by Roseanna White | Apr 25, 2012 | Uncategorized
I really meant to schedule posts for this week, while I’m visiting friends in the name of “Croquet!” But alas, I spent my early-week hard at work on a proposal and didn’t get to this.
Sorry!
But have no fear, I’ll be back on Monday with my wit and brilliance and insight and hysterical laughter at the thought of someone taking me seriously when I claim to have wit and brilliance and insight. 😉
Have a good one, one and all!
by Roseanna White | Apr 23, 2012 | Word of the Week
An unexpected cold front and winter storm system is moving through the mid-atlantic–we’re only getting rain here, but a few miles to the north and up a few mountains, they’re supposed to get a foot of snow. Yikes!
But of course, that means it’s the perfect day to talk about the word ice. =) I had to look this one up yesterday to see when one of it’s uses came into play, and I was a bit surprised by some of the entries.
Ice in its main meaning has been in the English language forever–no big surprise. As a verb, still speaking of to cover with ice, is from the 1400s. But the confectionery sense arrived in the early 1700s, along with the derivative icing.
Ice Age has been used since 1832, ice cube from 1904. But here’s the one I was looking up–ice has been slang for “diamonds” since 1906. I would have thought it even later than that, but there you go. =) And the most shocking of all–break the ice. I was expecting this to be a more modern addition, but in actuality, the figurative “opening of any attempt” comes from the literal breaking of an ice to free up a passage and has been around since the 1580s! Who knew?
Hope everyone has a wonderful final week of April!
by Roseanna White | Apr 19, 2012 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Last night the semi-finalists of the Genesis Contest (for unpublished authors) were announced. On Monday, the nominees for the Christy (Christian Fiction’s most prestigious award) went public. And as award season gets into full swing, I imagine we’ll see many more lists of potential winners and the results themselves.
I know quite a few of my readers are writers, so I wanted to talk about this today. And if you’re not a writer, you’ve presumably been in competition over something at some point or another, so it should still be relevant for you. 😉
I’ve been blessed with the fulfillment of my dream–I get to write for a living. I’m certainly not bringing in enough to support a family right now, but as a part-time job for a stay at home mom who’s home schooling, it’s a pretty sweet deal. =) So I have what I’d deem success–success defined as doing what I love. And hey, even getting paid for it! LOL
But I’ve never in my life won a writing contest. Never. Never even finaled in one. Even back in the day of short story contests against other middle schoolers, the best I ever did was Honorable Mention. Yet it was my thing. And I was the unquestioned Best at everything in school; valedictorian, first chair clarinetist, drum major . . . and I knew I was a good writer. I knew it, and my teachers all made a point of telling me so.
And yet . . .
A couple years ago I entered the Genesis contest. It was the only unpublished contest I’d ever entered (or have ever), and I entered with very high hopes. They didn’t publicize semi-finalists that year, just finalists, and I saw all the emails from my friends who finaled appeared on my historical list when they got their Call. I sat there, with the phone by my computer. I hoped, and I prayed, and I told myself it was okay, no matter what. That it didn’t determine anything about who I was.
Then when the list went up (absent my name), I went outside and let myself cry for five minutes.
I wanted there to be some reason to it. So when my agent, a week later, submitted the book I’d entered to an editor who really liked it, I got hopeful. See, we couldn’t have submitted had it still been in the contest. But that would have been perfect poetic justice! I could see myself now, winning the published contest instead of the unpublished, going up to make my speech . . .
The book was too like another the line had already contracted, so the editor passed.
I never had another chance at Genesis, because
A Stray Drop of Blood came out, and
Jewel of Persia after that. Right around then I emailed that editor who liked that book I’d entered, to follow up with a question I’d asked a while before, and she said, “Have you checked in with our other editor? She has
Annapolis penciled in.””
Whhhhh….aaaaaa…..ttttt?
Did that Genesis-rejected submission bear fruit after all, by winning over another editor at this house, one who could champion me as a writer when Editor 2 brought
Annapolis to committee? Maybe . . . maybe . . . who knows? But what I can tell you is that
Annapolis was published soon after that.
Of course, now I’m in the realm of published contests. I now know nothing of mine that came out in 2011 was nominated for a Christy, which was no big surprise (though it would have been nice!). There are only two other contests I’d entered, and we’ll see how those go. Am I hopeful? Well yes, a bit.
But you know what? I’m also finally getting to the point where I just don’t care about wins. In part because I learned that one of my all-time favorite authors, Francine Rivers, will not enter a contest and requests her publishers not enter any on her behalf. She’d walked that road while in the ABA and refused to walk it again when she moved to CBA. And I really admire that.
I haven’t gotten any clear direction to avoid contests, and having an “award-winning” before my name would certainly be nice (although I’d be just as happy–even happier!–with “best-selling” LOL), but as I look back on this stuff this week, I have to wonder if I ever will win. Not because of what I write, but because of who I am. Because I’m a competitive person, and staying humble is something I have to focus on to achieve. Because God knows way better than I how I might handle a big win . . . and maybe He doesn’t want that for me.
Is this a lesson in humility for me? Could be, wouldn’t be surprised. But more, there’s a lesson for me about focus and determination. My goal cannot be to write a book that wins awards–it must be to write a book that wins hearts. My determination must be to keep on the path I’ve been set upon no matter how many twists of disappointment, not to keep walking only when flower petals are showering down upon me.
When I was in high school, my cross-country coach had a saying: If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.
Mr. Brown’s wisdom can apply to pretty much anything worth working at, can’t it? It isn’t easy, this thing you’ve been called to do. It has its moments of triumph when you finally cross that finish line, but it also has a lot of moments along the way when you step in a dip and twist your ankle, when a stray tree branch smacks you in the arm, when you can’t seem to draw in enough air to keep those sides from stitching.
No, it isn’t easy. But something else Mr. Brown passed along that will always stick with me is that verse that perfectly sums up both my writing story and this running analogy–we have an Author. We have a Finisher, a Perfecter–and it isn’t us, you know. I might write a book, but I don’t write my own story.
That’s for Him.
I might enter a few contests, but I don’t determine where I finish.
That’s for Him.
And I don’t look at those awards as any kind of goal to reach, not anymore.
That’s for Him.
But I don’t give up. I will run with endurance. And just like with cross country (at which I was never any good, let it be noted, LOL), those races won’t be about winning. They’ll be about growing.
Let us run with endurance this race that is set before us; looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
If you entered the Genesis and indulged in a few moments of tears last night, chin up. And look at me–I didn’t final and was published before quite a few folks who did. And if you did end up on that semi-finalist list, big congratulations! I have friends whose publishing doors were opened by that.
Just know that, no matter where you end up this contest season, your story is your own, between you and God. Win or lose, He knows how to get you where you’re going. And He knows what you need–and what you don’t–along the way.
by Roseanna White | Apr 17, 2012 | Uncategorized
Newsflash! I actually bought a book for myself that had nothing to do with research. This doesn’t happen often! LOL. The book that got that honor was Sanctuary for a Lady by my good friend Naomi Rawlings. Naomi may just be one of the most hilarious-yet-sweet young women I’ve ever met. She’s encouraging, loving, enthusiastic–and one talented author! I seriously enjoyed her debut novel, so of course you will too. 😉
This is an April title for the Love Inspired Historical line, which means it’s inexpensive–always a plus. I was really surprised by the depth and punch she squeezed into it though, as that isn’t always Love Inspired’s MO. It read like a full-length book–and a fabulous one, at that.
Amazon Link for Paperback
Amazon Link for Kindle
My official review:
WOW. I don’t know how else to begin this review.
Sanctuary for a Lady
combined all the elements I love most in a story–high stakes,
fascinating history, sincere faith, and such intense sparks flying
between the main characters that I thought they might ignite the
rain-sodden countryside of Revolutionary France!
Isabelle, a
duc’s daughter, and Michel, a farmer with a dream of furniture making,
are incredibly compelling characters dropped into a time where the whole
world seems to be stacked against them. Both may be dealing with guilt
and stalled goals, but what else could the two have in common? In a time
when the Terror could snatch both their lives–Isabelle’s for being
born an aristocrat and Michel for harboring her instead of handing her
over to the soldiers–how could this star-crossed love possibly find a
path through the dangers surrounding them?
I confess, I had no
idea how the author would overcome the odds, and I flipped those pages
fast as I could to figure it out! This book packs a lot of punch in its
pages–you don’t want to miss the suspense, faith, and heart-racing
romance of Sanctuary for a Lady!
Official blurb:
Running to freedom, she finds love.
The injured young woman Michel Belanger finds in the woods is certainly
an aristocrat. And in the midst of France’s bloody revolution,
sheltering nobility merits a trip to the guillotine. Yet despite the
risk, Michel knows he must bring the wounded girl to his cottage to
heal.
Attacked by soldiers and left for dead, Isabelle de La
Rouchecauld has lost everything. A duke’s daughter cannot hope for mercy
in France, so escaping to England is her best chance of survival. The
only thing more dangerous than staying would be falling in love with
this gruff yet tender man of the land. Even if she sees, for the first
time, how truly noble a heart can be….
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.