Sunday, March 8, 2009

Presenting with the Best

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"An Itty Bitty Column on Writing" by Mindy Phillips Lawrence
From Sharing with Writers (Carolyn Howard-Johnson)
March 8, 2009
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I went to a writers’ workshop conducted by western author Dusty Richards, a guy with his 82nd book on its way. I learned something valuable. It doesn’t matter what genre you choose as a writer, there are means and methods of producing your work that will make it have a greater chance of success. I also learned how Dusty went over these writing methods using a PowerPoint presentation.

If you intend to speak about your work, why not learn to do a simple PowerPoint presentation on your topic and figure out how to hook up a computer projector to display it on a wall or screen for your audience? Now buying a projector might not be frugal, as Carolyn might point out, but renting one or seeing if the venue where you are speaking has one available IS very frugal.

I suggest you find a person who knows how to do this, take them out to lunch or dinner and take a notepad with you. Pump their minds for information and techniques. Then, after you’ve sucked out the proper stuff from their heads, offer some of YOUR knowledge back to them in exchange.

Maybe, as Rick said in Casablanca, it could be the “beginning of a beautiful [collaborative] friendship.”

1 comment:

Milli Thornton said...

Mindy, how appropos! That you should speak of the “beginning of a beautiful [collaborative] friendship.”

I've been thinking about you the past few days, and about an idea I've had for one of those little gems happening between U & me.

Drop me a line when you have a moment :0)