Writing Life

Dear Author Blog Tour

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I have been friends with Laura A. Grace online for a while now, and I’m so excited that she is releasing a non-fiction writing book! It is especially geared towards writers, and I am so excited to read it!

About the Book

Think your words might not matter? Think again.

Words have the power to change lives, especially when they are used to create meaningful stories. In this collection of letters, bookish fangirl Laura A. Grace addresses topics related to every writer’s journey. From “character conversations,” to embracing one’s unique writing style, to celebrating a release day—there is a letter for every author no matter where they may be in sharing their story with others.

“Dear Author” includes six illustrations by Hannah S.J. Williams.

Amazon — Barnes & Noble — Book Depository — Goodreads

 

 

About the Author

Laura A. Grace had a lifelong dream of getting to know authors behind the covers of her favorite reads. Little did she know that one day she would become an author too! Now an avid book blogger at Unicorn Quester and writer of clean, Christian manga, Laura creatively balances her passions of supporting indie authors and feeding her readers new stories. In between, she wields plastic lightsabers with her children and binge-watches anime with her husband. Join her quest to find wandering unicorns for your favorite authors at unicornquester.com!

Website — Newsletter — Facebook — Twitter — Instagram — YouTube

 

Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, December 2nd

Tuesday, December 3rd

Wednesday, December 4th

Thursday, December 5th

Friday, December 6th

Saturday, December 7th

Monday, December 9th

Tuesday, December 10th

Wednesday, December 11th

  • Video Book Review: Janeen Ippolito
  • Book Review & Guest “Embrace Your Inner Fangirl: Three Easy Ways to Support Authors (That Don’t Require Reviewing or Purchasing Books)”: Wounded but Hopeful

Thursday, December 12th

Friday, December 13th

Saturday, December 14th

 

A New Endeavor

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Hello, everyone! I’m so excited to announce that I have started an editing business! I have discovered I enjoy helping fellow authors with critiquing and editing, and it seemed only natural to make it official.

You can find everything about the business and editing services I provide under the Editorial Services tab up above or you can follow this link here.

I look forward to possibly working with some of you in the future on your projects.

On a different note, happy release day to Sarah Addison-Fox on her release of Discerned and happy release week to Claire Banschbach on her release of Wolf Prince!

 

 

Who wants to help with a Cover Reveal?

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It has been far too long since I’ve updated about a new book. It’s been far easier to stay silent than admit that, for a while last summer, I wasn’t sure there would be a new book. The words weren’t coming and the more the words didn’t come, the more I stressed about it, and the more I stressed, the more I couldn’t write. I’ve since learned I wasn’t alone. Several other authors I know have said last year was tough for them too. Here’s one of the blog posts here.

Even once I did start writing again, I flat out hated this current book and nearly quit it several times up until I was nearly halfway into it. I dreaded having people ask about it and forced myself to smile as I said it was coming along.

Which probably isn’t the best way to get all of you excited about it, is it?

But I loved and still love the second half of the book, and things finally seem to be falling in place with it. Early reader and editor feedback has been positive. Editing is coming along and making the hated book into something I like and hopefully you’ll like too. And it has a cover. Which I’ll be asking if you want to help reveal at the end of this post.

Cover Reveal Graphic

But first, I’d like to give a shout out to fellow authors who recently had their books release.

First off, Chris Wachter had her first book release! Isn’t the cover so mysterious? I had the privilege to be able to read the first chapter two years ago when I met her in person at Realm Makers, and I can’t wait until I can read the rest of this book! I’m so excited that, after two years of following Chris’s publishing journey, her book is finally out!

You can find the book on Amazon here.

You can also connect with C.S. Wachter at her website: www.cswachter.com.

Dissemble: Allegiance Series #2 by [Addison-Fox, Sarah]Second, Sarah Addison-Fox had her second novel release recently. The cover is so pretty! And the book is absolutely amazing! I’ve had a chance to read it, and you can find my review for it here. Sarah has been such a huge encouragement the last few months, and I’m so excited for her that this book is out and getting such great reviews!

You can find the book on Amazon here.

You can connect with Sarah at her website: www.sarahaddisonfox.com

Now that I’ve thoroughly distracted you with pretty covers, how would you like to help reveal the cover of my upcoming book? Actually, you’ll be helping to release the cover, release date, title, and blurb. You’ll have one week to sign up, and the cover reveal will happen on March 16 starting at 8 AM EST.

No, this book isn’t another The Blades of Acktar book. It is a completely new book set in a new world with new characters and adventures. I hope you’ll love it!

2018, Here I Come

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I realized it has been too long since I posted. Not since November. *sigh* But that’s December for you. Always way too busy. It doesn’t help I’m bad at blogging. I struggle to figure out something worthy of being blogged about. I don’t want to bore my readers with mundane stuff.

But you’re getting mundane today. Because that’s all I can think to write about, and it might help to share how my life has been going since 2018 started 4 days ago.

New Year’s Day started off with me being gone on a vacation with my family about 5 hours away from home. Which, was a really good vacation despite the cold weather…until the morning of our last day when my cousin called to let us know he’d stopped by my parents’ house and my horse had gotten out.

Not a good feeling. At all. When horses get out of their pasture, they tend to go all wild horse and run all over the place. They can run for miles, get hit by a car, take hours to be rounded up again. It isn’t a good thing when a horse gets loose. It’s even worse when you’re 5 hours away and can do nothing about it but listen to your dad’s end of the conversation and try to think of something that would help. We were all out of horse grain, but thankfully I had left plenty of the horse’s favorite apple-flavored treats.

Apparently my horse and my brother’s dog (who has a dog run next to the horse pasture) got a little bored sometime in the middle of the night or early morning and between the two of them they managed to tear down a section of fence large enough for the horse to get through.

Thankfully Shadow, my horse, hadn’t gone far, and it appeared he spent most of his time outside the pasture trying to get back into it, but was too scared to go past the dog’s run.

And now my cousin, a virtual stranger to the horse, had to try to get the horse back into the pasture with only a bucket of horse treats.

But this is where it is a good thing I have the laziest, fattest, most homebody of a horse ever. A virtual stranger opens his gate and offers him treats and what does my horse do? Trot right in the pasture to eat the offered treats, that’s what. Getting back into his nice, safe pasture was all he really wanted anyway.

All in all, I only had to panic a few minutes about my horse being out without me being there to make sure he got safely in the pasture.

The next day on my way to my first day back to work after my vacation my truck blew a tire and left me temporarily stranded along side of a busy freeway in 10 degree temperatures and several inches of slush. And when I say blew a tire, I mean the entire side wall was gone and parts of the tire were literally down to the rim. It looked like something out of NASCAR. Thankfully, I kept control of my truck and didn’t spin out into a wall like they tend to do after blown tires in racing.

I wish I could say I remember the feeling of the tire blowing more clearly than I do. If I got the life experience out of it, I should be able to call it book research, except that I mostly write fantasy set in more medieval times and the feeling of a blown tire wouldn’t be all that helpful in that sort of book. Not that blowing a tire and getting stranded along the freeway is necessarily a life experience I wanted to check off my bucket list, but I guess I did anyway.

Note to all of those dealing with cold temperatures: if you’ve been gone for a week of vacation and you have a tire that already is leaking air and then the temperatures drop 40 degrees while you are gone, it can cause issues like really low tire pressure which cause further issues like blown tires. Little life lesson: make sure you check the tire pressures.

Another Little Life Lesson: the jack included in a car is junk. I can change a tire by myself with a proper jack and air wrench in my dad’s barn, but alongside the road with a worthless jack was a bit more challenging. My dad and uncle helped me out at different points throughout the day to get the wrecked tire off, bring the rim to the tire place at the next exit, get to work, leave work once the new tire was ready, go back to my stranded car, and get the new tire on (my spare tire is one of those under the truck sort of spares that are completely worthless on an older vehicle like mine because they become rusted in place and impossible to get off when you are stuck alongside the road).

So that was the first two days of the year for me. Hopefully the rest of this year isn’t so stressful and crazy.

On another note, my vacation gave me time to do some mild editing, and I think I’m finally getting sort of excited about sharing this next book with you. I keep wanting to share snippets and titles and blurbs with you guys, but I’m not letting myself yet. I want to put together the cover and a cover reveal to really make those things have an impact.

But I guess I will share this. One of the pictures I’m using as an inspiration for this current book:

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How has your 2018 been so far?

Finally, a Writing Update

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Sorry I have been dark so long. No blog posts. No newsletters. If not for a few tweets and Facebook posts, you guys might have decided I dropped off the face of the earth.

Other News first:

A Blog Series – I was recently part of a series of blog posts put on by the lovely Sarah Addison-Fox on what does it mean to write clean/Christian fantasy. You can read my post here, but it is worth reading all of them starting with the introductory post, then authors Hope Ann, Claire Banschbach, Serena Chase, Lauricia Matuska, and Kate Willis. Lots of different perspectives and food for thought!

Black Friday Sale – I will once again be a part of a Black Friday sale put together by fellow Christian indie authors. I think we have over 36 authors participating this year, which is huge considering we had about 7 of us the first year. Check back here on Friday for a link to the sale.

Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to answer the poll I posted a while back! Of the 90 responses I received, 62% mostly read fantasy (which is good. Fantasy is my first love and I struggle to write anything else). When asked if you would like to see more Blades of Acktar, over 75% answered either Yes, right away or Yes, but let’s see something new first. Very, very few said they don’t want to read anything more in The Blades of Acktar.

I was also surprised by the number of people who asked for either more about Ranson or more about Brandi and Jamie. Good news is, I have ideas for both of those characters that I would like to write someday, so there is a good chance you’ll see more about them in the future.

If you would like to still take the poll, here is a link to it.

If you took the poll, then you probably already guessed, but the current project I’m working on is a Christian allegorical fantasy. It has been a tough book to write, as allegorical elements are much harder to make sure they come across the way I intend since they aren’t as clear as writing full on Christian fiction the way I did with The Blades of Acktar.

But while this book is allegorical, it isn’t an allegory. What does that mean? Well, an allegorical book still has lots of story elements that aren’t necessarily part of the allegory. Think Chronicles of Narnia. A full allegory would be a book like Pilgrim’s Progress where nothing in that book doesn’t have some sort of symbol or meaning.

Due to the trickiness of writing allegorically, this book has been tough. My word counts have been drastically reduced compared to what I did each day when writing The Blades of Acktar. BUT I am ALMOST finished. If I keep on track, I’ll finish either before the end of November or early in December. That means I should be able to start telling you details, back cover blurbs, and stuff like that by the end of December or early January. Yay!!!

I’m both excited and nervous to share this book with you. Some days, I can barely write I’m so terrified this book will not only disappoint, but offend and turn away readers. That’s the chance every author takes with every book, but especially when I know many of my readers personally. I don’t want to disappoint a single one of you!

 

 

Turning Points – A Time to Rise Blog Tour

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I’ve been thinking a lot about turning points lately. It has been about two months since I posted on this blog, and most of that is due to stumbling across and purchasing a fixer upper house, moving, and making do without internet. A new house, a new turning point.

As I’ve posted about before, I’ve been into listening to history courses through the Great Courses lately. If you get them through Audible, they are pretty affordable. Recently, I listened to one on Turning Points in Medieval History, done by an English professor, not a history professor. Her perspective took on history as one big story, showing how each turning point isn’t a separate event standing all by itself, but interconnected with all the past turning points and influencing all the future ones. As a Christian, I could appreciate this even more because I believe the reason history is so interconnected and seems to be one story is BECAUSE it is one story. Christ’s story. God’s story.

Our own lives are also filled with turning points. Days and events that stick out to us as the moment something changed and set us on a new course. Often, these turning points are tragedy. But not always.

And sometimes, someone else’s turning point affects your own turning point.

Nadine Brandes has talked about several times how a turning point in her life started her on the path to writing her debut novel A Time to Die. In this novel, the main character Parvin experiences her own turning points when, with only a year left to live, she realizes she’s wasted her life, and she sets out to change that.

This was all a good three years before I even knew Nadine Brandes existed. I was partway through college, getting my degree in writing and dreaming about being a published author.

Fast forward a few years. I graduated college, was a year into a full time job, and was submitting a nonfiction manuscript I’d written and getting nowhere with it. I was frustrated that my dream of graduating college and having the time to write books hadn’t worked out. I felt like I had no time and would never have the time I wanted.

Honestly, I don’t remember what made me sit down and give myself a good shake from my pity party. One day, I realized that the reason I wasn’t a writer and wasn’t finishing books was that I was wasting time whining about my lack of time.

This was March 2014. That same month, I started writing Dare. Three months later, I had a completed book. I set it aside and started Deny.

During this time, I also turned my attention away from researching nonfiction publishing toward fiction publishing. I read blogs, books, articles. Traditional publishing. Self Publishing. All of it.

And this is where the turning point thing starts getting cool. I stumbled across Jill Williamson’s Replication as a free ebook. It was the first time I’d discovered the whole Christian speculative fiction world out there. I then went on to read her other books, and the Blood of Kings trilogy showed me that there was still such a thing as Christian fantasy besides Lewis and Tolkien.

Since I was researching publishing, I tracked down the publisher. It was Marcher Lord, right when it was transitioning to Enclave Publishing. I explored every inch of that website, and of course read the blog. Guess who had posted on the blog promoting the release of her debut book?

Yep, Nadine Brandes. nadine-early-release-2

The book sounded really cool, so I stalked her site. Learned she was an editor. Submitted Dare to her for editing. I was too late to officially join the blog tour for A Time to Die, but I unofficially joined it with a post of my own. It had to have been one of the first two or three posts I did on my blog, since I started my blog in August of that year, and that post is from September.

When I was finally able to read A Time to Die in October, Parvin’s realization of wasting time mirrored my own realization from a few months before. Wasting time. Waiting for something to plop out of the sky instead of actively pursuing God’s will.

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That idea of being active in pursing God’s will and glorifying Him stuck with me. It still resonated when, early in 2015, I sat down and had to decide how I should publish Dare. Traditional or indie? Through all my research, the indie route had tugged at me, but I wasn’t sure I dared do it. What did I really know? What if I messed all this up and Dare flopped and…and…

It was all my fear talking, and finally God made it clear indie was the route to go with these books. That moment I hit the publish button, I gave it all to Him. I’d sown the seed. The increase was His, no matter how large or small or whatever it might be.

But I wasn’t wasting time anymore. I was doing my best to actively pursue His will in a way I hadn’t before.

And He did bless the increase way beyond anything I had dreamed for that book.

Then the fall of 2015 came around. I was drained from the rewrites of Deny. Wondering if it would ever measure up to everyone’s expectations. Scared because everyone HAD expectations now, when they hadn’t with Dare.

Then A Time to Speak, Nadine’s next book, released. It was Parvin’s time to speak, to draw on the confidence of the lessons she’d learned in the first book. atimetospeak5

But it also pushed me to speak. To stop stuttering and stammering and hoping someone would change the topic when they asked about my books. To figure out how to keep giving it all to God now that this crazy ride was set in motion.

It’s strange to look back now and see how much a year and a half can change a person. In the year since publishing Dare and reading A Time to Die, I’ve become much more confident in how I interact with people. I’ve signed books at a craft sale. I spoke at a small Christian school. I’ve gone to two writer’s conferences and was able to relax instead of remain a bundle of introverted nerves in the corner. All of that confidence, those turning points, led to the turning point I started this whole post with: buying a house, moving. It wasn’t something I would’ve been ready to handle a year ago.

Looking back, I’m amazed at the way God used the turning points in my life to bring me to this point.

If I hadn’t gotten Replication as an ebook…

If A Time to Die hadn’t been releasing…

If I hadn’t stumbled across Nadine and found an editor and friend…

If A Time to Die and A Time to Speak hadn’t given me pushes when I needed them…

Would I have published Dare? Would I have gone to the writer’s conferences and made a whole bunch of writer friends?

And now, another turning point. A Time to Rise, the third and final book in the Out of Time series releases officially in 10 days, though Amazon is shipping it early if you want to order it now. You can read my review (also known as flailing fangirling) of the book here.

Yes, you all totally have the Out of Time series to thank, in part, for the fact that I ever published The Blades of Acktar.

Have you experienced turning points in your life? How have they affected you?

 

Want to connect with Nadine yourself? Because, after all, she’s an awesome human being.

Nadine is also the queen of Facebook parties, so you won’t want to miss the one she is hosting on October 18

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Want to check out the Out of Time series for yourself?

A Time to Die

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A Time to Speak

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A Time to Rise

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The Awesomeness that is Realm Makers

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I know, it has been over a week since Realm Makers and everyone else and their brother-in-law has already written their Realm Makers post. I’m a little behind. More news on that later.

All I really have to say is IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!! That would pretty much sum it up, but that would be a sorry excuse for a blog post, especially after I haven’t posted anything in four weeks.

Realm Makers is a writer’s conference for Christian writers in the speculative (fantasy, science fiction, horror, steampunk, etc) genres. It is kind of like a four day retreat with 150 of your closest friends (even if you didn’t know they were your friends until you arrived). This year, it was at Villanova University outside of Philadelphia. Me being crazy me, I drove the 11 hour drive all by myself. Who wouldn’t want to drive themselves with views like this?

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I did the drive in two days, one long day and one morning so that I had time to stop at the Valley Forge National Monument. Valley Forge is where George Washington and his men spent the winter of 1777-1778 and started being better organized as an army. While most of t
heir huts and entrenchments are no longer visible, the farmhouse where George Washington spent the winter is still there. It is about 80% original, down to much of the interior floorboards, railings, and paneling in the rooms.

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Finally, I arrived at Villanova. The campus was beautiful, all stone buildings and brick paths. Lots of scope for a fantasy writer’s imagination there!

I roomed with Nadine, Katie, and Ashley. Of the three, I’d only known Nadine before the conference, but that didn’t stop all of us from bonding. Katie is super perky and amazingly dedicated to her blog fans. Ashley and I swapped curly hair horror stories and product tips. Seriously great Realmie Roomies! I could go on and on about how amazing our three AM chats were! Ashley and Nadine both have books available, and I adore both of their series! There was a rather hilarious moment when I wore a Nadine’s Ninjas shirt all day, but Nadine didn’t notice it until nearly midnight. She screamed incredibly loudly and totally freaked out. Katie and I got a good laugh about it, because Katie asked in the morning how long I thought it would take Nadine to notice. Apparently it took her all day.

Realmie Roomies

Nadine's Ninjas
Photo Credit: Nadine Brandes This is Nadine’s “I can’t believe I never noticed this” face!

 

Ashley and I got each others books at the conference. So excited to read the rest of her series now that I have them!

Ashley and I

 

The sessions were amazing, especially Steve Laube’s. He focused on building our own faith since, as writers, we pour out what we take in. If we aren’t taking in God’s Word, we can’t pour it into our writing.

The costume night was also a highlight. I dressed as a Blade, but I struggled to be intimidating.

Dressed as a Blade

Then there was the lack of sleep. The last night I got about 20 minutes of actual sleep before I had to be up to drive a carload of faculty to the airport. I’m really surprised none of them refused to ride with me when they realized I’d had pretty much no sleep, I was driving in the dark in an unfamiliar area, and it was a torrential downpour. Thankfully, they all arrived safely, and I was able to doze in bed for a few more hours before I had to start my drive home.

In case you hadn’t noticed, no one at Realm Makers sleeps. For four days, people should get about 32 hours of sleep. I haven’t seen any Realmie report anything more than 20 hours of sleep. I think I got about 10 hours of deep sleep and a lot of catnaps and dozing. Good thing everyone at the conference is too buzzed on hanging out and caffeine to care how little sleep they got!

The best thing about Realm Makers I think is the whole atmosphere. It is very relaxed, very friendly. Like I said, it feels like a several day retreat with 150 of your friends more than a stuffy conference. I made so many new writer friends it would take pages to list them all here. I miss them all so much already!

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Seriously, if you are a Christian speculative fiction writer, you should go to Realm Makers if at all possible! I can see now why people go back to it every year!

A Look Back

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I realized today that I haven’t blogged at all since Deny released. Not a good way to go about keeping up my social media presence.

At the beginning of December, my carpal tunnel syndrome started acting up again in my right wrist. I’m still not sure what set it off. You’d think spending 11 to 12 hours a day on the computer to get Deny out into the world would’ve caused problems, but it didn’t. But when I cut back my time on the computer to give myself a break, then it got bad again. So I cut out even more computer time (including blogging) until my wrist no longer hurt. Thankfully, the pain is gone now, so I’m back. 🙂

A New Year 2016

It’s the day after New Year’s, so it’s as good a time as any to look back and reflect. God did so many amazing things in my life this year, I’m still blown away. Especially once I started making a list.

This time last year, I had just finished writing three manuscripts for what I had called The Blades of Acktar. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them or what publishing route God wanted me to pursue. I was waiting for my first professional edit to come back on Dare from Nadine Brandes, an editor I was just beginning to get to know. I’d just connected with Angie Brashear online and began pestering her with questions on indie publishing. And I’d just heard of Jaye L. Knight. I’d only had a blog for a few months, and I wasn’t even on Goodreads yet, much less most of the other social media sites.

Crazy, when I think about it. Now I have so many writing friends online I’m blown away. I connected with the wonderful Kim Moss through a book launch team we were on together. Angie Brashear became a prayer warrior who helped pray Deny into existence. I don’t know what I’d do without Nadine as a friend and mentor. And Jaye’s encouragement has been amazing. All the other bloggers and fellow authors who volunteered for my launch team: Claire, Shantelle, Hope, Alyssa, Abigail, Jessica, Gabriela. Sierra, my amazing critique partner who helped so much. All the fans who have contacted me or written reviews or simply interacted in some way on line. I can’t believe that a year ago, I didn’t really know any of you.

I now have two published book and a third in the process of publication. My three book series turned into four. Dare hit #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list for Christian Fantasy (sharing the list with such estimable writers as Jill Williamson, Jaye L. Knight, and Patrick Carr. Seriously never thought I’d see my books anywhere near theirs on a bestseller list!). Deny hit the #1 Hot Newest Release in Christian Fantasy for the first month after its release, and both Dare and Deny are still bouncing around in the top 20 on the Christian Fantasy bestseller list. I am so blown away by the response to these books.

I’m excited to see what God does with 2016.

Fun with Book Selfies

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Okay, so I wasn’t actually planning to write this post, but I had so much fun last night taking pictures that I thought I’d share a few of them with you.

I decided to take a few selfies of me with my horse with Nadine Brandes’s book A Time to Die to celebrate the release of it’s sequel A Time to Speak (which released today! Yay! Though, only the ebook version is available. Click here for Nadine’s full explanation of why).

Anyway, I marched over to the horse pasture with book and camera in hand.

My horse refused to cooperate until I bribed him with treats.
My horse: “Can I eat it?” Me: “Um, no. That’s my super special paperback that I got signed IN PERSON. You are not allowed to so much as breathe on it too deeply.”
I’m making a sneaky ninja face while my horse still refuses to cooperate. Not enough bribes yet.
I finally convinced him to read the book with me. 😉
Another ninja face while my horse makes a stealthy sneak attack looking for more treats.
And, finally, a good one. 🙂
My horse: “Can I eat it?” Me: “No, that’s my camera.”

If you couldn’t tell by the great lengths I went to, I really, really love this series. And, if you enjoyed the characters in Dare, it is in part because Nadine was my gracious editor to point out things where “this decision doesn’t make sense” or “this character is really flat” or “this character doesn’t do anything but sit around and cower the entire book.”

Her books are available here:

Book 1 (A Time to Die) – bit.ly/AmazonATtDpaperback
Book 2 (A Time to Speak) – bit.ly/AmazonATtSPaperback

Have you ever done a selfie with a book before? How about a selfie with an animal? Ever tried doing both at once?

My First ACFW Conference

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ACFW Conference

Over the weekend, I joined almost 500 writers, editors, and agents at the annual American Christian Fiction Writers conference in Dallas, TX.

Besides being my first time flying and/or traveling alone, I was a little panicked about what a writers’ conference would be like. Would the people I met online be as nice in person? Should I hug them or not? Will I even have the courage to speak to anyone? And many writers’ blogs talk about going away from their first conference feeling like they knew nothing about writing. Would I feel that way?

Nadine and I get a couple of pictures in while waiting for dinner.
Nadine and I get a couple of pictures in while waiting for dinner.

I shouldn’t have worried. That first night after dinner, I turned around to Nadine Brandes calling my name and giving me a hug before I even had to think about whether or not to hug her. It was the first of many hugs. 🙂

I also got lots of hugs from my fellow author and prayer warrior Angie Brashear, but we missed getting any pictures together.

I met Gillian Bronte Adams, author of Orphan's Song. I absolutely love her book, and I was hiding my fangirl squealing when I met her.
I met Gillian Bronte Adams, author of Orphan’s Song. I absolutely love her book, and I was hiding my fangirl squealing when I met her.

I met several other new friends who I plan to keep in touch with. Besides a few moments of panic or trembling hands, I didn’t experience most of my normal social anxiety. Perhaps it was the confidence of being in a room full of writers where I didn’t have to pretend to be normal. Maybe it was the freedom of telling people I’m a writer as the first thing they know about me instead of one of the last. Above all, it was an answer to a prayer.

While I learned a few things from the writing workshops, I didn’t learn as much as I thought (or feared) I would. No panicked realization that I knew nothing of writing. In fact, what I did learn was that I knew more than I thought I did. I learned a lot from writing and editing Dare. Yes, I have stuff to learn yet. There’s always more to learn. But a lot of what I need to work on is applying the things I do know consistently.

While I was nervous for my critique with Jeff Gerke, I shouldn't have worried. After bonding over a shared love of Mountain Dew, the rest of the critique went by quickly.
While I was nervous for my critique with Jeff Gerke, I shouldn’t have worried. After bonding over a shared love of Mountain Dew, the rest of the critique went by quickly.

I was really disappointed that it was over so quickly. Next thing I knew, I was packing my bags and slipping out of the hotel for my airport terminal.

Once on my plane, still high from whatever streak of courage that got hold of me all weekend, I turned to the lady sitting next to me (something I never do) to strike up a conversation. She was a young mother, her chubby cheeked kid sitting on her lap, her husband in the seat on the other side of her.

Every mother likes to talk about her kid, right? So I asked, “How old is he?”

She gave me this cold look. “She is a girl.”

Oops. Guess my socially inept self was going to make a reappearance sooner rather than later. I’ll go read my book now.