Thanksgiving & Thursday's Children Double Up Blog Hop

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Yes, combining Inspiration and Gratitude makes perfect sense.

I am devoting this post to Writer-Mentors. 

The Givers. 

The ones throwing contests and clinics, holding out a hand to those traveling behind them. 

Even though they are also writing, editing, revising, parenting, "spousing", teaching, and a million other things.

After writing three books I finally decided to work on my "Social Media Platform". Twitter, Facebook, and blogging connected me to other writers. Through them, I learned about the world of Contests and Clinics and Blog Hops. Oh, my.

I entered GUTGAA. Boy, did that make my head spin! Although I didn't make it to the agent round, I learned a lot and met some fabulous people. And I won a critique.

I still have NO idea how Deana Barnhart pulled off something that HUGE and COMPLICATED with such patience and grace. Clearly she's an organizational genius. Not to mention, a saint.

I entered a couple of Flash Fiction contests on the Writer Unboxed Facebook group
and on Suzanne Palmieri's blog.

Then there was Hook, Line and Sinker. I didn't make it past the first round there. But it was still fun.

Dee Romito at Writes For Apples not only knows about all the contests that are going on, she's involved in most of them, not only H,L&S, but also... Agent Trick or Treat.

Kimberly Chase and Brenda Drake (more on her later) were also part of Trick or Treat. Because of their spirit of generosity, the original twelve slots became THIRTEEN. And I squeaked in and got a request for a partial because of it. Yay!

Somewhere in there was this one. Thank you Jamie Corrigan !

Sharon Bayliss hooked me up with The Curiosity Quills Haunted Writing Clinic & Contest,

where I was mentored by the kind and insightful James Wymore. His help led to a request for a partial!

Through that contest and Sharon's Title Contest, where TENDRIL was one of the winners, I connected with Jessa Russo.

There's also this going on at Talynn Lynn's Ink in the Book blog.

Heather Webb's Pitch Like a Rock Star Contest came next, as I recall.
Heather's kindness resulted in three runner-up 5-page critique prizes. Yup, I got me one of those.

I also did a couple of contests hosted by groups of YA writers

from the people at YAtopia

and another one from Oasis for YA which got me a crit of TENDRIL's first 250 words

And here are two more contests I'm looking forward to-

PitchWars - Brenda Drake strikes again! And brings a whole posse of helpful writers, editors, and agency interns along with her. Thirty-one awesome volunteers to be exact. Check her blog to see who they are.

And yeah, The Thanksgiving Blog Hop was Brenda's idea too. Clearly the woman NEVER sleeps. I call her Bionic Brenda. She doesn't know that though.

Also coming up is #PitchMas Feaky Snucker 's Brainchild. I don't know what Feaky's real name is. I think she might be in some kind of Librarian Protection Program.

The best parts of all these contests? (aside from the occasional ms request)
New friendships, mentoring, helpful feedback.
If I'm ever in a position to extend the same kind of helping hand to fledgling writers, believe me, I will.

THANK YOU WRITER-GIVERS! 

You are MY inspiration!

If you'd like to join Thursday's Children this week here's the Linky List

And if you'd like to grab the code, here it is

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And here's our Theme Song!

Thanksgiving Blog Hop #2

In case you missed it, Brenda Drake is hosting a wonderful Blog Hop. 

Click on the link below the turkey to join.

Click Here!

Today's post is about my best friend, who also happens to be my husband. 

We met in art school, two of four students who actually showed up to Art History class in a blizzard. Apparently he spent the hour writing a note to his friend in New Hampshire about the cute girl in his class. *blushing*

Here I am at the time.

He was really preppy, I think he might even have been wearing a bow tie. I politely ignored him. Unfortunately I don't have a "Before" picture of him. 

But below you can see the result of my, um, influence. His family was none too pleased.

These are photos of our passport photos, taken just before we went to the U.K. 

Yes, it is a bit of a twist on the Pygmalion and Galatea story...because I did eventually fall in love with him.

In those days my creativity was channeled through hair gel and painting. He always cheered me on in art school, and told me my realistic portraits were great, even if everyone else was doing angry abstracts and conceptual work. And after some rough class critiques he cheered me up (I cheered him up too, of course). 

We got married and had a decorative painting business together for a couple of years - murals, faux finishes, that sort of thing. Our company was called Nymph & Satyr Designs. We never got sick of each other, even spending EVERY waking moment together.

But, I really want to talk about my husband and writing.

My very first attempt at a novel remains unfinished, but he read what I'd written and said I should keep writing, that I was good at it. He still thinks I should finish that book. 

It's called THE ISLANDS OF PENOBSCOT BAY. Look for it on bookstore shelves in 2030 or so.

He was the first person to read all three of my finished books. He read the first one at least three times, because I changed it repeatedly based on agent feedback. 

He helps keep me sane during the roller-coaster ride of querying, rejections, requests, more rejections, R&Rs, and so on. 

He keeps telling me "it will happen-don't give up" and I like to think he's right. We're even making a BIG move, in part so that I can keep writing and not have to go back to work full-time.

I'll always remember the moment he came into the kitchen, hugged me, quoted a line from my most recent book TENDRIL, and said "No matter what, keep writing. You are too damn good not to make it."
That made me cry.
Hopefully one of these days his faith in me will be rewarded. 

p.s. In case you're wondering, neither of us has a mohawk now.

Thanksgiving Blog Hop!

The Incomparable Brenda Drake is hosting a...

Bloggers will be posting about whatever makes them thankful.

1. I am thankful for Brenda Drake, whose spirit of generosity towards unpublished/unagented writers is LEGENDARY.

2. I am grateful for being laid off exactly four years ago.
At the time it was traumatizing. As I sat in a mandatory seminar for the "dehired" I saw duplicates of my own shell-shocked face. Diligent, conscientious Lisa Simpson-type workers who'd always gotten good reviews, often put work before family and self, agonized over taking a sick day, got to work early and stayed late without pay, etc. All for what?

Being part of a "down-sizing" pushed me off the hamster wheel. 
Made me think about what I'd done in my life so far and what I wanted to do with whatever is left of it. Thanks to unemployment benefits I had some time to breathe, and to try something different. Something I'd always wanted to do. Write a novel. I've now written three. Maybe some day one or more will even be published.

3. I am grateful that I finally know what I want to do when I grow up.
No matter what job titles I hold in the future, they won't define me the way they have in the past. I'm a writer now. First. Always. No matter what. And no, I don't use a vintage typewriter, but it's cool looking, isn't it?