by Roseanna White | Sep 21, 2011 | Uncategorized
It’s conference time!! I’m currently en route to St. Louis for the ACFW conference (or there, depending on when you see this), so not blogging. Nope, instead I’m looking forward to a few days of immersion into the industry I love. Some awesome classes, the chance to chat with some professionals, and best of all, the fellowship of my like-minded colleagues. Yay!!
I’ll be back to my normal schedule next week. Hope everyone has a great one–and if you’ll be in St. Louis, I hope you see you there!
by Roseanna White | Sep 20, 2011 | Uncategorized
I was chatting with my 14-year-old niece over the weekend about classics. She’s reading Great Expectations in class right now, and while she finds some parts of it good, overall she’s come to the conclusion that it’s boring. She said, “Modern books are just better. By which I mean books written recently, not necessarily set recently.”
In a lot of ways, I think she’s right. Fiction writing has evolved a lot over the centuries. We have a craft, and we study on ways to improve it, to fully engage our readers. And the readers have changed! A TV generation isn’t prepared to wade through all those descriptive paragraphs. Or backstory. Or info dumps. Overall, I think this is an improvement, certainly for the world we’re writing for.
But of course, I had to tell her that not all classics are as difficult as Dickens. =) Now, I’ve read some Dickens I like. But I must confess–I sat down one summer during college with my Complete Works and said, “I’m going to read Dickens this summer!”
I got about three chapters in and went, “I’m not going to read Dickens this summer!” LOL.
But I could read Pride and Prejudice over and over again. The wit is just amazing. And as I told my niece, Jane Eyre is shockingly modern. When I read that right after college, I couldn’t believe how similar it was in style to modern books. L. M. Montgomery (who wrote around turn-of-the-century, so is borderline modern in my opinion) will always remain one of my favorite authors.
I’m glad fiction writing has come as far as it has, but I definitely still love–and have immense respect for–classics. What are you favorite pieces of classic literature? Authors, titles? Why do you love them? And which ones do you think translate best to today’s teens?
by Roseanna White | Sep 19, 2011 | Word of the Week
How do you describe a pearl? It doesn’t shine like other gems. Doesn’t shimmer, has no fire. It gleams, yes. But it’s the rainbow of color that really sets it apart. That . . . you know, the pearlized effect. 😉 Its iridescence.
I can never think of a more accurate word for it, so I was a little frustrated when I looked up “iridescent” and realized it entered English just a wee bit too late for my 1780 book. As in, 16 years later, in 1796. After grumbling for a minute over not being able to justify using it (I’m nit-picky about my word choices like that), I put it aside to wonder about the word.
“Iridescent” comes from the word “iris.” Now, we all know “iris,” right? The colored part of our eyes. A flower. Yep. But apparently “iris” means rainbow in Greek–hence why the colored part of our eyes are called that. The Greeks would also use it to describe any colored circle, like the round “eyes” on a peacock feather. Pretty neat, huh?
So it makes perfect sense that we would have created a word like “iridescent” to describe that rainbow effect. If only we had created it two decades earlier . . . 😉
(Photo credited to Georg Oleschinski/Inst. f. Paläont., Uni Bonn via Wikipedia Commons)
by Roseanna White | Sep 16, 2011 | Uncategorized
Last week my fabulous friend and crit partner, Carole Brown was the featured ACFW volunteer. I totally missed this (didn’t read many loop emails as I was buried in the first week of home school and trying to finish a book), but I’d like to give her a big hand now.
Carole is a simply amazing woman, and I’m going to miss hugging her next week in St. Louis. And Carole is BUSY! In addition to traveling a lot with her husband for their ministry and doting on a new grandbaby, Carole is the ACFW Ohio coordinator and secretary for the Ohio chapter, and has begun a cluster meeting in Cincinnati every month. She’s also an assistant for the ACFW book club, one of the ladies who reads the books and then moderates the discussion. Gooooooo, Carole!
When Carole makes it to conference, she inevitably volunteers there as well, usually at the agent/editor appointment area. She gives so selflessly of her time that I’m not sure she ever makes it to class, LOL.
Carole has a
great blog that I encourage everyone to check out. I always enjoy my visits there.
Now, I’m finally introducing the next giveaway, which will likely run through October, given how late I’m getting it started. This one will be for our fabulous WhiteFire lineup! My two biblicals, the amazing Shadowed in Silk by Christine Lindsay, set in India of 1919, and our newest book, which doesn’t release until 1 October–a beautiful medieval love story by Dina Sleiman, Dance of the Dandelion.
To enter, just leave a comment on this or any other subsequent Friday post, encouraging Carole. For an extra entry let me know if you’re following Carole’s blog. (Leave separate comments so that I can just count ’em up without thinking, LOL.)
by Roseanna White | Sep 15, 2011 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Am I the only one out there slightly amazed that the ACFW conference is only a week away? I knew it was coming. I had in fact thought, for a while, it was coming this week rather than next. But I’ve been so focused on finishing my Revolutionary War novel that until I completed that on Monday, I’d hardly spared a thought to conference prep.
Last year, I’d planned on going to conference. That is, until it came down to needing to register. As I considered it, I remember thinking, “This just isn’t the year.” I had no idea what I would pitch. To whom I would hope to pitch it. Where I was going in my career. I was in the midst of writing
Jewel of Persia for WhiteFire, but that wasn’t something I needed to present to anyone else. Which left me with the same projects I’d pitched before and the distinct idea that nothing would come of it.
So my hubby and I made the decision to focus on growing WhiteFire and forgo conference last year. “I’ll have a better idea of where I am next year, I think.” So we went on vacation. And had a beautiful, perfect time with the family.
I’m still amazed at all that’s happened in a year. Not only did I renew acquaintances with a few editors that I value super highly, but I also wrote and sold a book to Summerside that’s coming out
in two and a half months!! I’ve gotten to watch
Jewel of Persia take off, which is super exciting. And we’ve expanded WhiteFire with some of the best books I’ve read in years.
All in all a great year. And I felt definite peace about going to ACFW this year. Registered, paid, signed up for my classes, even volunteered. When I did all this, I had this idea that I needed to connect with every possible editor, and a vague one that it may be time to search for a new agent, as my original one was focusing on publishing. I kept thinking, “Okay, I’ve got
Annapolis. But what about after that??” I thought I’d be pitching anything I could.
Since registering, I’ve signed with the amazing Karen Ball as my agent. I’ve got two other deals on the line, though certainly not guaranteed. And I’ve got this beautiful realization in front of me–I’m not going to the conference this year to pitch. I’m just going to bask in the wonders of the industry I love and see where the Lord leads me.
I’ve yet to get a dress for the award’s banquet (which I had two months ahead of time last time I went). I didn’t even think about business cards until last week, and I was putting one-sheets together (overview of my genres this time, upon Karen’s recommendation, rather than specific to a book) just the last two days. If someone asks me for an elevator pitch, I may just laugh at them.
But that’s okay. Because I’m not going to be hunting down agents and editors at meals this year. I’ll have appointments, see what those editors are looking for. Talk to them, hopefully laugh with them. And count it a success on that front.
Mostly, I’m just looking forward to these three days of being a writer. Living it, breathing it. Hanging with my peeps. I’m grinning over the fact that I apparently signed up for a career-tracking class taught by my own Karen Ball, whose classes I didn’t realize at the time I would so adore. I get to take it beside my best friend, whom I haven’t seen in two years. It’s going to be a blast!
And yeah, I’m going tonight or tomorrow to shop in my aunt’s closet for a dress for the banquet. 😉 (She also offered me her shoes, which is akin to heaven on earth.)
I’m excited. Not because I’m hoping to make successful pitches, for once, but because I know I’m where I need to be.
I had no idea how right I was last summer when I cited that as my reason for not going to conference in 2010. But praise the Lord I listened!
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.