West Houston RWA

***Registration is required for this event. Register here. ***

Morning: Tips from Madison Avenue: The Selling Synopsis

If you’ve ever had trouble writing a synopsis, here’s a hint: pretend you’re writing an ad. An advertising copywriter for 25 years, Laurie Schnebly Campbell was amazed to discover that the same skills which helped her sell bikes, bouquets and birdbaths ALSO helped her sell books. Discover how to use those “Madison Avenue” techniques to interest editor-agent “buyers” in YOUR product!

Afternoon: Block-Busting: Putting the Joy Back in Writing

At some point, almost all writers suffer from the inability to tell the story they want. Part of writer’s block is a lack of joy in the process. So counselor Laurie Schnebly Campbell looks at the causes — including exhaustion, boredom and fear of success — and the benefits of this block. Writers take home new awareness of what works for them, and renewed inspiration for returning to the craft they love.

Laurie Schnebly Campbell combines 25 years of writing for an advertising agency with a background in counseling…and in writing for Silhouette Special Edition, where she won Romantic Times’ “Best Book Of The Year” award over Nora Roberts. Her latest book is a how-to for writers on creating characters with ANY-uh-grams, and she’s spoken on psychology and marketing issues for writers from London to Los Angeles and New Zealand to New York. In fact, she loves teaching so much that she chose her website (Book Laurie dot com) so people would find it easy to Book Laurie for workshops. She also enjoys playing with her husband and son, running the AskAnAuthor and WriterU class loops, vacationing in the red-rock town named for her great-grandmother Sedona, recording Talking Books for the blind, and working with other writers. “People ask how I find time to do all that,” Laurie says, “and I tell them it’s easy. I never clean my house!”

***For our November Meeting, the cost is $20 for WHRWA chapter members, $35 for RWA members, and $60 for everyone else. Lunch will be provided. Registration is required for attendance.

October gears up to be ghostly and spooky, and a very short news column. Many of us are waiting for news, and here’s crossing our fingers that it’s good.

However, both news items are fitting for the month that ends in Halloween.

First up is KERRELYN SPARKS, who is thrilled to have another foreign sale! Rights for How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire have sold to Poland, so now the book will be translated into German, French, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and Polish. The Spanish version of book 6 in the Love at Stake series, La Vida Secreta de un Vampiro, releases in December. It’s available online for preorder, along with the eighth book in the series, The Vampire and the Virgin, which releases in March 2010. For more information, please visit www.kerrelynsparks.com.

Speaking of vampires, the second news tidbit is that MICHELE DUNAWAY got the nod to write The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the World of Vampires coming from Alpha books in July 2010. She’s thrilled with this first book-length foray into nonfiction. And guess what? She’ll be interviewing expert Kerrelyn Sparks. Anyone else who has any great vamp comments feel free to send them her way.