Happily Ever After

I went to an RWA meeting today and it was wonderful! It's an organization full of people that write romance novels so of course Happily Ever After is a MUST! Happy For Now will do too but the point is - a HAPPY ENDING to an enjoyable and hopefully well-crafted story. 

Then I came home to discover that there is a wedding happening in the neighborhood. It turns out that we can hear quite a bit of it from the kitchen/dining room. There is a lot of laughter and that makes me smile. So often there is chaos and tumult in our world but I believe that the majority of people do want love, laughter and happiness in their lives. I know I do and I feel blessed to have those things. It's also why I write romance novels and never give up on getting my stories out there. I believe the people of our world like love and Happily Ever After! 

Centerpieces

This is the lovely centerpiece from my chapter meeting of RWA today. It's adorable! Better than that is that the actual meeting itself was FANTASTIC! There was chat about goal setting (and actual goals set!), a panel that spoke about things new writers should be aware of in the publishing industry and an afternoon presentation on how to be more productive! All in all - agreat meeting!

Musing Mondays: New books

Musing Mondays is a weekly meme that asks you to choose one of the following prompts to answer:

• I’m currently reading…
• Up next I think I’ll read…
• I bought the following book(s) in the past week…
• I’m super excited to tell you about (book/author/bookish-news)…
• I’m really upset by (book/author/bookish-news)…
• I can’t wait to get a copy of…
• I wish I could read ___, but…
• I blogged about ____ this past week…

THIS WEEK’S RANDOM QUESTION: Finish the sentence: “If _____ and _____ were to get together and write a book…”

I was reading through the list of prompts above and thought I didn't buy any books in the past week because I was at the RWA conference. However, that is not at all true because I went to the Literacy Autographing last Wednesday and bought books there. I bought The Obsession by Nora Roberts and she signed it. I already have the book on my Nook but of course I wanted to meet her and have her sign it so now I have it in hardcover, as well. I'm perfectly all right with this too because it is a great book. Plus, I met Nora Roberts! Yes, I am still giddy about that!

I also bought two books by Jill Shalvis at the Literacy Autographing: Nobody but You and Sweet Little Lies. I haven't read either of these and I'm excited to get into them in the near future. Jill Shalvis was also very nice and signed my books. It was quite the fun experience and definitely my fangirl moment(s) at the conference. 

So happy to be home

The RWA conference was amazing. I learned a lot and am ready to get back to my writing. That being said, I am so thrilled to be home! I'm happy to see my husband! I'm happy to see my kids! I'm also happy about sleeping in my own bed! In fact, I already had a nap earlier this afternoon and it was wonderful! 

Pretty pool at our hotel

THe RWA conference is complete for this year. It was amazing on so many levels. I'm so grateful to have gone to this conference and I will most likely be sharing the things I learned. I will say that I feel so positive about my journey and my path as a writer. I'm excited and ready to get back to work. 

Cool view in San Diego

First Timer

I am so incredibly happy with how the Romance Writers of America annual conference is going so far! There are two more full days of it but it has been such a great experience already. I am hopeful that the remainder of the conference will be as great.

This morning I listened to a presentation by Jaci Burton and Jill Shalvis on keeping a Series Bible. It was fantastic! I have a lot of work to do when I go home. I have written several books of my series now. I took a break from it though because I became overwhelmed trying to go through previous books to find details on characters that I had forgotten. When I go home I will go through my books one by one and create my Series Bible because I'm sold on the fact that it will become an invaluable writing tool.

Tomorrow morning I am going to listen to a Chat with Nora Roberts. I am so excited about this, too! I met her at the Literace Autographing charity yesterday and she was so kind. I met Jill Shalvis also and she was super nice, too. Hey, I had to have my fan girl moments. After all, writers start off as fans first.

Wordless Wednesday: Readers for Life Literacy Autographing

"Readers for Life" Literacy Autographing

RWA Itinerary

I am going to the Romance Writers of America Annual Conference this coming week. I am really excited about it because this is my first time going. They offer a 'First Timers'' orientation which my friend and I are definitely going to attend. However, as I was looking through all the workshops they will be offering I began to feel slightly overwhelmed about it. I had this vision of myself standing in the middle of the hotel feeling lost and out of sorts. I'm sure that won;t be the case but still - I decided to make myself an itinerary.

There are over one hundred workshops to choose from, Keynote speakers, an awards ceremony and other events along with all of the networking opportunities. I want to make the best of this conference and get the most out of it that I can. With this in mind I sat down the other night and started reading about every workshop that is going to be available. I made choices for each time slot. For the majority of them I was able to choose easily. However, there are a few time slots where I am interested in more than one class. In fact, there is one where I like the sound of four of the classes! Obviously I can only go to one but I love that there is so much to choose from. I feel better having it narrowed down and things written down.

I'm really looking forward to the conference and will share more about it when I can.

Author business cards

Yes, author business cards are a thing. I had no idea of this until I went to the California Dreamin' Writers Conference last year. I felt a little silly when someone asked me for a business card and I didn't have one. Then I forgave myself because you don't know something until you learn it and that was my learning experience.

So, with the Romance Writers of America national conference coming up I figured I'd better have business cards this time. I had a heck of a time deciding on which cards to order. There was an abundance of choice but I had a difficult time finding a design that was exactly what I wanted - which was and is, clean, simple and pretty. It doesn't seem like that should have been hard but oh it was. The RWA conference is in sixteen days and I knew I was running out of time to order the cards if I wanted them to arrive in time. So last night, I sat down with my laptop, the website open to order the cards and enlisted my husband's help. I'm so glad I did because he pointed out a couple of good things about the cards I was finally interested in. With his help and tips in mind I narrowed it down to two choices. This afternoon I made up my mind and ordered the business cards. They are set to arrive by July 6th. I can't wait to get them. Even more, I can't wait to have the opportunity to hand them out the conference.

RWA National Conference

In three weeks I will be at the Romance Writers of America National Conference. It is being held in San Diego which is fortunate for me because I can drive there rather than needing to fly so that saves some money. It's my first time going to this writers conference and I am a little nervous. I'm mostly excited, though. I've known about this conference for years but I finally feel like I'm at a place in my writing life where I can go. Of course, going to California Dreamin' conference last year helped me to realize this, as well.

The RWA National conference is four days. There area lot of workshops - about both the craft and business of being a romance writer. There are keynote speakers and an awards ceremony to announce the RITA winners for this year. I can't wait to go to the conference. I hope I learn a lot and make some excellent contacts and possibly even some new writer friends. I'm sure I will have plenty to share once the conference is done.

Goals

I evaluated my goals for 2016 and made a list of the ones I want to accomplish. This is what I do rather than making resolutions. I get that the two concepts are fairly similar but for me the difference between a goal and a resolution means success or failure. I'm not sure why exactly this is but it's true. I succeed when I make goals and often failed when I made resolutions. Perhaps it's a matter of having the right mindset to do whatever works.

Anyway, here we are, ten days into the new year and so far, so good on my goals. It helps me to think of my goals in terms of daily achievement. Every day I will read with my children for thirty minutes. Every day I will write one thousand words. Every day I will crochet at least one granny square. Every day I will drink eight glasses of water. I haven't quite achieved this last one yet BUT I am drinking water every day - which is an improvement so I'll take it ad call it a win for myself. There are other daily goals I set for myself but these give a good idea.

As I shared in yesterday's post - I went to my local RWA meeting. I learned that I am eligible (and have been) to join the PRO level of the organization. I didn't know this but am glad that I know now. It's one more step forward in my publishing quest. I also realized as I listened to one of the speakers that I MUST make revision a part of my daily process. I have many novels that are complete. At least the first or second draft is complete. Now it is time for me to focus on making several (admittedly not all) of them fully revised, shiny and ready for submissions.

I need to focus more wholly on revision and submission. Will I still write every day? Absolutely. I need to write like I need to breathe. It is something I have done every day now for 851 days. I can't imagine stopping. It's more a matter of allowing myself to adjust this daily goal. Instead of holding fast to my 1,000 word per day goal I am going to adjust it to 500 - 750. And add that I must revise at least two chapters per day. If I do more then great but if not at least each day is another day forward toward being published.

RWA Chapter Meeting

Today I went to my local chapter meeting of Romance Writers of America. It was a fantastic meeting with two speakers. The morning speaker discussed writing under the subgenre of Romantic Suspense. She went over the popular tropes and what works and what doesn’t within the genre. I found myself thinking that a lot of it was common sense. That could be due to the fact that I am incredibly familiar with the type of books, though. Still, she was so engaging that her information seemed fresh and exciting. She left me wanting to written Romantic Suspense book. I’ve dabbled with a story or two in the past but I’m pretty sure I’m going to be re-visiting the subgenre sometime this year.

The afternoon speaker was all about selling books on Amazon. While she also had a lot of great information and was a great speaker – I felt a little disheartened at the end of her presentation. At the end of the day I was seriously wondering why I am even trying to get a traditional publishing contract. Apparently Amazon has a stronghold on the book market through its Kindle e-books. Anyone can self-publish. ANYONE. Maybe that is the direction I should take. I just don’t know and that has me feeling a little unsure about how to proceed. I’m not opposed to self-publishing and have, in fact, thought about it quite a bit. I’m just wondering if it is the way I should go right now and not worry about a traditional publishing house.

I do know that I am going to continue writing. There is a definite business side to this creative act of writing. However, without the story there’s nothing to publish – traditionally or electronically. So for now, I will continue with my revisions. I will even submit my book to the Agents and Editor that asked for it because I want to follow through with what I said I would do. After that, well, I guess I’ll see what I think with the next book.

People who understand

It's so nice to have people in life who understand the things we go through. For me, that is my family and my friends. I am quite grateful for both and really happy about those who understand my need to write. My husband and children do for certain. I have a good friend that I meet with once per week to write with and talk about things related to this career we're both in pursuit of. It is really wonderful and I am very thankful. We met today and we both got some writing done. We also made some plans about going to the RWA conference in July. It's exciting and maybe just a little bit nerve-wracking. We're looking forward to it, though.