Making Your Own Opportunities in Writing

I will be moderating a panel discussion on this topic, hosted by the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) on Monday, February 25 in Culver City, CA. Here are the details:

DATE: Monday, February 25

TIME: 7:30 p.m. SHARP to 9 p.m. (networking follows the program)

LOCATION: Veterans Memorial Building, 4117 Overland Avenue (corner Culver Boulevard - parking entrance on Culver), Culver City. Parking free.

COST: IWOSC members -- Free; non-members -- $15.

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED: Deadline (if space is still available) is noon, Monday, Feb.25. Call (877) 799-7483 or e-mail info@iwosc.org. NOTE: If you reserve and can not attend, please e-mail the IWOSC office at info@iwosc.org. and let us know.

PROGRAM: Writing is a business. Yet, if you can keep your mind open to creative possibilities, you can make the business work for you. Keeping flexible to various options can be the key to discovering alternative ways to enjoy success.

This eclectic panel has used a combination of talent, tenacity and tricks to earn their writing success. They'll share how they did it, how they figured it out, where they found it, and what’s next. New and stimulating ideas are out there, waiting to be tapped. Unchain yourself from your computer and take a few hours to discover what may be holding you back from getting to the next level in your writing career.

The Panelists: Gina Nahai, Colleen Dunn Bates, Blake Snyder, Tom Sawyer, and Maggie Anton.

Moderator: Gerald Everett Jones, author of My Inflatable Friend: The Confessions of Rollo Hemphill and How to Lie with Charts.

A Valentine Blast from the Past

The Boychik Lit blog had barely gotten started last year at this time, and here's one of the early posts, which holds some sage advice for today!

Have a joyous day (and night), but let's all be safe. Please don't fire your weapon into the air.

Helpful Hint: Today millions of men will be subjected to the time-honored Mind Reading Test. Remember that it's strictly Pass / Fail, and you get only one guess. So take the advice I got from old Uncle Bob -- if it doesn't sparkle or smell, YOU GUESSED WRONG!

Here's hoping your Valentine is a live one!

the boychik

Steve Jobs Disappoints Me

I had assumed that Apple was just holding back from entering the e-book market. Its competitor Sony, after all, has been taking the cautious road by marketing its Reader device in a grass-roots campaign that seems to be aimed at librarians and academics. Then along comes Amazon with Kindle, which perhaps rightly emphasizes convenience and instant gratification via wireless distribution.

And of course I'm pleased that My Inflatable Friend is available not only in softcover, but also in Kindle e-format.

But if Steve Jobs is to be believed, he just doesn't want to play the game. At all. There will be no iPod for books (unless you credit the little-publicized ability of the iPhone to display PDFs). Here's what he said recently in the NY Times.

Perhaps he should pop over to Goodreads, where librarians and other book junkies flock to await the End of Print As We Know It!