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Charmed Connections

September 10, 2018 by Tari Jewett in category Charmed Writer by Tari Lynn Jewett, Events tagged as #Charmed Writers, Authors, books, Caitlyn O'Leary, Grand Opening, Jeri Bronson, Jina Bacarr, Kathleen Bitner Roth, Laura Drake, prizes, readers, Rebecca Forster, The Charmed Connection

Local Charmed Writer Write In

Stories are about connections, the connection between the author and their characters, the connection between the reader and the story, and then there’s the connection between the reader and the author. While the reader and author may never meet, they share a special bond, a creative bond, and an imaginative bond. They’ve share an experience. They’ve lived another life together.

Yes, we really give charms.

I’ve told you about our special writer group Charmed Writers, well we’ve decided that we want to connect with our readers in a direct way, and so we’ve created a new facebook group The Charmed Connection. More than 100 authors are available to our readers in this new facebook group that in it’s one week of existence already has nearly 600 members.

Our “Grand Opening Party begins today with three weeks of author introductions, prizes and fun.

Charmed Writers is a group with writers from NYT, USA Today and Amazon Best Selling authors, to award winning, debut and even authors completing their first manuscript. There are writers in all genre’s, thrillers, suspense, mystery, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, paranormal, all genre’s of romance, inspirational, literary fiction, women’s fiction, gay fiction, and all levels of heat from super clean and sweet to erotica.

Books by just a few of the Charmed Writers.

So if you would like to have a direct connection with the storytellers, this is you’re opportunity.

Come join the party and meet The Charmed Writers in The Charmed Connection. What do you like to read? We know an author that writes books for you.

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A Day with Damon Suede

August 4, 2018 by H. O. Charles in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Events tagged as Damon Suede, Music City Romance Writers, Special Events, writing

Music City Romance Writers

September 2018 Event

A Day with Damon Suede

Registration now open for our MCRW September Event featuring Damon Suede!

When: Saturday, September 15, 2018 from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. with optional evening session and Sunday morning breakfast (additional fees required).

Where: Four Points by Sheraton, 760 Old Hickory Blvd., Brentwood, TN 37027.

Registration link

Who: Damon Suede grew up out-n-proud in right-wing America, and escaped as soon as it was legal. He has earned his crust as a model, a messenger, a promoter, a programmer, a sculptor, a singer, a stripper, a bookkeeper, a bartender, a techie, a teacher, a director… but writing has ever been his bread and butter. Though new to romance fiction, Damon has been a full-time writer for print, stage, and screen for almost three decades. He has won some awards, but counts his blessings more often: his amazing friends, his demented family, his beautiful husband, his loyal fans, and his silly, stern, seductive Muse who keeps whispering in his ear, year after year.

Schedule:

Saturday, September 15
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.	CHARACTER BUILDING: Action Figures Bestsellers start with fascinating people. Boost your writing process and anchor your career at any stage with a new characterization method that jumpstarts drafting, crafting, revision, and pitching. Go beyond looks, persona, and boilerplate traits so you can bust your ruts and build the perfect cast to dazzle your readers. This session includes: · skill-builders to intensify language, stakes, and emotion for your readers. · battle-tested solutions for common traps, crutches, and habits. · a dynamic story-planning strategy effective for plotters and pantsers. · exercises to help you upgrade stories in any genre. In this deep-dive morning session, we’ll take your fictional folks to the next level with a simple, powerful technique that will strengthen your people, your plots, your hooks, and your voice. Whether you like to wing it or bring it, you’ll leave this workshop with a new set of practical, language-based tools to populate your pages and lay the foundations of unforgettable genre fiction.
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.	Lunch (included with registration fee)
1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.	FIND YOUR GAME FACE This hands-on workshop on presence and platform will teach you how to identify a personal archetype to embody your brand and launch your projects in the genre marketplace. In this session you’ll learn to: · evoke story patterns that protect and project your professionalism. · harness the power of personal goals and a public platform, on- and offline. · tailor your message to open doors and attract the right kind of attention. · cultivate a healthy A-gang to minimize headaches and boost promo. A strategic authorial presence can be a game changer for your career. This class will show you how to groom and broadcast your unique appeal, so you become your own best advertisement

7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.	SELLING STORIES (Optional Evening Session – additional fee required) Does your marketing copy earn its keep? This session tackles the wild, woolly world of blurbs and explore the way a high concept premise can anchor a project before and during the writing process. We’ll drill down into the challenges of summarizing your story’s strongest selling point. We’ll unpack the knack of crafting a clear hook, a free prize, and boiling a project into a logline that closes the sale, before and after publication.

Sunday, September 16
Time TBD	SMALL GROUP BREAKFAST (Optional Morning Session – additional fee required) Get all of your marketing questions answered in this small group breakfast discussion with Damon. Space is very limited for this option, and will be filled on a first come, first served basis. The cost of breakfast at the Four Points by Sheraton on-site restaurant is not included with the registration fee.

Cost:

Register between July 1 – July 31		Register between August 1- September 7
MCRW Members:	$65.00	MCRW Members:	$75.00
Non-Members:	$75.00	Non-Members:	$85.00
Optional Evening Session: Selling Stories	$20.00	Optional Evening Session: Selling Stories	$20.00
Optional Sunday Breakfast (cost of food not included):	$20.00	Optional Sunday Breakfast (cost of food not included):	$20.00
Registration closes for members and non-members on September 8, 2018

Guest rooms are $129.00 plus applicable state and local taxes.

Click here to reserve your room or call 615-964-5500 and ask for the Music City Romance Writers group rate. Our discounted rate is only available until August 14, 2018.

For more information about becoming a MCRW member, click here.

To Register for A Day with Damon Suede: CLICK HERE

Refund Policy: Due to our timeline for securing meals and materials, we are not able to offer refunds after August 15.

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Stuck at Home While My Friends are at RT

May 10, 2018 by Tari Jewett in category Charmed Writer by Tari Lynn Jewett, Events, Writing tagged as Ara Grigorian, Charmed Writer, CharmedWriters, Christine Simolke, Elena Dillon, Judi Fennell, Megan Hart, Rebecca Forster, Robin Blakely, Romantic Times Convention, Tari Lynn Jewett, Victoria Vane

There’s a very special group on Facebook, if I do say so myself. The #CharmedWriters group. You may or may not have heard of it. It’s a semisecret group but it has a lot of power, at least within its members and special guests.

It started a couple of years ago at this very time. Many of our local writer friends were getting ready to attend the annual Romantic Times Convention. For those of you not familiar with it, Romantic Times is a magazine for romance readers. Every year they put together an amazing convention that connects romance readers with the authors that they love.

Anyway, many of us were “stuck at home, while our friends were at RT 2016”. And thus, a Facebook event titled Stuck at Home While My Friends are at RT was born. I invited all of my writer friends, at the time mostly romance writers. And they invited some of their friends. About 25 authors participated. It was basically a Butt in Chair event, where our goal was to keep our butts in our desk chairs, and see how many words we could write while our friends were partying at Romantic Times. We had word count challenges, we talked about promo, we had online happy hours for networking. All in all, I think those who attended had a great time, I know I did.

Many of the writers broke their highest daily and weekly word counts that week, individually writing 10, 20 and more than 30,000 words. We got a lot of work done, learned from each other, made new friends, and motivated and inspired each other.

And I gave out charms. Lots and lots of charms. When the week ended, we didn’t want this special week to just fizzle and go away, and the #CharmedWriters group was formed, named for the charms we earned while writing. We continued writing together regularly in what we call Office Hours, and had a few more Butt in Chair events in 2016.

Last year I added speakers to the Stuck at Home event, making it more of an online conference, and the most amazing people stepped up and hosted online Ask an Authors and Workshops, and the event has continued to evolve including not just authors, but industry experts. Members get access to some highly successful and incredibly brilliant people.

Next week we have a special line up of speakers including the wildly talented romance author Megan Hart (I’m a huge fan!). Author, and book coach the inspiring Ara Grigorian. The multi-talented romance author, editor and cover designer Judi Fennell. Award winning YA author, marketing wiz, and my former playgroup friend, Elena Dillon. Romance author and historical fashion designer/seamstress Victoria Vane, I’ve seen her gowns in person and they are amazing! And publicist and career coach Robin Blakely, who works with my friend, author of my favorite legal thrillers, Rebecca Forster…who has previously been a presenter for #CharmedWriters, and if you haven’t read her books you should! Not that she needs me to promo for her, she’s a brilliant writer…and she has Robin Blakely! And you probably know both Rebecca and Robin from right here on Slice of Orange.

Do you wish you were a member now? Keep reading!

A couple of weeks ago we hit 100 members when a friend of mine from middle school, author Christine Simolke, joined the group.

Our membership is made up of authors at various stages in their writing journey, but all are seriously pursuing a writing career. We share our work, give and receive help, share experience and knowledge, help each other promote, and even more. Many of us have become friends, we share a passion that even if our friends and family support us, they don’t always understand. It’s truly a #CharmedPlace.

To be included you need to be invited by a member of the group, and you need to be actively writing. So, if you’re actively writing, and you’d like to be a #CharmedWriter, consider this an invitation! Friend me on Facebook and if we’re already friends just send me a message!

So, being Stuck at Home While My Friends are at RT is no longer such a bad thing! And now you know why I titled my column Charmed Writer. Because I am!!

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Scrivener Basics for the Confused and Terrified Writer @ElenaDillon #amwriting #NaNoWriMo2017

October 24, 2017 by marianne h donley in category Events, Online Classes tagged as Elena Dillon, NanoWriMo2017, Online Classes, Scrivener

Scrivener Basics for the Confused & Terrified Writer

Elena Dillon from the Confused &Terrified Writer has launched a FREE Scrivener class. The above links to a quick video overview of the free class! Just click the “watch promo” button.

[tweetshare tweet=”Free! Scrivener Basics for the Confused & Terrified Writer” username=”A_SliceofOrange”]

About the class:

We’re coming up on NaNoWriMo like a freight train and I know everyone is getting nervous and excited. In honor of National Novel Writing Month, I’ve launched a free Scrivener class to help get your first document either set up or exported into Scrivener along with tips and tricks on that make Scrivener a powerful productivity tool.

Along with this if you sign up for the class you will have access to my free Confused and Terrified Writer Facebook Group where you can ask questions, get help with your writing projects and we support each other through this fabulous but difficult journey!

It covers how to set up your first document along with tips and tricks on that make Scrivener a powerful productivity tool.

The course is “on demand” which means you can watch each video lesson when you want and as often as you want.

About your instructor:

Elena Dillon

I’m Elena Dillon, an author of the award winning Young Adult “Breathe” series. When I’m not writing, I love to help my author friends with technology and social media. I’ve taught the Social Media for the Confused and Terrified, Pinterest for the Confused and Terrified, Visual Content for Authors and spoken at numerous conferences, chapters and groups about social media and indie publishing.

Most of the time, I’m busy being a wife to my husband of twenty-six years, mom to my two grown kids and servant to my high-maintenance English bulldog, Brutus while I wait, not so patiently, for grandbabies.

And the link again is: https://confused-and-terrified-writer.teachable.com/p/scrivener-basics

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Villains, Victors & Vixens: OCC/RWA’s Birthday Bash

September 21, 2017 by marianne h donley in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Events, Writing Conferences tagged as Costumes, fun, OCC/RWA Birthday Bash, writing

You’re Invited to Join OCC/RWA in celebrating our Birthday Bash!

We’re having the Birthday, but we want to give everyone the presents.

Villains, Victors & Vixens

Come for the day and/or join us Friday night for the Write In and Saturday Night for the Pajama Parties

October 21, 2017
Embassy Suites – Brea
900 East Birch Street
Brea, California, 92821

Cost is $50 for OCCRWA Members

$60 for All other Guests

$30 for Past Presidents

Signup HERE.

Keynote Speaker: Damon Suede

Bestselling Author, Renowned Speaker, and member of the RWA National Board of Directors

Reader’s Block:

Damon’s talk focuses on the modern romance industry, the radical shifts in readership and fandom and how they’re altering what success looks like for professional authors. Genre fictioneers often grouse about writer’s block but more and more what we encounter is something more akin to reader’s block: an unwillingness to step beyond our ruts or move past the shadow of our steeples.

Romance is the literature of hope, simultaneously the most traditional and most provocative of genres. Our industry is evolving, but not necessarily in the obvious ways. Tribalism and division cost us marketshare and media access. In a world expanding and connecting at an exponential rate, where do books land? Who are the readers of tomorrow? What is the future of love stories and genre fiction careers? Join us for a free-range discussion of the art of heart and the business of happy endings.

Bestselling author Panel : Debra Holland, Maggie Marr, Brenna Aubrey, Damon Suede

What Made the Difference!

Lunch will be served