I’ve had two excellent pieces of news this week. On Friday, I learned that one of my WIPs, SEX, P.I.s & PACKING TAPE, is a finalist in The Lories Best Proposal by Published Author contest. This necessitated a mad afternoon of printing seven copies of the proposal for the final round and zipping them to the post office, so they’d make it to the contest coordinator in time for the deadline. There are no categories in the Best Proposal contest, so the six finalists are all lumped together (there were only supposed to be five finalists, but there was a tie). Seven industry judges are participating in the final round: two editors, two agents, a bookseller, a book reviewer, and a publisher reader (for non-writers, a “publisher reader” usually freelances, reading and giving her or his opinions on the suitability of a manuscript for a particular publishing house’s needs, and then the editor decides whether she (or he) reads the manu, dependant on the reader’s report.
My other piece of great news is that yesterday I received a phone call from RWA informing me that my name had been chosen in a draw as one of two recipients for the Rita Gallagher Memorial Conference Scholarship. I entered the draw through an ad in the Romance Writers’ Report a couple of months ago. As far as I know, one recipient is a PRO member, the second (moi!) an author with a sale in the past year newly qualifying her for PAN. (Note, if you’re not an RWA member, those designations won’t make sense, and they’re too complicated to go into now, but, rest assured, they make sense to me). When I saw the ad, I thought, “What the heck,” and now am I ever glad I entered the draw—because RWA is comping my San Francisco National Conference fee! This makes the conference a lot more affordable for an author on the…ahem…low end of the pay spectrum. I’m extremely grateful. Thank you, RWA!
Because of other commitments and recovery from the Devil of all Head Colds, I didn’t get as much writing done last week as I would have liked. The cold is still lingering, but I have my energy back, and I’m looking forward to diving into the WIP this week…and next week…and the week after that.
How about everyone else? Have good news to report? Experienced a bump on the road to publication and need a boost? Share your news, good or not-so-good. What are you working on?
Okay, why didn’t I see the ad for this conference scholarship?? That’ll teach me not to skim over any more pages. You are so lucky to be getting your fee back! Congrats.
And let’s not talk about what I’m *not* getting done. I really wanted to have this proposal in the email by the end of this month. So not gonna happen…
Avery, you have a very good reason why the writing is not getting done, so don’t beat yourself up. Just focus on making the proposal the best it can be. That’s better than getting it done earlier. At least, that’s my philosophy, and I’m sticking to it.
I think the scholarship ad was in the February or January issue. As soon as I saw it, I filled that baby out. Hey, maybe I was the only person who saw it and that’s why my name was chosen!
Woohoo! Congrats x 2! Shouldn’t you be getting one more piece of good news, or is that “3 thing” only for bad?
Oh yeah, and me? I finaled in the Golden Acorn contest with my latest romantic suspense manuscript!
Hey, Lexi, that’s fantastic about the Golden Acorn. Good luck in the finals.
*I* think I should get three good pieces of news this week, but I can’t be greedy. I had great news two weeks ago when Borrowing Alex won the contemp. category of the Lories Best Pubbed contest. Maybe that counts as news #1, and this week’s news is #2 and #3. I’ll take it!
Ooooh, cool beans, Cindy! Congrats on the contest milestones and on the conference comp!! So, uh, you’re going to share your wealth with your roomie, right? We’re going halvsies, right? What? Are you laughing now?
🙂
I’m LMAO!!!