Giving Talks (as a writer)

Finally, I'm getting back to my Blog after almost two weeks. I've been engaged in advertising for and setting up my 5th workshop, this one on the 1st and 3rd Thursday evenings for people who are enmployed during the daytime. I was delighted with the five women who came last evening--all enthusiastic and good writers. Five to eight people is a good number. I don't let workshops get larger than that and although five may seem like a lot, they are lumped entirely on Thursdays. The rest of the week--and usually the weekend are my writing time--for me. Though I do have a few editing jobs on tap. Also I'm selecting handout materials and formatting my talk to be presented in Prescott on Wednesday evening, Aug. 25 for Professional Writers of Prescott. My talk is: "While I Wait To Publish The Great American Novel." It stresses the value of keeping up with magazine and newspaper markets that use short pieces: essays, travel, how-to, profiles, etc. These sell much more easily than novels, bring in a little money (anywhere from five cents to a dollar a word!) and do not require my time or energy on promotion which is what all authors must consider will be a MAJOR part of any book publication. No matter how big the publisher, promotion these days is largely up to the author. I've done a lot of it--spoken in more than 30 cities in California, Nevada and Arizona in the past three years. If it weren't that I have writer friends scattered all over these states, I could not possibly afford the travel, housing and food expenses these appearances have entailed. That's it for this Friday afternoon. I plan to be back regularly on this site when we get all the "wrinkles" ironed out of my brain that is supposed to control the fingers that access my Blogging communication. In addition to my talk next Wednesday I will speak at the Well Red Coyote Bookstore on Saturday, Aug. 26. Similar subject and handouts but presumably a much smaller audience and with both groups I invite questions from the audiences. I have had some cyberspace problems in that my Blog access was temporarily wiped out when my son "de-fragged" my computer last weekend.