Author: Cindy

I'm irritated because my posts won't publish.

Tell Me Tuesday

It’s very rainy in my part of the world. No big surprise, because yesterday was our May long weekend (Victoria Day). It seems it always rains on the two big camping weekends of the summer, the other being the July 1st (Canada Day) long weekend (if it falls on a weekend). What’s Memorial Day like in the States? Is it the start of camping season like it is for those of us up north foolish enough to enjoy camping (I can take it or leave it…usually leave it, but I know people who adore camping). Do you have plans for the upcoming Memorial Day long weekend?

Because it was Eldest Son’s birthday on Friday and then a long weekend, my writing ground to a halt. However, a lot of overdue cleaning was accomplished. So, my only bit of writing-related news this week is that I received my first ever scores back from the RITA contest. I’m pleased to report that BORROWING ALEX received one 9 (the top score possible for those not in the know) and also an 8. However, it also received one upper-middling score and two “lower-middling enough that there’s no way this entry will make it into the finals” scores. However, that the book received such differing scores didn’t bother me. This was the first year that an author with a book published by a micro-press (I picked up that description from Natalie Damschroder) like Amber Quill could even enter the RITA, and, frankly, there wasn’t really an appropriate category for my entry. I did the best I could with my choices, which were to either enter a short book in Single Title, where it would have competed against books twice its length, or to enter it in Series Contemporary, which is really for category romance novels published in a series (Harlequin/Silhouette). However, the definition for this category is loose enough (employing words like “usually” quite frequently) that I felt it was the best place for my story. So, in actuality, I was very pleased that BORROWING ALEX snagged that 9!

Lastly, the managing editor of the Casablanca line for Sourcebooks, Deb Werksman, is taking questions today on the new Casablanca Authors blog. I’ve spoken to Deb on the phone, and she is very enthusiastic. This is an excellent opportunity to pick her brain, so don’t miss it. And, yep, I asked a question myself.

Presenting…Maureen McGowan

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Maureen McGowan is a fellow Canadian and Golden Heart Finalist ’07 sister who correctly ID’ed Lucienne Diver’s agent on my blog several days ago. To celebrate her cleverness, I’m pimping her today. Uh, by “pimping,” I mean Promoting Industrious Maureen-McGowan’s Publishing-Journey, not that, um, other sort of pimping. 

I first “met” Maureen when I judged the partial of her brilliantly funny women’s fiction novel, THE MISEDUCATION OF APRIL HILLSON, in a contest. I can no longer recall which contest it was (although I believe it was the RWA ChickLit chapter’s Get Your Stilleto in the Door contest). Maureen’s writing style, voice, and characterization of April blew me away. That manuscript also earned Maureen her finalist slot in the Golden Heart, Novel with Strong Romantic Elements category, last year, and, in the last few months, was a semi-finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, where an excerpt is still available for free download. 

As an unpublished author, Maureen is doing everything right. It’s only a matter of Timing before some lucky editor snaps her up. She has a beautiful website, a presence on Publishers Marketplace, and she’s represented by the stellar Knight Agency. Please visit her solo blog and/or her group blog, Drunk Writer Talk (with a title like that, how can you not visit?) And don’t forget to check out the free download of THE MISEDUCATION OF APRIL HILLSON.

 

Twenty Years Ago Today…

ajbaby.jpg…Eldest Son was born. I think that’s supposed to make me feel old. But the truth is, when he graduated high school two years ago, that made me feel old! I could not believe my baby was graduating high school. After all, I started seeing My Liege on the May long weekend the year I graduated high school (hey, that would be 30 years ago this weekend!) (I nearly forgot!)

For my American readers, this weekend is Victoria Day in Canada (celebrated Monday—no school or work). It’s a holiday in honor of Queen Victoria’s birthday, I believe, and Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, although it falls in June, is apparently celebrated this weekend, too.

Oh, by the way, in case you haven’t figured it out, that’s Eldest Son in the photo, at six months old. Isn’t he a cutie?

But back to the subject of my post. Feeling old. Youngest Son graduates high school in a few weeks. And that’s not making me feel old, either. So I guess the moral of the story is that, no matter how old you are when you have your first child—be it 16 or 42—when that first child graduates high school, you will feel old. So have your kids late in life, so you can feel old, well, later.

Now, for fun, see if you can guess the identity of this piece of pumpkin pie:

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Is there a resemblance?

Psst…Wanna Know a Secret?

A little birdie told me that the finalists of the Red Sage writing contest will be announced tonight, at the monthly Red Sage chat at Writerspace. Nine p.m. EST. Be there or be…well, uninformed, I guess.

Also, this recently in from the Red Sage blog:

Meet a Red Sage Editor!  

Will you be attending RWA’s national conference in San Francisco?

Would you like to pitch your work in person to a Red Sage editor?

If so, email your name and email address to [email protected] and you will be scheduled for a short, one-on-one pitch appointment! Most pitches will be held on Thursday, July 31, 2008, though some may be held on Friday, August 1, 2008.

These are “bonus” appointments. It doesn’t matter if you’ve already scheduled pitch appointments through RWA. You can still get one of these special pitch meetings! All you have to do is email your name and email address to [email protected].

Pitch appointments will be scheduled on a first come, first served basis. Don’t delay! The schedule is filling fast!

Red Sage Publisher Alexandria Kendall, managing editor Theresa Stevens, and senior editor Alicia Rasley will be taking the pitches.

The latest from the Red Sage blog:

Bonus appointments for RWA nationals are filling fast. We will make every effort to accommodate all requests, and are seeking alternate room arrangements to handle the overflow. If you’ve already requested an appointment, you should be receiving an email confirmation within the next few days. If you haven’t already requested an appointment and would like one, please email your name and contact email address to:
[email protected]

All appointments are on a first-come, first-served basis, but we really do want to hear pitches from everyone who requests appointments. Details of time and location will follow just as soon as we can provide them.

You heard it here first! (Or second, or third…depending on how blog-hoppy you are).

Chatting With…Mary J. Forbes

secret_child.jpgI’ve updated my Articles page with a Chatting With… column featuring award-winning Silhouette Special Edition author Mary J. Forbes. Mary talks about Fogwalking (you’ll have to read the article to find out what that is) and provides tips for aspiring writers.

Mary just won the Holt Medallion for Short Contemporary with her July 2007 Special Edition, HIS BROTHER’S GIFT, and several of her books have received 4.5 star reviews from Romantic Times. THEIR SECRET CHILD, the first book in her “Home to Firewood Island” trilogy, is in stores now. Here’s the blurb:

SKIP DALTON WAS THE LOVE—AND HEARTBREAK—OF HER LIFE

But that was all in the past. Addie Malloy had moved on and made a life for herself and her young child. Except now Skip had come home. And he’d brought someone with him.

Skip was determined to make amends for running out on Addie when she needed him most. But how would the single mother react when she discovered that his daughter was her daughter, too? Would this be the end? Or could this long-awaited reunion be a new beginning…for them all?

Mary is known for delivering issue-driven, emotion-filled reads. I’ve read all her books and am eagerly awaiting my copy of THEIR SECRET CHILD.

Go. Read. The Interview. Then return and tell me…Are You a Fogwalker, Too?

Tell Me Tuesday–I’ve Been PANned

Not much to report in the WIPpy department. The writing is going well, but I’m still in the No Man’s Land of writing new scenes before I get to begin revising the scenes drafted during my NaNoWriMo experiment. The closer I get to those drafted scenes, the more I realize that the manuscript might just fall in line with my “plodding” (a.k.a. plotting). This, of course, amazes me to no end. And I have my brainstorming group to thank for it, because I couldn’t have done all that plotting without them (thank you, Looney Binners!).

My big news this week (well, last week or the week before, but I don’t think I’ve announced it yet), is that I’ve finally been admitted to RWA’s Published Authors Network (a.k.a. PAN). My Alter Ego’s third sale to Red Sage Secrets did it. It’s taken me so long to get here: two novel sales and three novella sales. Phew! And, if not for the change in RWA author eligibility standards last summer, I still wouldn’t belong to PAN. Because, before the changes, novella sales, regardless of advance level, didn’t count. Only novel sales counted, and my two Amber Quill novels, as amazing as they are, have not yet reached the level of income generation (LOIG – and, yes, I made that up) required to join PAN. However, now I am in PAN and they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

I know not everyone in RWA is happy with the changes to the eligibility requirements, but, I have to admit, being in the position of being able to continue entering the Golden Heart although I was in fact a published author always felt weird to me. This year, for the first time, because of the changes, I was able to enter the RITA, RWA’s contest for published works. Even though I didn’t final with either my or my Alter Ego’s entries, that I get to enter feels, well, exactly where I should be.

I was also able to join NINC this year (Novelists, Inc.). However, NINC’s membership requirements are different from RWA’s (which makes sense, considering they are different organizations). When I joined NINC in the fall, the requirements were two published novels. HEAD OVER HEELS and BORROWING ALEX qualified me. Last I knew, NINC was in the process of changing its membership requirements to one that might also include an income generation level (IGL for those into acronyms, as I, um, appear to be), however, seeing as I’m already a member, even if my earnings don’t reflect the minimum (I have no clue if they do), I don’t have to worry about it. I’m grandfathered in, and, unless I allow my membership to lapse, they can’t get me out. Mwahahaha.

Does anyone else have good or bad or lackadaisical news to report?