Want to learn a new method for crafting well-rounded romance protagonists? And for using the differences between your protagonists’ personalities to drive your story’s conflict, and avoid having contrived plots push around your characters? This workshop will give you an overview of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a psychometric tool designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions, and will explore how to use MBTI to craft romance characters with individual personalities. We’ll also practice using MBTI insights about our protagonists to develop character-driven conflict.

In preparation for this workshop, you might want to check out one of the online MBTI-like questionnaires—complete one to find out your own personality type, or take it on behalf of a character you have in mind, to find out hers/his.

You can find sample questionnaires online at:

• http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

• http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

• http://personality-testing.info/tests/JUNG.php

Jackie C. Horne (INTJ) has held a myriad of book-related jobs, including typesetter, children’s book editor, English professor, book reviewer, blogger, and independent scholar. She is the author of several books and many scholarly articles about children’s literature, and blogs online at Romance Novels for Feminists (www.romancenovelsforfeminists.blogspot.com).  She is currently in the midst of writing her second historical romance.

Whether you’re just getting started or a seasoned pro, writing a query letter is enough to strike fear in the most resilient writer. During this workshop, we’ll talk about the basics of the query letter, what to include and what to leave out, what to do when you’re not getting requests, how to query again AFTER you’ve had an agent, how to do agent research, and when to shelve it and move on to your next work.

Kristine Carlson Asselin started querying in 2010. After more than 150 query letters and three agents, she’s now happily signed with Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyon Agency. She has recently signed with Bloomsbury Spark for her debut young adult novel, ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT. Let her experience with querying help you get off on the right foot.

Due to February weather, we will not hold our meeting today.  See you all in March.

New York Times bestselling author and twenty-year romance veteran Suzanne Brockmann and her husband, Edgar Award finalist and award-winning screenwriterEd Gaffney discuss the art of control-freak-friendly collaboration as they share the lessons they learned about writing genre fiction from co-writing and co-producing a romantic comedy movie.

 
After childhood plans to become the captain of a starship didn’t pan out, Suzanne Brockmann took her fascination with military history, her respect for the men and women who serve, her reverence for diversity, and her love of storytelling, and explored brave new worlds as a New York Times bestselling romance author. Over the past twenty years, she has written more than fifty novels, including her award-winning Troubleshooters series about Navy SEAL heroes and the women—and sometimes men—who win their hearts. Her latest romantic suspense, DO OR DIE, is available on February 4, 2014, in hardcover and ebook from Ballantine Books, and in audio from Blackstone Audio.  In addition to writing books, Suz Brockmann has co-produced a feature-length movie, the award-winning romantic comedy The Perfect Wedding, which she co-wrote with her husband, Ed Gaffney, and their son, Jason. She has also co-written a YA novel, NIGHT SKY, set in the world of her paranormal Fighting Destiny series, with her daughter Melanie, due out in October 2014 from Sourcebooks Fire.  Find Suz on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/SuzanneBrockmannBooks, follow her on Twitter @SuzBrockmann, and visit her website at www.SuzanneBrockmann.com to find out more about upcoming releases and appearances.

 
Ed Gaffney is the critically-acclaimed author of four legal thrillers published by Bantam/Dell, the latest of which, Enemy Combatant, was a finalist for the EDGAR Award. He also co-wrote and produced a full-length play named Looking for Billy Haines, which ran off-Broadway for approximately 10 weeks during the spring of 2010.  And most recently, Ed became an award-winning filmmaker, when The Perfect Wedding, a feature film he co-wrote and co-produced won the Bud Abbott Award for Best Feature Length Comedy at the Garden State Film Festival.  He lives in Florida and Massachusetts with his wife, New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann.  Find out more about The Perfect Wedding at www.ThePerfectWeddingMovie.com

You’ve put your heart and sweat into your writing. Then you bravely submit your manuscript to the scrutiny of your copy editor. When returned to you, it’s full of red pencil, comments, corrections, etc. Do the edits make you want to cry?

This Workshop will help calm the sting of a copy editor’s marks. We’ll hear from a professional copy editor, who will help us understand how she acts as an author’s partner. We’ll demystify the work behind:
— Keeping readers engaged.
— Maintaining the author’s voice.
— Making your artistry shine.
— Enhancing your credibility.

Join us to see the glass half full…so that next time you see edits, you can react not with anger but with relief that your copy editor is truly on your team.

With a lifelong love of books, Penny Andler found her calling at Hofstra University, where she received a bachelor’s in English Publishing and Literature Studies. Excited to have been in New York at the center of book publishing, she served as a copy editor at Warren Gorham & Lamont (now RIA), Scholastic, and Random House. Upon returning to New England and moving to the Boston area, Penny expanded her editing experience with finance articles for Standard & Poor’s, industry pieces at IT magazine CIO, and children’s books for Candlewick Press. As a freelancer, she returned to her trade book roots. Now authors and publishers can turn to Penny’s professional eye and knowledgeable hand to make their texts shine.

The title says it all!

Lori Perkins has edited twenty erotica anthologies and more than 100 erotic novels, as well as published erotica under a pseudonym. She has taught  writing and editing as an adjunct professor at NYU’s Center for Publishing for two decades.

Over the past twenty years or so psychological research has ascertained that motivation and behavior change in a particular and consistent pattern, and they have named the steps involved ‘The Stages of Change’.  As novelists we can use elements of the Stages of Change to assist us with character development and to help us understand how to maximize productivity in our writing lives.

Jane Lesley, MSW, is a retired clinical social worker and lecturer at Boston University.  Over her twenty years of practice she used Motivational Enhancement (the Stages of Change) in her clinical practice and with her students; she is now using it in her writing.

Join literary agent and attorney, Eric Ruben, for an informative discussion about the future of publishing. Publishing is now going through the same technology driven changes that film, music and TV have gone through, and are still experiencing. Find out how this affects you as a writer and learn ways to navigate this new landscape. Eric will open up the floor to a Q&A discussion after the workshop.

Eric Ruben is an attorney and literary agent with over twenty-five years of experience. Among his clients are authors in numerous genres. He is also an award-winning performer and writer who has appeared in films, commercials, and Off-Broadway theatre. His experience gives him a unique perspective that benefits all his show business clients. You can follow him on Twitter at @RubenAgency

We’ll kick off our 2013-2014 series of meetings with an old favorite:  Are you a plotter or a pantser?

We all know the feeling… that point in our manuscript where we take our hands off the keys, and think, now what? For those of us who plot our books to the final chapter, these moments may be few and far between. But what about those of us who fly by the seat of our pants; who don’t know what the end will be until we actually type it? Is there a wrong or a right way to get your book finished? Or, can we be both, successfully?

We’ll discuss the pros and cons for plotting and pantsing, and find out what tools and prompts help us out along the way, no matter what your process. Do you use Scrivener or other writing programs? What about Pinterest , collage and vision boards?  Bring your questions and ideas and be ready to have a lively discussion!