Following the announcements, Laure-Anne and Kurt, published authors and editors, addressed the crowd and invited attendees to weigh in on a wide variety of subjects, including why writers write, where the writing world is headed and how technology will affect that path.

As writers, what is our responsibility? To bear witness. What is it that makes you a writer? What is the emotion that makes you unable to remain quiet on your subject matter? Storytelling is our way of making noise before we croak.

Every story has been told, every love poem has been written. But nobody has ever been you. That’s the ground you’re standing on. You’d better really love what you’re doing if you’re a writer. You’ll be ignored, rejected and chances are you probably won’t make a lot of money.

Fundamentally, screenwriting is telling a story through imagery. It’s about the people, texture, fabric, passion for detail, curiosity.

The world is more of a visual culture now. It’s all about sound bytes. Everything is quicker, briefer. But people still just want to be heard, as has been the case throughout time. There’s still a passion, fervor and an electricity in using language to communicate. The world is finding different avenues to do it with the advance of technology: rapping, tweeting, texting.

No matter what direction technology takes, we will never get away from storytelling. The universe is made up of stories. Some say it is made up of atoms and molecules. But none of us have ever seen those things. We only know about them because of stories.

When movies came along, it was said that it was the end of radio; but it wasn’t. When television came along, it was said it was the end of the movies; but it wasn’t. There are some things that computers and digital books can’t give you. Don’t think that books are going to disappear. Bad books may disappear, but good books, literature, will survive, as it has over time.

In closing, the authors mentioned that they’d never heard a writer say, “If only I’d been a bookkeeper.” Something to chew on as the presentation wound down and the writers that had gathered scattered into the night…

Respectfully submitted by Danielle Greene, Association Secretary

Thursday, September 9 "Getting the Most Out of Your Writing"

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

Laure-Anne Bosselaar
& Kurt Brown

"Getting the Most Out of Your Writing"

Thursday, September 9, 7 pm*
*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30pm
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
FREE and open to everyone!

For our September 9th meeting we have two speakers who are award-winning, widely published writers and editors, Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Kurt Brown. Come ready with your questions about the creative process, getting published, and attending writers conferences. These well-versed scribes will offer answers based on their vast knowledge and experience.

Laure-Anne Bosselaar grew up in Belgium, where her first language was Flemish. She is the author of a book of poems in French, Artemis (1973), and two collections of poems in English from BOA Editions: The Hour Between Dog and Wolf (1997) and Small Gods of Grief (2001), which won the Isabela Gardner Award. She is also editor of three anthologies, Outsiders: Poems about Rebels, Exiles and Renegades (Milkweed Editions, 1999), Urban Nature: Poems about Nature in the City (Milkweed Editions, 2000), and Never Before: Poems about First Experiences (Four Way Books, 2005). With her husband, she co-edited the anthology Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars (1997), also from Milkweed Editions. A new collection of poems, New Hunger, was published by Ausable Press in 2007. She taught poetry workshops at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York and was the Bruce McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia in February, 2008.

Kurt Brown is the editor of Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars (1994) and Verse & Universe: Poems about Science and Mathematics (1998) both from Milkweed Editions. He is also co-editor, with his wife, of Night Out: Poems about Hotels, Motels, Restaurants and Bars (1997) also from Milkweed Editions. In addition, he has edited three books of lectures delivered at writers’ conferences across America: The True Subject (Graywolf Press, 1993), Writing It Down for James (Beacon Press, 1995) and Facing the Lion (Beacon Press, 1996). A fourth collection of essays, The Measured Word: On Poetry and Science, appeared from University of Georgia Press in 2001. His own first collection of poems, Return of the Prodigals, appeared from Four Way Books in 1999. A second collection, More Things in Heaven and Earth, was published by Four Way Books in 2002. A third collection, Fables from the Ark, which won the 2003 Custom Words Prize, was published by WordTech in 2004, and a fourth, Future Ship, appeared from Red Hen Press in 2007, followed by a fifth collection, No Other Paradise, in 2010. He is the founding director of The Aspen Writers’ Conference and Writers’ Conferences and Centers, now part of the Associated Writing Programs.

Meeting minutes for Thursday, August 12, 2010

Janie Hewson, owner of Marketing Creatives, spoke on the topic of “Powerful Marketing for your Writing Career” at our August meeting. She encouraged writers to give yourself the opportunity to become extraordinary; by submitting, competing, showing your work. Nowadays, a writer must compete for the chance to be published. You will most likely find yourself shut out at every turn. You need a plan to figure out where you’re going. That’s where good marketing comes in.

“It takes nine times of seeing something to remember it.” - a marketing saying.
Through marketing, you can define yourself as a business rather than just a ‘little writer’.

What is it to market? In marketing, you are seen and remembered. If you can’t find a way to be known or seen, you’re not putting yourself in the market where you can be sold.

Websites, blogs, and all forms of new media raise your status as a writer. These tools are changing and will continue to change. Find a new one every year. Learn it. Use it. Most people are not surfing the web to find you. You need to get them to go there. The Internet is a great place for editors, representatives, organizations and other writers to make connections with you.

Where are you? Where can they find you? See you? Who are you in the world? This is a marketing strategist’s job. Know who you are. What do you write about? Know who ‘they’ (the public) are. Who are you giving this to? What makes them spark to you as an individual? Remember, it’s all about being seen first. How can you be seen first?

Set goals. Move yourself from where you are. No one’s going to do all this for you. Your deal is to take responsibility for yourself. Make a list. Make goals and meet them. Get it together and make it happen. Important: when you set these goals, you need to meet them. If you’re not, you’re living by excuses. Give up your excuses.

In this business, you need clients; buyers; money. Develop relationships. Be friends with the people who are in the world you want to be in. The creative business also requires money. Know that going into it.

Persistency, consistency; all the things your mother told you about, are key in this business. Being seen and remembered means you do the same thing over and over and over again. That’s your job as a writer…

Janie Hewson is available for consultations. Her website is: marketingreatives.net.

Respectfully submitted by Danielle Greene, Association secretary

Thursday, Aug 12 "Powerful Marketing for Your Writing Career"

Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara
Presents

Janie Hewson

"Powerful Marketing for Your Writing Career"

Thursday, August 12, 7 pm*
*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30pm
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
FREE and open to everyone!

Janie Hewson, owner of Marketing Creatives, "loves" the creative mind and loves to do business. She has been in the business of marketing creative business entrepreneurs for 15 years. Hewson has met and guided the careers of hundreds of creatives beginning with her work as an Artist Representative, her years with the Creative Black Book and several stints as a Studio Manager for creative businesses, including photography and film.

For seven years Hewson was the marketing instructor for Brooks Institute of Photography and Film, where she taught classes to photography, film, graphic design and photojournalism students helping them to create powerful marketing for their careers. In 2004 she was named Teacher of the Year.

Hewson holds a Masters’ degree in Organizational Psychology, and a Bachelors’ degree in Communications. She is married to a filmmaker and they are the proud parents of an 20-year-old equestrian competitor, her high jumping horses, a high jumping dog, and the sweetest kitty ever.

Minutes: July 8, 2010

Adapting Sideways

“Some screenwriters are turning to novelization as another way to the silver screen.”

General announcements preceded the evenings’ dual keynote speakers, Jon James Miller and Charlotte Cook. Members were invited to share news, progress, and updates on their writing with the group. Rashi Bahri announced that our August 12 speaker will be Janie Hewson, speaking on the topic of powerful marketing for your writing career.

Did you know that readers want to be seduced? That they desire to know what’s going to happen next, which is what keeps them turning the page of your novel? That they thirst to know who this person is? And why is this happening to them? You as a novel writer bring along your strengths as a screenplay writer; you’re taking your commitment to story and moving it to another canvas in writing a novel.

Jon James Miller is a screenwriter/ novelist and Charlotte Cook is a publisher/story editor. They conduct a seminar-workshop and provide consulting and editing work. Their book is Adapting Sideways: Your Gateway to a Publishable Novel. At our July 8 meeting, tricks from the duo on how to segue from screenwriter to novelist were multitudinous. How do you seduce that reader? Take something familiar and bring it back in an extraordinary way! Blow them away with something they think they’ve seen before…then do something different with it. Balance is dull on canvas. Equal color is dull on canvas as well. Your novel is your canvas. You begin with a blank one. Fill it with the world. The reader willingly opens their mind and lets you, the writer, fill the canvas for them. The challenge is knowing what to fill it with.

A novel needs a compelling story, dialogue that sings, engaging characters and a setting in time. Use your screenplay (which should have all these components) as an outline for your novel…sometimes it only works best for the initial translation or sometimes it can help throughout the process. The bottom line is to have commitment to your story. When it comes time to add that dialogue that sings: take the strengths that you have in the screenplay…just because you’re writing a novel doesn’t necessarily mean there needs to be more dialogue! Ask yourself; does my characters’ dialogue move art forward? Or inform art? Moving forward is key. Use back story ONLY as the reader needs it. Find creative ways to disguise back story, for example, in a character’s dialogue.

Once you’ve wrapped up that novel, move on to stage two: Do you want to take it public? And stage three: How DO you take it public? Publishing is a consignment business. It’s very hard for them to end up with their investment back. What you do get in publishing is a world where a certain amount of stability exists. If a large publishing house puts out one hundred titles a year, it’s a good chance they’ll do at least one hundred the next year. BUT Agents and Publishers are flooded by submissions. They are looking for the cream of the crop. There are more agents in publishing than there were two years ago. And they are very hungry for well-written work.

Remember: it’s a process if you’re serious about adapting your screenplay into a novel. Write something in your comfort zone. And you must first learn what this zone is. Ask yourself, “Why would I turn the page?” And don’t take any shortcuts. Just work as fast as you feel you can.

Thursday, July 8 "Screenwriter to Novelist"

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents

Charlotte Cook & Jon James Miller

"Adapting Sideways: The Not-So-Straightforward Transition from Screenwriter to Novelist"

Thursday, July 8, 7 pm*
*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30pm
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
FREE and open to everyone!

Jon James Miller and Charlotte Cook will show how adaptation is a two-way street, doubling your odds of selling your story. Novelization is a realistic strategy extending the life of your script and publishers want well-conceived novels by committed writers. Story drives the process. These experienced novelists/screenwriters teach basic structure transitions and world building for a publishable novel.

Charlotte Cook is president and story editor of KOMENAR Publishing as well as a popular presenter at writers conferences and events, and a successful teacher and workshop facilitator. She has an MFA in Creative Writing as well as practical business experience in the book industry. As an acquisition and story editor, she brought to publication far more books, articles and stories than the six award-winning novels she published for KOMENAR. As a result, Writers Digest interviewed Charlotte about her career and publishing company in February 2008.

Jon James Miller worked for several years in cable documentaries for A&E, Lifetime and The History Channel while writing original feature length screenplays in LA. He’s had three screenplays optioned; two historical dramas and one dark comedy about the film industry. In 2008, Jon’s original screenplay “Garbo’s Last Stand” won Grand Prize of the AAA Screenplay Contest sponsored by Creative Screenwriting Magazine and was featured in the May/June issue. In 2009, the same script won The Golden Brad Award for Drama sponsored by the Movie Script Contest. Jon will be a juror at the 2010 Big Bear International Film Festival and a panelist at the 2010 CreativeScreenwriting Expo in LA. He is currently adapting his award-winning script “Garbo’s Last Stand” into a novel with an interested publisher.

“The Four Trends Roiling Publishing” June 10 Meeting Minutes

Marcia pointed out that there has been an incredible amount of change in the publishing business over a relatively short period of time. She used her own long and varied career as an example. She started out as a newspaper reporter fresh out of college when newspapers were just moving from hard copy to computers. Reporters started having to not only write their stories, but also news summaries and sometimes even headlines. Then along came the Internet, and the 24-hour news cycle was born. Reporters suddenly found they also had to be, in some cases, videographers. Today, the printed news industry seems to be in the death throes. Marcia left newspapers in mid-1990s, and now not only writes books like Navigating the Rough Waters of Today’s Publishing World but she blogs for several online news magazines, as well as her own website and occasionally for The Huffington Post. She refers to herself today as a “content provider.”

But she is quick to point out that change also means opportunity. Writers just have to figure out how to take advantage of today’s market and be prepared for tomorrow’s as well. She said there are four trends today affecting the way writers work and get published:

• Technology is Constantly Advancing
• Big Publishing Houses Are Continuing to Cut Back
• Smaller Publishers Are Starting to Step Up and Take On More Clients
• Self-Publishing is Becoming the Choice For Many Writers

Publishers will continue to publish celebrity books and books by well known, popular authors, but they are also looking at new ways to survive themselves. They know that innovations like the iPad, e-Books and interactive books are becoming more and more commonplace. Penguin views the iPad platform as an opportunity to create an entirely new kind of book with streaming video, audio and gaming built in. For writers this means a greater emphasis on content and packaging. According to the people at Authorlink, the printed book is part of a total package that can be adapted into other formats.

This also means content should be shorter so it works in smaller chunks. As writers we should start thinking in terms of shorter chapters and quicker pacing while still telling a great story. Also in terms of what works online as more and more publishing will be done online.

Big publishers are in trouble and they will continue to decline. People are still reading but more and more online. This means an increase in interest in print on demand (POD) and self-publishing. Marcia shared some startling statistics: While the number of fiction titles dropped by 11% in 2008, self-published books increased 132%! 2009 figures were even more astounding. This will leave many mid-list writers unable to get published by the big publishers. However, great new opportunities exist with small, regional, and specialty presses.

The most significant trend for writers today is the increasing number of self-publishing options. There are many services like iUniverse and Lulu that allow authors to make and sell their own books and keep more profit than ever before, though they will have to do their own marketing, record-keeping, and selling utilizing their own websites, blogging, and social media.

Marcia’s new book Navigating the Rough Waters of Today’s Publishing World. Critical Advice for Writers from Industry Insiders includes many more examples and tips on how writers can take advantage of today’s changing and challenging world of publishing.

- By Ernie Witham

Marcia Meier: Author and Journalist from dolphingal805 on Vimeo.