Florida Writers Association

This past week I joined the Florida Writers Association, and I attended my first meeting of the Wesley Chapel group. Dr. Richard Wilber, Assistant Professor, Department of Mass Communications, University of South Florida did the presentation. He teaches journalism, and magazine article writing. In addition to his academic publications, he has also published leisure reading. His popular culture works include Science Fiction short stories, baseball and mysteries. His next book, Rum Point, A Baseball Mystery is scheduled to come out in late October

His presentation focused on the tremendous amount of work associated with getting published. In addition to the writing, a large amount of research material needs to be gathered, and interviews conducted. Generally an author writes a lot more material than is included in the finished manuscript. Rick emphasized that the published work is only the "tip of the iceberg." For instance an author may only use about 10% of a two hour interview, but the rest of the information provides the author with background material that adds authenticity to the story. Rick may write 100,000 words to net an 80,000 word book. but he saves those extra 20,000 words. He may need them for a future project.

I enjoyed Rick's talk. That is a good thing, since this was my first Florida Writer's Association meeting, it encouraged me to attend another one. Their annual conference is coming up later this month, and I will probably attend.