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RWA 2014 Recap… and A Gold Stowaway
Fresh back from the 2014 RWA national conference in San Antonio, Texas… with some unexpected carry-on luggage, a few new friends, and a sleep deficit that will take me well into September to make up for. But let me back up. For those of you who are curious about all the events that take place at RWA, here were some of my highlights.
“Readers for Life” Literacy Autographing
I flew into San Antonio on Wednesday, the same day as the literacy autographing, so I may have prayed incessantly for an on-time flight and good weather. Call me a little paranoid, but after being delayed for almost four hours on my way to ACFW last year, I wasn’t feeling all that trusting of weather or airlines. But thank the Lord, the flight took off on time, landed on time with all luggage intact and present.
Enough time to check in, get lunch, pick up the books that had been overnighted to my hotel after the first shipment of books were lost, and then over to the literacy booksigning at the conference hotel!
To say it was a madhouse would be an understatement. Five hundred authors and check out lines that wrapped several times around the hallway. But, in the end, RWA raised something like $57,000 for local literacy charities.
RITA/Golden Heart Finalist Reception
On Friday afternoon, RWA held a lovely champagne reception for the RITA and Golden Heart award finalists at the Marriott Riverwalk, complete with chocolate fountain (don’t all writers love chocolate?) There we had a chance to mingle with other finalists and the RWA board, and we received our finalist certificates. I also had the chance to record a hilarious selfie video with fellow finalist Lizbeth Selvig. I’m stalking her YouTube channel, waiting for it to come out.
I really should have taken more pictures…
RITA/Golden Heart Awards Ceremony
To say I was nervous about the ceremony was an understatement. However, the emcee, Simone Elkeles was absolutely brilliant–funny, polished, and entertaining. The fact I remember this says something, because I remember almost nothing of that night through my nerves. I didn’t even remember to have a friend snap a picture of the screen when the finalists were being announced!
And then those words that I had convinced myself I wouldn’t be hearing: “And the RITA goes to… Five Days in Skye, by Carla Laureano.”
I somehow managed to get up on stage, freezing like a deer in the headlights along the way. I vaguely remember Victoria Alexander telling me, “Well, come here and get your award!” I took it, think I hugged her, went to the podium… babbled on a bit before realizing I really needed to read my speech because my brain wasn’t working clearly enough to remember what I wanted to say… managed to get off stage without falling down the stairs in four inch heels, and then had my picture taken by the conference photographer.
I then endeavored to get lost on the way back to my table, thanks to a combination of nerves, brain deadness, and being half-blind from the stage lights. When I finally collapsed back into my seat, I think there might have been hugs from my friends. There were definitely congratulatory text messages and tweets on my phone (thanks, everyone for the Twitter party!). Fortunately, my nerves had worn off by the time they got to the second category in which I was nominated, and while neither Elizabeth nor I won won that one, I console myself that NORA ROBERTS ANNOUNCED OUR CATEGORY and therefore kindasorta knows who we are. (Yes, I’m a fan. No, I didn’t meet her. Boo.)
I still wasn’t thinking all that clearly, so I didn’t get many pictures, but here’s one that a friend managed to snap…
Don’t you love the lovely red-eye effect? That’s the problem with having cat’s eyes… even the red eye tool on my photo editor doesn’t get rid of it completely…
And what the beautiful lady looked like on my hotel desk…
And her current place of honor on the table that holds all my author copies and mailing supplies. I think this perfectly sums up my life: a “major award” wedged between my file sorter and the lamp I swiped from my son’s room, for which I never managed to find a more appropriate shade.
Reading back this blog post, I think I still might be stunned. But let me sign off with this: I’m grateful for the huge honor of winning this award–for my debut novel, no less–but even more grateful for the opportunity to be nominated alongside my lovely, talented, and equally deserving friend, Elizabeth Byler Younts. And if you’re looking for some summer reading, may I make a pair of recommendations? 🙂
Tags: 2014 RITA, Elizabeth Byler Younts, Five Days in Skye, literacy signing, Promise to Return, Readers for Life, Victoria Alexander
Writing Process Blog Hop
Welcome to my stop on the writing process blog hop! I’ve read a bunch of these but never participated in one before. If you’re a newbie like me, the idea is quite ingenious. Each participant answers a series of questions, links back to the original tagger, and then tags two or three more participants. At this point, I think there have been enough tags and hops to wrap around the earth half a dozen times, so if you keep clicking back to the “original tagger” on each post, you can hop along through an interesting series of genres and authors.
So here we go. I was tagged by Lisa Tawn Bergren, who has some entertaining stuff on her post…don’t forget to hop back!
1. What are you working on at the moment?
That’s always a loaded question for me. I write two genres with two different publishers, so I’ve usually got multiple projects in various stages of completion. I just finished the third book in my Song of Seare trilogy, and I’m expecting story edits back in about 10 days. (Below are the covers of the first two books in the series.)
On top of that, I’m currently rewriting the second book in my contemporary romance series, which is due in less than a month! Busy times…
2. How does your work differ from others in its genre?
Hmm. If we’re talking about fantasy, I think I’m the only one currently writing Celtic fantasy for the Christian market, so there’s that. They’re also fairly epic for YA, which means really big stories with multiple POVs and lots of story threads. I think I’m also beginning to be known for realism in my stories, which means that no characters are ever safe… *cue lightning and evil laugh*
3.Why do you write what you do?
I read a lot in the general market, but I found myself discouraged by the lack of hope in some of the stories, especially in speculative fiction. I wanted to write the same sort of books you would find on the shelves of your local Barnes and Noble, but with a Christian element. When I started writing, I made a commitment that I would never publish anything I’d be ashamed to have my children read (at an appropriate age). My hope is that Christians and non-Christian readers alike will find something to enjoy.
4. How does your writing process work?
There’s a process? Just kidding. My writing process tends to look a lot like this.
I work best under deadlines, so I typically fast draft a book in a few weeks when the idea occurs to me. Then I let it marinate for a while and procrastinate on the rewrites (which could involve writing another book for my other publisher, messing around on Pinterest or Facebook, or doing something silly like creating a font from my handwriting like I did this morning). I then come back to the manuscript with a fresh perspective, identify areas that need to be written, and end up rewriting anywhere between 50-75% of the book. Start procrastination round two, which normally brings me up to the zone marked panic. Then frantic revisions while crying (not really, at least not usually) and turning in the manuscript at the 11th hour.
When my editor sends it back to me for story edits, I do those, and then complete a full line edit myself before it goes back to him/her for official line edits.
It’s a really wacky process, even to me, but it seems to work. 🙂
Now, time for the next stops on the hop! Next week, three excellent writers:
Tags: blog hop, Cindi Madsen, Patrick W. Carr, Serena Chase, writing process
Why You Should Stop Looking for Advice
I’m going to give all the writers out there a little bit of advice: stop looking for advice.
Okay, so I recognize the hypocrisy in that statement. But stick with me for a minute.
Lately, my reader feed and my social media has been inundated with advice. “Five Things You Should Never Do.” “The One Thing You Shouldn’t Care About.” “Ten Ways That I’m A Better Parent Than You.” (Okay, that last one isn’t real, but it might as well be.) Part of this comes from the fact that there’s a lot of people out there trying to make a name for themselves, and they’ve been told that they have to write with authority. Part of it is that there are a lot of internet savvy people who know how to write linkbait to get you to click through and look at their advertisers. And then there’s that portion of people who really do mean well and want to share their experiences in order to save someone else their mistakes. I hope people perceive that I’m in the last camp.
For writers, there seems to be as much advice as there is for parenting! The self-pub crowd tells you that indie is the only way to go. The traditional crowd tells you you’re crazy for not wanting a contract with an advance. They’re both passionate and convincing. Which one is right? Group A? Group B? Neither?
Here’s the thing I’ve found: in business, in writing, and in life, one size never fits all. We are all individuals, with unique talents, strengths, weaknesses, and situations. What works for me may not work for you. And what works for me now might not work for me in a year. Even I’m coming from a position of bias (admittedly, a bias that doesn’t like people claiming there’s only one right way to do things). It’s our job as writers, critical thinkers, businesspeople, intelligent human beings, to weigh the advice and figure out what makes sense for us. Clearly, some advice is more reliable than others. Your agent’s thoughts on your next steps carries more weight than your next door neighbor’s opinion on your career. But ultimately, it’s not your agent or your neighbor who has to live with your decisions, it’s you.
If you’re thinking seriously about these matters, you are likely an intelligent, capable person. You have all the tools in this wonderfully connected world to make decisions and sift through all the conflicting information in order to find what makes sense to you. Just because your crit partner made it big on one path to writing success doesn’t mean that’s the only path, or even the right path. It’s just one path. So here is my advice. No, let’s not call it advice, let’s call it encouragement.
- You know yourself better than anyone. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
- You own your own destiny. Not your agent, not your publisher, not the marketplace. Make decisions from a place of strategy, not from fear. And once your decisions are made, commit to them. Give them a fighting chance. Then reevaluate regularly. I’ve found that this approach goes far to mitigate the terror that comes along with decision making. Let’s face it, writing is not brain surgery. If you make a mistake, a patient doesn’t die on the table. And a less-than-great decision doesn’t mean failure. It’s just another learning experience on the way to success.
- Cast a wide net. Benefit from the wisdom of others’ experience. Get yourself a mentor you trust. Read every book on writing and business you can find. But don’t take everything you read and hear as gospel (not even this blog). Weigh it carefully. Filter it through what you know of yourself. And if you’re a praying person—and I hope you are—pray about your next steps.
I have a feeling that if you’re diligent and honest, and you can filter out the voices convincing you otherwise, you probably already know what to do.
Tags: advice, agents, editors, indie, linkbait, self-publishing, social media, traditional publishing
Winning the Battle Against Burnout
I’m blogging away from home this morning with the amazing Ronie Kendig! Won’t you pop over and join the conversation about overcoming the battle against writer burnout?
Read the full article at Novel Rocket.
Tags: Novel Rocket, Ronie Kendig, survival, writer burnout
