by Roseanna White | Jul 13, 2011 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized
I know, I know–you read that title and think, “You mean, like, always?” Yeah, pretty much. 😉 Which is why I volunteered to run an online session on research for writers 20 and under as part of the NextGen Online Writers Conference!
Have you heard about this? It’s pretty cool, and all you teens out there need to check it out–and all you older folks need to recommend it to the young writers you know. Registration is free, but you’ve gotta be registered to take advantage of the cool classes and contests.
You can find info on the event and register at
www.NextGenWriters.com. The presenters are all published authors there to chat about topics near and dear. Me, obviously, but also Stephanie Morrill, Melanie Dickerson, MaryLu Tyndall, Nicole O’Dell, Max Elliot Anderson, Caleb Breakey, Shellie Neumeier (who developed the event), Jill Williamson (who just won another Christy this week–Goooooooo, Jill!!), and Patti Shene. To find links to all their websites, check out the
presenter’s page at NextGen.
For my part, as you already know, I volunteered to talk about research. So in my post I cover why research is crucial, no matter your genre, and then dive into how to do it, touching on online searching, physical books, and experts.
PLUS–I’m doing a special giveaway for conference attendees and offering a free one-chapter (or 15 pages max) critique to one lucky winner!
The conference is August 2-3, so you’ve only got a couple weeks left to register! Don’t forget to check it out!!
by Roseanna White | Jul 12, 2011 | Uncategorized
We’re going to chat again today. =)
Every Tuesday, I take the kids to the library, and come home with a canvas bag full of kids’ books. The past couple weeks, rather than help me pick out books, my little ones have played while I did that task. I try to pick out a variety–some boyish ones for my truck-loving, monster-playing, super-hero whooshing little guy; some girlie ones for my oh-so-pretty, princess ballerina, wear-pink-all-day girl-o.
Last week, they surprised me. When I laid them all out at bedtime and asked what they wanted, I thought Rowyn would pick the robot one, maybe the bug one, and that Xoe would go for Pinkalicious or the one about the fairy mouse.
But no. Rowyn chose Fairytale Cake and Xoe picked Big Bug Surprise. Color me shocked, LOL.
It made me think about how often I’m surprised by my own reading choices. I confess I tend to pick up books whose genres I love or the author of which I either (a) know personally or (b) know will deliver a great story. Sometimes I stretch myself, waiting for a pleasant surprise.
I think the biggest one I ever got was Zora & Nicky by Claudia Mair Burney. I’d read another of her books and found some aspects of it that just weren’t uplifting enough for me. But I picked up Z&N because it was sent to me, and I was honestly thinking, “I’ll just get this one out of the way.”
It. Was. AWESOME.
I couldn’t rave enough about it–I still can’t, and that was two years ago. It was a book that delivered hope alongside reality, that forces you to examine all you believe, all your actions, redefines the difficulties of race with honesty and insight, and above all directs everything back to the Lord. It was amazing, simply amazing.
Other attempts at surprising myself haven’t always gone so well, LOL. Sometimes I end up tossing a book down going, “Yep. This is why I steer clear of this genre/author.”
But I love little more than discovering a new favorite where least expected. So . . . what are yours? What have you read that you didn’t expect to like, or picked up solely on recommendation but were unsure of, that you ended up falling in love with??
by Roseanna White | Jul 11, 2011 | Word of the Week
‘Tis the season for cookouts and barbecues, and I’ll use that as my excuse for talking about ketchup, LOL. Really, it’s because I recently discovered its history, and it’s just too bizarre to our modern minds not to share. =)
When we Americans think of ketchup, we think of tomato ketchup. I’d really never even heard of any other kind, until reading a book about the Revolution, wherein was mentioned mushroom ketchup. The very thought of this made my nose wrinkle up–I’m not a fan of mushrooms. And for that matter, it made my mother’s nose wrinkle up, probably because she imagine it in with tomato ketchup, LOL.
But the original definition of ketchup was “a kind of pickle, made of mushrooms,” which was used solely as a sauce for fish. The word itself comes from the Chinese word for “brine of fish.” Variants also included walnuts, cucumbers, and oysters.
Let’s all thank those American seaman for introducing the tomato to it, leaving out the other stuff, and so introducing a new staple to the world!
On another note, my series on Grammar is wrapping up over at
Go Teen Writers today, so swing by for some chatting about capitalization, quotations, etc.
by Roseanna White | Jul 8, 2011 | Uncategorized
We have Shannon Vannatter back again, and after some most excellent placing in various contests with her first novel. =) Congrats, Shannon!! But we’re here to talk about her newest one, White Pearls.
Shannon has offered a copy of White Pearls to one lucky winner, so to enter leave a comment below with your email address. If you have trouble leaving a comment with your account, “Anonymous” usually works, or you can just email it to me at roseanna [at] roseannawhite [dot] com and I’ll post it for ya. =)
~*~
About White Pearls
Shell doesn’t have a good reputation…But no matter what everyone in Rose Bud, Arkansas, thinks of her, she’s back in town with a job to do. She’ll stick it out and make the best of things. But why does Ryler have to be the landscaper on this project? She was just getting her heart under control. Ryler has his own reasons for being in Rose Bud, and they don’t include Shell. Spying on his birth family was going to be hard enough. He doesn’t have time to worry about a woman who dumped him…even if his heart says otherwise.
~*~
About Shannon
Central Arkansas author, Shannon Taylor Vannatter is a stay-at-home mom/pastor’s wife. Her three-book debut series of contemporary inspirational romances with Heartsong Presents are set in Romance and Rose Bud, Arkansas.
Heartsong titles ship to a 11,000 member book club before releasing in stores. Vannatter’s series: White Roses, White Doves, and White Pearls are available at www.heartsongpresents.com, White Roses won the 2011 International Readers Choice Award in the short contemporary category. The 18th Annual Heartsong Awards named Vannatter #3 Favorite New Author, White Roses #1 Favorite Contemporary Novel, and White Doves #8 Favorite Contemporary Novel. The Democrat-Gazette Three Rivers Edition named Vannatter one of 20 to Watch in 2011.
Her next series is set around Texas rodeos. The first book will release to the Heartsong book club in October.
~*~
What’s your latest book?
White Pearls released to the Heartsong Presents book club in January 2011. It should be finding its way into stores about now, Amazon sometime this month, and christianbook.com in the next couple of months. Book one, White Roses and two, White Doves are available at all three sites.
And I’m so excited for you about how well White Roses has done in contests!! But back to White Pearls. What’s your favorite part of the story?
When certain characters accepted Jesus as their savior.
=) Those scenes can be tough to write, but when they click–awesome. What was the hardest part to write?
Getting into the hero and heroine’s heads at the beginning of the story, when neither of them were Christians. They’d both been promiscuous. It was hard to relay their feelings and struggles with going too far.
Definitely a fine line to walk! Is there a theme to this book?
The truth will set you free. The hero and heroine are both bound by a web of lies.
Let’s switch to you, the writer. What would your dream office look like—and what does your REAL writing environment look like?
My dream office would have white wicker furniture including the desk with pastel walls and seashells everywhere.
I share my office with my husband. The walls are sage green. His side is neat and organized. Mine is cluttered, but I know what’s in every stack. And no one better touch my stacks.
LOL. Is there any one thing or reference you keep handy when writing? Anything you kept around for this particular book?
I clip pictures of magazines to represent my characters and keep them hanging above my computer. A Bible, Find It Fast in the Bible, and Let’s Name the Baby stay close. The baby name book is for naming characters.
Are there any people (family, writing group, editors) whom you rely on when writing?
My critique partners: Lorna Seilstad and Brenda Anderson. They let me know when my characters aren’t making sense. Lorna always blackens my black moment. And Brenda is great with emotion and body language.
Nothing like a good critter! =) Aside from writing, what takes up most of your time?
A nine-year old son, a husband of twenty-seven years, and our church. Since my husband is the pastor, the church is a large part of our lives, even though he’s bi-vocational and has another full time job.
If someone were to give you $5,000 to spend on anything you wanted, what would you buy? (No saving or gifts to charities allowed!)
Probably a down payment on a new truck for my husband. He’s sold a lot of trucks over the years because our finances were strained.
Awww, that’s so sweet. Do you remember where you were when you got your first or most important call about a book contract?
Home alone. Every time something great happens with my writing–an offer, a contract, an award, there’s no one home but me.
Did you call them and tell them to get themselves home to jump up and down with you?? 😉 Any funny family stories about living with a writer?
We recently went to Fort Worth to research my rodeo series I’m currently working on. My step mother-in-law lives in San Antonio and met us there to visit. We were at the Stockyards and I was soaking in the sounds, smells, and ambiance for the book. She was talking to me and I was just saying, unhuh and un uhs. My husband, “You can’t talk to her until we get back to the hotel. She’s not here, she’s in book land.”
What are you writing right now?
I’m working on the second book in my Texas rodeo series. It’s called Rodeo Hero. The hero is a bi-vocational youth director who works at the Stockyards Cowtown Coliseum. The heroine is a new Christian, photographer with a promiscuous past.
Any upcoming releases we should keep our eye out for?
The first book in the series, Rodeo Dust releases in October through Heartsong Presents.
~*~
Readers, be sure and check out Shannon at: www.shannonvannatter.com, www.shannonvannatter.com/blog, and at her group blog, www.inksperationalmessages.com. You can find her books at http://www.heartsongpresents.com/.
Void where prohibited. Entry into the contest is considered verification of eligibility based on your local laws. Chance of winning depends on number of entries. Contest ends 7/15/11. Winner will have two weeks to claim prize.
by Roseanna White | Jul 7, 2011 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
“You crown the year with Your goodness
And Your paths drip with abundance.”
~ Psalm 65:11
Yesterday, when I sat down for some much-needed reading and praying, I read Psalm 65, and this verse really struck me. In church last weekend we were talking about how this has been a horrendous year for natural disasters. So many tornadoes . . . flooding . . . wildfires . . . earthquakes . . . tsunamis . . . . Disaster after disaster after disaster that have left very little of the country (and world) untouched.
About two weeks ago I mentioned how much rain we’ve gotten this year, and a friend in the Southwest said how they hadn’t gotten a drop of it in nine months. While things here have been washing out, things there have been drying out.
Yesterday when I read this verse, it resonated within me because I’ve been having a great couple of weeks, professionally speaking. I have an editor super-interested in the book I wanted to write next anyway, I signed with a new agent after phone calls with three of them . . . it’s been great. Exhilarating. I would usually quote the verse about my cup running over, but I like this even better–I’ve been following His path, and it’s dripping with abundance.
But the contrast is still there. Not so long ago, I felt like I was going nowhere. I knew I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do, so there was peace in that, but it was a resigned peace. An “I guess Your will for me doesn’t include this dream of mine” kind of peace. I was dried up. Burned out.
Much like a few friends of mine are now, while I’m going through this period of much.
In a way, it seems weird. Unfair. Right? But it’s about seasons–we all have them. We go through them ourselves, and so does everyone else, and rarely do our seasons line up perfectly with everyone else’s. Still, I had to wonder, yesterday, why this fabulous season of mine corresponds so exactly to such dry periods in the lives of two of the people closest to me.
Then I took a deep breath and remembered that when I went through my dry spell last year, they were there for me. Encouraging, praying. Giving of themselves. Giving of themselves because they could. Because they had the abundance then.
Isn’t that really awesome of God? Yes, we could choose to focus on the wrong thing and be jealous of our friends when all’s going well for them, or to be resentful. But while we can’t send the Southwest our rain, we can pour out the healing waters of the Lord’s love upon others when we’re overflowing with it. We can nourish their souls. And then we can trust that when we’re the ones in the arid places, they’ll do the same for us.
I always used to define “abundance” as having a lot of what you want or need. But my new definition is “having enough to share.”
***
On an unrelated note, I’m trying out a new commenting server thingy. What with all the issues with comments that Blogger’s been having, and the option with this one to reply to an individual’s comment rather than the whole thing if you want, it seemed worth trying. Though it doesn’t recognize your Blogger account, which is the drawback (though you can leave one as “guest”). So opinions on it welcome!
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.