Blog Archives

Ups and Downs of October

10/30/2011

These past few weeks since the ACFW conference have proven to exemplify the roller coaster ride of a writer.

After meeting several agents at the conference and knowing I was on the 'short list' for one of them, I returned excited about my prospects. Yet nothing further has developed.

My editor appointment left me anticipating further communication, yet after sending in the requested partial, I haven't received any further correspondence.

I did, however, receive a rejection of my Mountie story from an editor at Love Inspired. It was a 'good' rejection because it detailed several aspects of the story the editor found lacking. And she said my writing was "polished and professional". So yes, it was a good rejection. It ripped a strip from my heart, but still, a good rejection overall.

Back in August I'd sent out requests to 5 authors I highly respected with the object of possible endorsement for Emma's Outlaw. And today, one of those authors said she "thoroughly enjoyed Emma's Outlaw" and agreed to let her name stand as an endorser.

Yay!

Now my cheeks are hurting from all the grinning.

Just knowing that someone I admire and respect for their writing ability enjoyed my story is enough encouragement to keep me fueled for a very long time.

I'll need it through November as I work on revisions to the Mountie story - not only to bring it up to the 90k industry standard, but to improve those things the Love Inspired editor thought it lacked.

And when I'm not working on that, I'll be writing a historical western anthology with 3 other writers, none of whom I've met before, and 2 of them already published. Their invitation to join them in this anthology is another encouragement on my long road to publication.

Welcome November! A month of hard work for writers everywhere who sacrifice so many things for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Without a complete book to write, I won't be participating this year, but I will be revising my Mountie story during Week 1 of the Faith, Hope and Love (FHL) Book in a Week (BIAW) challenge which starts tomorrow morning.

Deeanne Gist: Research and Life

10/19/2011

Deeanne Gist made a stop at Inkwell Inspirations today as part of her blog tour for her new release, Love on the Line.

It reminded me that I never posted the video I took of Deeanne back in July when she did her Bottoms Up: a Look at Victorian Women’s Clothing from the Inside Out workshop at the Romance Writers of America (RWA) conference in New York Cityalthough I talked about it at the Inkwell with my post Victorian Underwear Research Workshop.

Now that I have Deeanne's permission to show you this short clip, I'm posting it here to let you see how thorough this author is with her research.

Deeanne Gist (photo courtesy of Keli Gwyn)

By the time she finished dressing, she wore an outfit any woman would be proud to wear down an 1860's street, hoop skirt, gloves and all.

Then as I went to check out Deeanne's Facebook page today, I saw this video made when she crashed her daughter's bachelorette party.

This video is so full of life. And I realized how much fun Deeanne injects into the lives of those around her. If she can do that with real life, imagine how imaginative and entertaining she can be with her books. Add that to her deep emotions and tension, and you know why she's a best-selling author.

St Louis at Night

10/13/2011

Here are some pics I took on the evening of Oct 25th which was my last night in the city of St Louis, Missouri.

Hansom cab in front of St Louis Hyatt Regency Hotel

Hansom cabs were numerous in St Louis. I only walked around the Old Court House and park area and yet I saw 2 hansom cabs in front of my Hyatt Regency Hotel, 6 in front of the Old Court House where it faced the Gateway Arch, and several more near the park. The cabs cost $30 for a 15 min ride and up, but there are set rates between points of interest, as well.

Gateway Arch and Hansom cabs with the Mississippi River in the background.

This little spider dropped down beside me as I took the above photo from the Court House steps.

I'd been leaning against the hand rail near the cement wall for several minutes when I sprang back from a movement at the corner of my eye. The spider dangled just inches away. Creepers!

After that, I steered clear of walls and fences and even hurried to get past overhanging trees while in the park.

The park is a beautiful place with an amphitheatre surrounding a steeped waterfall and a breathtaking view of the Gateway Arch behind the Old Court House.

Old Court House and Gateway Arch

This is my last shot of the Gateway Arch taken in the same spot several wedding parties had stood for photos the day before. I never did find out why the fountain spouts deep aqua coloring.

View of the St Louis area immediately after take-off.

My flight left St Louis at 7:30 Monday morning. I believe we're flying northeast of St Louis.

Northeast of St Louis between The Crossroads and Grafton

And this is just seconds later. After correlating with maps, I believe this is where the Mississippi hits the area between Grafton and The Crossroads. After this photo, I was too high for more pics.

Goodbye St Louis. I'm already looking forward to the next ACFW conference to be held in Dallas, Texas next year. Yee haw!

ACFW Sunday (Closing)

10/10/2011

7:20 Sunday morning (Sep 25) and the beautiful day played havoc with my feelings. In a few short hours, the 10th ACFW conference would be over for another year. Instead of dwelling on melancholy thoughts, I rushed down to where the Zones were meeting for breakfast.

Because I live in Canada, I belong to the Beyond the Border zone of the ACFW. On this 25th day of Sept, our zone table consisted of members from:
- Canada (Cherie Gagnon, Susan Mason, Sandra Orchard, Gail Sattler, Eileen Watson)
- Bermuda (Cathy West)
- Australia (Karen Schravemade)
- and LeeAnne Hardy of the USA who is a contributor on http://internationalchristianfictionwriters.blogspot.com because of her book settings

Our zone table was in the back right corner of the room with an empty table in the corner beside us. I used the opportunity to move to the empty spot. I set up my Sansa Fuze on a fluffed up napkin and aimed the internal microphone at the dias. I had done the same with all the other worship session except I'd been in a crowd and the sound wasn't great. At all. I was hoping the empty back corner would alleviate this problem. I now know it did and am trying to figure out how to make a podcast of our worship session led by Rachel Hauck.

This back corner was also good for taping the ACFW choir on my little Lumix camera although I didn't know it at the time. Now that I look at the shaky video and fuzzy faces, I realize I should have used a tripod and moved in closer, but that would have distracted the people from the choir and I didn't want to do that.

So as the video plays, close your eyes and be blessed by the gift of these talented writers and industry people led by Rachael Philips, Choir Director. Rachael wrote one of the songs called, Writer's Prayer, based on scripture and will be posting the lyrics on her website soon.

Partway through the final service, I saw my roomie, Gina Welborn, heading for the door with her suitcase. I followed her out and stayed with her until it was time for her to catch the shuttle. The past few days with Gina and Dina Sleiman had been such a blessing. I totally loved being their roomie, hanging out with them, and listening to them talk 'industry' late into the night... actually, they'd talk until one of them fell asleep. :)

After Gina left, Dina and I went up to the room and made this video:

Dina Sleiman, Eileen Watson, Sandra Orchard

After Gina left, Dina and I went for a walk outside. We headed east toward the Gateway Arch which sits beside the Mississippi river.

Along the way, we found ourselves behind 2 other ACFWers, Sandra Orchard and Eileen Watson.

The four of us walked towards the base of the arch looking for the way into the Visitor's Center. Once we saw the long lines of people waiting to get inside however, we bypassed the arch and headed for the river to see the view with paddlewheelers.

Gateway Arch Visitor's Center

A short while later, Dina left as well. I went down to the lobby sitting area to see who was still around and spent time getting caught up with Love Inspired and Revell author Ginny Aiken. I love talking with Ginny as she's full of life and unique ideas which translates into wonderfully entertaining books. She's also a great encouragement to me.

Later on that night after wandering outside and taking pics of St Louis at night (I'll post in my next blog), I sat with Seeker Camy Tang, eHarlequin host Danica Favorite and literary agent Chip MacGregor who were celebrating Camy's birthday. It was fitting that they would be the last ACFW members I saw before leaving, because Danica was one of the first writers I'd met when I began taking my writing career seriously in 2005 and joined up with the Harlequin forum.

ACFW St Louis Gala Night

10/4/2011

So what's a Star Fleet officer doing at the ACFW Awards Gala? Fulfilling my dreams!

No, not in the sense that I'm dreaming of a Star Fleet officer, but that ever since seeing Rosslyn Elliott in her late 19th century outfit several years ago, I've thought attendees of the Dinner and Awards show should dress in the period of their books.

This Star Fleet officer was one of the volunteers taking tickets as we entered the banquet room - a very nice touch to the evening ahead where Fantasy and SciFi genres joined some of the Historical writers for a fun evening. Rubber-necking ruled.

The only downfall to this costume parade is that the contemporary writers aren't included. Something to think about.

WW2 and Fantasy heroes

2011 ACFW Gala Awards & Dinner Dessert

(L to R) The Inkies in St Louis: Gina Welborn, Jennifer AlLee, Anita Mae Draper, Lisa Karon Richardson, Dina Sleiman

Anita Mae and Mentor of the Year, Bonnie Calhoun

Charlie's Inkies (members of Inkwell Inspiration blog)

Anita Mae and Val Comer

Merrilee Whren, Julie Lessman, Ruth Axtell Morren, Anita Mae.

With all the awards given out, the crowds lingered and then left. I spent some time with my Seeker and Inky friends and finally faced the fact that another ACFW conference would end in the morning.

The Old St Louis Court House from our Hyatt Regency window.

ACFW - Saturday Already?

10/1/2011

When I awoke Saturday morning in St Louis, I realized it was the last full day of the ACFW conference. How could that be? It seemed like we just arrived and yet the Carol Awards Gala and Banquet would be later than evening.

I sat with the Seekers at breakfast because really - what would a conference be if I didn't spend time with my 2nd favourite group of friends? The 1st being my Inky sisters, of course.

(l to r) Mary Connealy, Pepper Basham (SeekerFriend),
Myra Johnson, Janet Dean, Cara Lynn James

(l to r) Christ Barrett (Seeker friend), Ruth Logan Herne,
Amanda Barrett (Seeker friend), Audra Harders

After breakfast and morning devotions, ACFW President, Margaret Daley gave the State of the ACFW address. Speaking with strength and assurance, she read out the numbers of how far this organization has come in its 10 yrs of existence. Yay, ACFW!

My morning session was Part 2 of Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method. This time, instead of telling us how to use the software, Randy put writers in the Hot Seat. These volunteers had emailed Randy details of their stories beforehand and knew what they were getting into. It takes a lot of guts to stand in a room of strangers and have someone squish your work down to a 5 or 6 word sentence, but that's what Randy did. Kudos to those brave souls who stood in the Hot Seat and showed us how to craft our log lines.

After lunch I went upstairs and found my roomies involved in one of their many lively discussions.

Dina Sleiman

Gina Welborn

Do you get
the feeling I interrupted something monumental?
Oh wait -
Gina's just
being dramatic,
again. :+

At 2pm I attended Susan May Warren's excellent workshop, Focus on Description. Poor Susie. She spoke quickly and with confidence even though she needed to drink gallons of water due to all her hoopla at the Pizza Party the night before.

And my final workshop of the conference was Media Training by the people who bring you Romantic Times and the Romantic Review blog. This workshop contained valuable information on how to work with the media with an emphasis on interviews. Excellent.

No sooner had these ended when everyone rushed to the elevators to ready themsleves for the Gala Banquet and Awards show. In our room, the excitement rose as the sun sank behind the city's skyline.

I took so many photos of the Gala Award show and banquet, I need to put them on a separate post.