Writers, Writers, and More Writers

Wow! What a week! Writers, writers, and more writers all in one place.

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I did my very first writers conference in June last summer when I taught a couple of classes at the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference here in the state. And then last weekend I was off to my first national writers conference - the ACFW Conference. That's the American Christian Fiction Writers. Over six hundred fiction writers showed up to listen and learn from one another and to pitch their book ideas to editors and agents. Obviously since this was the first conference like this I've ever attended, that's something I've never done. I've sent in proposals in writing or over the internet, but never face to face with editors or agents who hear dozens of pitches every day. I don't know who's braver - the pitching authors or the receiving editors and agents.

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Of course they - the editors and agents - are hoping to mine some gold among all the wanna-be writers. And the wanna-be writers are just trying to figure out the magic equation that will help them find the right publisher so they can get their book out in front of readers. I certainly understand that feeling. That I want to be published feeling. Maybe stated even better - the I-want-to-write-a-story-so-good-that-editors-will-be-coming-to-me-to-pitch-their-contract-terms feeling. I'm not sure that ever happens to many writers until they've got a pile of books on the bookstore shelves and readers are anxiously demanding more books. From them! Most of us have to put in some time and a lot of practice words before anything even close to that happens. So many good writers are out there and so many more who are doing that writing practice and getting better and better.

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I'm in the photo above with one of those new writers. That's Laura Frantz smiling with me. Her first published novel, The Frontiersman's Daughter was up for a Carol Award. The same one my book was up for. Unfortunately she didn't win either. Mary Connealy won - I think with her book, Montana Rose. She had two books in the finalists so I may have the wrong one. I mean when you don't hear your name announced as winner, you have this moment or two of not listening while you're regretting that you won't get to say that witty acceptance speech you labored over that afternoon and kept silently practicing while everybody else was enjoying their fancy dessert. LOL.

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But the conference was fun. And it was especially fun to get all dressed up in fancy clothes and see everybody else's fancy dresses and jewelry. It was great, but I have to admit that I was glad to get back to my hotel room and kick off those nasty high heeled shoes. I'll be posting a few pictures on Facebook and maybe I'll put one of that fancy dress on here on Wednesday.

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Thanks for reading. And don't forget to leave a comment or send me an e-mail from my website to get your name in the hat for my birthday giveaway the end of the month. I sent out newsletters right before I left for the conference. If you want to be on my newsletter list, just let me know. Hope you are enjoying a beautiful autumn day the way I am. I'm getting ready to go out and walk with the dogs. I know they've missed me. Till next time, Ann

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Off to the ACFW Conference

Hi, everybody. No time for blogging this week with the National Quartet Convention and now I'm off to the ACFW Conference. Next week I'll be back on schedule - I hope. I'll tell you all about what's been going on. Have a great week.

And the Rain Came Down

--We had our family reunion yesterday. In the rain. At my house. We've been doing this reunion of my mom's side of the family for almost thirty years. In that time we've been rained on three times. A pretty good record. Except that two of those times were the last two times I hosted the party. I told them yesterday I was never having the reunion at my house again. I think they knew I was kidding. Uh, I think I was kidding. I mean I love having company. That's one of the reasons we decided to build on our gathering room, but we built decks too. I was hoping to use those decks and the yard, but the rain poured down all day. When I went out to look at the rain guage this morning, it was all the way full. Six inches. Now I'm not sure if I'd emptied it after the last rain, so it might have had an inch already in there, but then I'm not sure how much ran over after the guage was full to the top. I am sure we had a lot of rain. And my cornhole game boards looked very lonely out in the yard. I got Darrell to give me the game several years ago and I drag it out whenever we have company and either the weather doesn't cooperate like yesterday or we're too busy chasing babies to play. Maybe next time.

--We did have a good time visiting with all the family. Our number was down because of the rain and people wondering if they might have to sit on top of each other at my house. Some of them didn't know about my new gathering room. So those who came were relieved to see my multiple couches and chairs. Even so, we could have used more room, but I'm not ready to knock any more walls down right now. We did miss my son and his family, but it's a long drive from WV with a car full of kids. Maybe next year when it's at somebody else's house and it's not raining like you're thinking maybe you didn't notice somebody building an ark in their backyard.

--Everybody I've heard from says they had a great time at the American Fiction Writers Conference in Denver. My book, Summer of Joy, that was one of five finalists for Book of the Year in the long contemporary category didn't win. Oh well. It was fun being a finalist and since I wasn't going to get to go, I had practice writing an acceptance speech for my agent to read - just in case. Maybe someday I'll get to celebrate a win, but right now I'll keep celebrating having the chance to win. Even better than that I'll keep celebrating every time I see one of my stories in book form ready to move out into the world and get picked up by readers. It was a lot of fun meeting some of those readers at the National Quartet Convention and having reading friends come by the Patriots' booth to talk to me. I'm sorry I couldn't be there on Friday and Saturday, but my daughter and son-in-law don't get home very often. So it was a great weekend for visiting.

--The picture up top is all the family who came. That's one of the requirements at our reunions. If you eat the meal, you gotta take the picture. You can see the wet floor of the deck. What you can't see is my son holding my dog, Dub's leash to keep him for getting in the picture with his cone protective collar on. He was bumping into everybody with that thing. My other dog, Oscar, is front and center trying to lick anybody who will hold a hand down to him. Or toes. My little five-month-old grandbaby, Raegan, loves the dogs and thought it was funny getting her toes licked. I'm the one in the coral pink shirt squatted down by Mom who's sitting in the front. I'll post a few more of the reunion pictures on my Facebook page.

--Hope if any of you are having family gatherings you enjoy the fun of keeping up family connections. And that it doesn't rain on your picnics!!

VBS and Finding Time to Get It All Done

Hi again, everybody. Are you like me and not finding enough hours in the day to do everything that needs doing? Truth is, I've been letting a lot of things that need doing slip by not done. I'm going to have to get going on cleaning my house soon or well, I guess it'll just get more in need of a dedicated housekeeper. I'm not dedicated to housecleaning. But I used to do a better job when all the kids were home. I had more of a routine then. Saturdays I cleaned. Now Saturdays are always busy with some other activity. Darrell's singing and I get to go along or Darrell's singing and I think wow, I don't want to waste a perfect day to write on doing chores. Maybe the grandkids have slept over or are coming to visit or I'm going to visit them. Or I want to go somewhere with my sisters or help Mom out. Or the wildflowers at Panther Rock were in bloom and a person has to stop to smell the roses, doesn't she? There is always something. That's for sure and when those kind of choices come up, I don't pick washing windows. Maybe I should, but I don't.

And now next week I have the best excuse ever -- Vacation Bible School. Talk about a gobbler upper of time. That can do it. First you've got to come up with lessons or study the lessons in the books you have. Second, you have to do crafts and plan activities that will keep the kids interested. Have you noticed that's harder to do than it used to be? I've been teaching Bible School for many years. Many years! And the kids aren't as easy to settle in to Bible study as they used to be. Of course, at our little church we don't have any electronic stuff to show movies or slides or whatever. We depend on the Bible and have an old fashioned Bible School that fits our little church best. The new programs are great, but we don't have the room at our church or the volunteers to lead that sort of program. So we just go back to the Bible School style of old and most of our kids have the most fun ever. So next week promises to be a whirlwind of activity. I'm hoping I can keep somewhat to my goal of getting a set number of pages of my new book written every week, but I might not have the proper time. Especially since I have to take Mom to the doctor one day and my dog to the vet the next day. Plus we bought a new fridge and that means I have to empty out the old fridge and get the spot ready for the new fridge. I'll take me half a day to take all the grandkids' photos and art work off the old fridge. :) The new fridge is not going to be as art display friendly, but we'll have to work out something. The side maybe.

Darrell and I took one of those Saturdays off the way I was talking about earlier and went to a play "As It Is in Heaven" at Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill. It was not as good as I'd hoped. I've been doing a lot of Shaker research and there were several things that were just wrong according to the books I've been reading. They had the Shaker girl having a pet cat. That was not allowed. The little girls couldn't even have dolls. The Shakers did have a few cats late in the life of Shakerism in the late 1800's and early 1900's after the rules of conduct had relaxed quite a bit. But the play was set in 1837. No pets then. However the actresses did a great job and I liked hearing the Shaker songs they sang. They were definitely authentic songs. I hope to go back to Shaker Village for a full day of sightseeing and absorbing the atmosphere soon. The Shakers were interesting people, but not very easily understood in their time or even now. They had a lot of contradictory ways.

My new book, The Outsider, about the Shaker girl and the frontier doctor will be out in August. Publisher's Weekly reviewed it. Not a great review. I always hope for a great review, but I don't always get what I hope for. I met one writer who said she never read reviews. I'm beginning to thing that might be a good idea. The review wasn't really that bad, just not great. Oh well. Maybe the next one will be better and I know me. I won't be able to keep from reading it, good or bad.

I do appreciate all of you who may have put a review out somewhere for me. Terri put one on Amazon.com last week and I really appreciate that. I also really appreciate every time you recommend one of my books to a friend. Word of mouth reviews are the best kind. If they're good, that is.

The ACFW Southeast zone newsletter had me as their featured zone author this month. It was a fun interview and I enjoyed talking about my writing to all the other writers in the group. Every day I get a digest of messages where the members of the loop tell about what's going on in their writing lives and that's always fun to read about. You can visit the ACFW (Amercian Christian Fiction Writers) on the internet and if you're a writer of Christian fiction you can sign up and enjoy all the perks. (For a membership fee, of course. But part of the site is open to anybody who wants to click on.) I haven't been taking advantage of all the information out there on the site because, well, I have to get my new book done before my daughter-in-law has those twins this summer.

Yeah, I know. We're right back to that not enough time for everything bit. Hope you have the time to do all the things you most want to do. I love teaching Bible stories at Bible School so I'll be sure to make time for that this week. Ann