My first anthology proposal has been submitted! This is just a proposal, so it doesn't mean it's being published - yet - but the fact that it's in the submission process is a relief and joy.

Half a year ago, Valerie Comer presented me with a project about a generational anthology set in Montana. Since I'm a historical writer, she wondered if I wanted to try the lead-off 1908 novella. I've never written anything set in that era, but it's fascinated me for years, so I said, yes, I was very interested.

Her enthusiasm carried me forward although nothing was done until the week before Christmas when Tricia Goyer and Ocieanna Fleiss signed on. With all three of them being published authors, I was the only one required to write the first chapter of my novella to prove that I could, indeed, write.

I was already busy with the festive season and trying to finish my proposal elements for a separate anthology proposal set in 1860. Taking one project at a time, I finished my requirements for the 1860 one and sent it off to the team leader just a few days before the New Year.

The deadline for the proposal elements for my 1908 Montana anthology was Jan 9th. Yikes! I'd known about this project for months and yet I hadn't been able to get a clear picture of my characters or  their goals and conflicts until that point. I've always maintained that I do my best plotting on the long drive to and from the city and on a late December day, an idea came to me and by the time we pulled into our farmyard an hour later, my novella outline was in place.

I won't go into details here because it could be changed before it's - hopefully - published. Once my chapter was written, I sent it to my team and then the fun began as their critques came back. Our self-imposed Jan 9th deadline came, but I was one critique short. Tricia realized that with all 3 of them critting at once, no one was looking at the final product and since she has the most books published among us, she became the last hurdle. By the time I received all the crits and made the appropriate changes, the consensus was that the the hero's pov was memorable, but my heroine's scene which starts the novella, was only okay.

With Val chomping at the bit - this project was her baby, after all - I took a few days to dwell on the beginning scene. Dare I say it took another trip to the city?

On Jan 14th, we drove our daughters to the airport. Yes, they'd been visiting and yes, I'd spent the days in my office as usual. It wasn't all bad on my part though, because they needed time with their dad and siblings, too and we had some great times alone and in the evenings. So after the girls flew off to Calgary and Vancouver, we began the hour's drive home and wouldn't you know it... I got an idea of how to fix my first scene. It meant rewriting a good portion of it, but I didn't have anything to lose.

It took a couple days and then I sent it off to Val. She made some observations - mainly  in the continuity between the new scene and the hero's pov, but overall she liked it. I fixed it up and sent it off again. This time Ocieanna took a boo at it and came back with more observations and suggestions. Best of all, she really liked this new version compared to the last. Great - 2 hurdles down. Off it went to Tricia.

To say I was worried about Tricia's crit would be very true.  I hestitated at the sight of it in my inbox with good reason. But her crit was sound. And yes, she liked this version much better than the original. Taking her observations and suggestions into consideration, I worked on my chapter. After several reads, I emailed it to the team.

Yesterday, Tricia submitted the proposal to Janet Grant since Janet represents both Tricia and Ocieanna. Hopefully, the next thing I'll read is that Janet submitted the proposal on our behalf.

The only part of the proposal that looked bare was the empty spot beneath my name where an agent's name would go. But since I put my writing career in God's hands all those years ago, I have faith that's the way it's supposed to be at this point.

And now... back to my other regularly scheduled projects.

Anita Mae.

Janet Tronstad is the author of the long-running Dry Creek series from Harlequin Love Inspired and Love Inspired Historicals. She's also one of the writers I've known the longest after joining the Harlequin Community back in 2006. 

What I didn't know was that Janet has a hidden talent as a songwriter and recently released a video. Here's the official blurb:
Janet Tronstad is the award-winning author of a long-standing series of Harlequin Love Inspired novels set in the fictitious town of Dry Creek, Montana. Romantic Times magazine calls her series witty with unique characters. She wrote the lyrics to the song you will hear and her good friend, David White, wrote the music and performed the song. The photographs you will see are almost all from the Depression era (US Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Color Transparencies).

Janet has taken this one step further though, because the Montana Quilting song - which is fast becoming known as Denim Sky - is only partly contained in this YouTube video. The complete version is available  on Amazon as an MP3 download for 99 cents. Just click on MP3 downloads and type in Janet Tronstad.

Isn't that a unique way to promote books? After reading most of Janet's  books, I can honestly say I've enjoyed every one of them. This song is the same. I hope she writes many more of both.

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: 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Last week I attended the Romance Writers of America (RWA) national conference in New York City. I've already posted photos of my trip and the city of New York on my personal Draper's Acres blog at http://anitamaedraper.blogspot.com/2011/07/anita-in-new-york.html as well as  my group blog, Inkwell Inspirations at http://inkwellinspirations.blogspot.com/2011/07/anita-mae-at-rwa-in-new-york.html. However, I met so many wonderful people and authors at this conference, I thought they deserved a special post of their own.

My appearance at this conference was all due to Caroline Godin of Toronto who invited me to share a room with her, Diane Burke (Love Inspired Suspense) and Patti (PJ) Ausdenmore. With the hotel costs cut dramatically, I couldn't pass up this chance of a lifetime. So thank you Carolyne, Diane and PJ for allowing me to share this experience with you.

One of the first official events was the Literacy Signing where over 500 authors autographed their books and sales from the proceeds went to ProLiteracy Worldwide and ACE New York.
 
And this is where I finally had a chance to meet Abby Gaines who has a new Love Inspired Historical series debuting this December.

After years of being a member on the eharlequin community boards I finally had a chance to meet two of my favourite Harlequin authors. Both Amy Andrews (L) and Olivia Gates (R) offer invaluable feedback and support to new and established writers. And I have to admit having them recognize my name and reach out for a hug really boosted my morale.

One of the highlights of the RWA conference is the Harlequin Pajama Party, open to all community members.  Part of the fun is shopping for appropriate pj's. This year my top said 'Love' in the front and 'I Love Sleeping' on the back. Matched with plaid convertible capri/pants, I looked cute enough to win a Harlequin bag.

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Jayne, the eHarlequin Community Manager. This year, Jayne created a dapper fascinator which matched her pajama set to perfection.

Danica Favourite aka Dream, eHQNhost is a whirlwind of activity on the eHarlequin community boards. Whether she's over on the Love Inspired forum or elsewhere on the site, she's always ready and receptive to help new and established writers alike as she works from a wealth of experience on the boards.

Danica created a feathery fascinator in the shape of a halo to the Pajama Party.

Love Inspired author Allie Pleiter really got into the spirit of the pajama party by donning Lady Liberty headgear. I'm not sure what the fan signifies, but she has a regal bearing, doesn't she? 

An avid knitter, Allie probably knitted the colorful scarf she's wearing as she can often be found working with colorful yarns during slow periods at conferences.

Laura Marie Altom, Winnie Griggs and Margaret Daley showed up in matching pajamas. 

Laura Marie dressed up her outfit with a pretty pink fan and tiara, while Margaret added a snazzy feather boa to stand out in the crowd. 

I only attended two publisher signings and one of them was to support Donna Alward, a Canadian author who writes for Harlequin Romance based on her years of living in Alberta.

I first met Donna when she gave her first workshop, The Business of Writing  to the Saskatchewan Romance Writers. Donna's workshop was instrumental in opening my eyes to self-promotion and I began my first blog soon after meeting her. 

While at this year's RWA conference, I attended the workshop given by Donna, Bryony Green and Fiona Harper,  How to Write Sizzle Without Sex and Emotion Without Tragedy.

Seeker sighting! Seekers Tina Radcliffe, Mary Connealy and Janet Dean were in attendance for the Rita Award Gala.

Afterwards, we went up to enjoy the city lights from The View revolving restaurant at the top of the Marriott Marquis. Gorgeous!

Please check my Appearances page for more photos.