My First Writer's Bar Camp

I heartily apologize for not staying current with this blog. When there's a dry spell from me, you can tell I'm in the writing "zone" or I'm busy with one of my three jobs.

A week ago, I attended my first writer's bar camp. What fun. I wish I could have stayed all day but I was under deadline to get a magazine ready for print. I went first thing in the morning not knowing what to expect. I'd hoped for a schedule of events as I'm sorta anal that way, but when I arrived it was a free-for-all. Big signs were posted on the walls with room numbers and time slots. If you wanted to present, you wrote in your name and claimed a room for the hour. If you wanted to just attend, you waited to see who all was presenting and show up for the lecture.

As I had things to do, I chose the first slot available. I spoke to a group of about 8 - 10 who seemed very interested in what I had to say about getting published and e-publishing in general. They asked great questions and no one yawned. That's always a good sign. I stayed to hear a talk on editing and afterwards left for the day.

In hind sight, I wish I'd stayed and given my talk again. I think more folks would have attended as many didn't arrive until much later anyway.

Bar camps were devised for and by computer geeks who wanted to host a gathering where they could exchange knowledge. The first few were so successful, that they decided to apply it to writers. Writing organizations pay lots of money for guest speakers, but the idea behind a bar camp is writer's teaching writers. It's just a very large share fest of information.

Next year, I plan to stay all day and give more than one talk. Networking is fun as well.

The End

The End - those are magical words to an author, especially when they've slaved over a book, don't several rewrites and stalled more times than they'd care to admit. Well, I"m excited to report that I just wrote those words on my last wip. Whoop! 93,000+ words and I'm done. I finished the synopsis and I submitted to my publisher. Now, I have to wait to see if I'm offered a contract. Ugh. Waiting is soooo hard.

So, while I wait, I'm going to be playing this month. First, visit the blog, "Dishing it Out," for some suspenseful excerpts and spooky shorts. Ginger is a dear friend and always does such fun things on her blog. And yours truly gets to be one of her first guests so for an excerpt from my Viking Time Travel, check out her blog tomorrow.

Another author buddy of mine, Becka Goings is having her fifth annual birthday bash with all sorts of prizes handed out this week. Check out her loop, The Magic of Romance, and come play. She'll also be posting one of my excerpts but I'm not sure when, but I'll let you know when I know.

Off to go write some more, or maybe not. I'm about due a rest but then the Muse isn't always on my time clock.

Finding the magic

I'm so excited, I had to share. I reached the black moment in my newest sci-fi futuristic fantasy wip. Not only that, but I'm at 89,000 words with one more chapter to write until I type those golden words "the end."

Why did I title this entry, finding the magic? Because that's what happens during the black moment. The hero finds the magic at the risk of losing his loved one. Sigh. It was a difficult plot to write and I'm just so excited.

Okay, bath and bed. Maybe I'll sleep tonight since I didn't for thinking about the book and the characters.

Life is good

Sometimes things happen and you just have to think - wow.

Our computer tech guy at school is the most interesting character and knows a lot about things you rarely think about. I'm not sure what comment I made that got him started on Tai Chi but he looked at my room and told me he needed to practice and my room was perfect. It was after school and he invited me to learn basic Tai Chi moves. I laughed and said, sure. I'd be crazy to pass up the opportunity to learn, so we took our poses and went through a series of contortions that actually felt good after all was said and done.

He made a comment that most students of Tai Chi are women because men don't have the emotional stamina to withstand failing at the complicated moves and practicing until they master them. It's a very graceful set of exercizes, but not easy to learn. Even now I only remember one of the thirty some odd moves we did today. Too fun. He said he'd come once or twice a week from now on and teach me. We'll see. I hope he does. It was a great stretching activity.

Okay, so just more info. I'll be at a book signing tomorrow in Austin. I hope the rain doesn't keep folks away.


Book signing @ Borders South Park Meadows

Date:

Saturday September 12, 2009

3:00 pm -6:00 pm

Borders South Park Meadows
9500 S. IH 35 Service Rd.,
Austin, TX

Twitter challenged

I thought I was going to be highly twitter challenged but I think after a panic attack and 3 aspirin, I finally have it figured out. Oh yeah, I was being sarcastic about the panic attack and aspirin but twitter just isn't like other communities. So now that I understand about the micro blogging, I think I'm okay.

I even surprised myself by getting twitter to show up here. Whoop!

Of course, when things get busy, I foresee a blogging and twitter absence from myself but .... until then, I'm going to force myself to Tweet.

Things tend to move backwards for me

I must admit that my publishing experience seems a bit backwards to me. I started out in the traditional manner. A friend got me hooked on writing by joining a critique group and together, she and I joined a local RWA chapter. I have a drawer full of contest wins and rejection letters to indicate my desire to get my stories published but ....

Another friend hooked me up with Champagne Books and while I did query in the traditional manner, I think it was her good word and endorsement that helped land me my first contract. As a relatively new publisher at the time, Celestial Dragon floored them with the amount of sales generated that first month. Floored me too. So much so, that they put it into traditional paperback form a year later. And now, almost three years later, I find out it's coming out in hardback. Wow.

So, yeah, backwards. Most big name authors start with hardback, then paperback, and then e-book. For me, it was e-book, paperback and now hardback. Why? The genre. Since my book fits in with sci-fi, and my other sci-fi author buds, Kerry Tolan and Todd Hunter have been attending sci-fi cons, the publisher is more than happy to put our books in hardback because they tend to sell even better at cons in this format.

I'm so excited. I can hardly wait to see it. You'll be hearing me jump for joy whenever I hold that sucker in my hands. Whoop!

The other job

I've been remiss in posting here lately, but there's a good reason. This past week I've started back to school. Yep, I have inservice type meetings all week then the students return and my writing time will be reduced to a snagged hour here and there.

It's all good. This year I've promised myself that the students will do all the real work. We'll see how far that goes.