by Roseanna White | Mar 11, 2013 | Uncategorized
A while ago, several of your favorite historical writers (and some soon-to-be-favorites) teamed up to bring you a serial story! A Vow Fulfilled begins today on Carrie Fancett Pagels blog with the first scene, written by MaryLu Tyndall, and you do NOT want to miss this! Especially given the awesome giveaway~scroll down for info!
Chapter One
by MaryLu Tyndall
~*~
Chapter Two
by Roseanna M. White
~*~
Chapter Three
by Debbie Lynn Costello
~*~
Chapter Four
by Gina Welborn
~*~
Chapter Five
by Carrie Fancett Pagels
~*~
Chapter Six
by Patty Smith Hall
~*~
Chapter Seven
by Laurie Alice Eakes
Giveaway!
A pretty amazing giveaway has been put together for this. You can enter a total of seven times, once on each blog. The drawing will be done after the final segment has been posted. There will be one winner of the entire package (which will be shipped in parts). The prize includes:
A designer bookmark, Choices of the Heart and a CD called Wilderness Road: Music of the Backcountry, a recipe book: The Charleston Chef’s Table: Extraordinary Recipes from the Heart of the Old South, a Civil War ebook novella and a basket of goodies from Shirley Plantation (notecards, jam, etc.), French quill and ink set, $10 Amazon gift card, and an antique bracelet.
by Roseanna White | Mar 7, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
In our home school reading yesterday, we were reading the continued tale of the life of a Prussian missionary to England, George Müller. In the part of the story we got to, he had just gotten married to the sister of a British missionary, and together they had made a decision to abolish pew rents in their church–which meant their living went from guaranteed to based on the goodwill of their tiny congregation.
One night, all the food in the house was gone. But George and Mary set the table anyway. They sat down at the dinner hour. They held hands, and they prayed. Not asking God for food–but rather, thanking Him for all he had provided. Thanking Him.
Minutes after their prayer had ended, someone showed up at their door with a whole ham.
That story traveled with me throughout the day. When it comes to this life of ours, it’s so easy to focus on what we lack. The things we don’t have. The empty places. Sometimes, that’s all we can see. It surrounds us. It defines us.
Lack can be such a solid thing. Think about it: what’s the absence of light? Darkness. What’s the absence of heat? Cold.
Things that are literally nothing in themselves, yet their counterparts are so crucial to us that we feel their absence as a physical thing. And the same applies to things like wealth, food, clothing, cars, houses…all those other things. It applies too to family, friends, churches, school, education.
Things we, as human beings, crave. Need. And when we don’t have them, we feel it.
But George Müller taught me something today. He taught me that I shouldn’t just pray for the empty places to be filled. I should praise Him for having them. I should praise the Lord my God for taking away what I don’t need. I should praise Him for giving me life enough to want. I should praise him for being bigger than a lack, for being the eternal Being that is never absent.
And I should pray knowing that all those empty places…they’re just potential, waiting for Him. They’re just Him sweeping clean so He can give me what I really need. Because how could He, if I’d filled with junk the places He wanted to fill with promise? If the Müllers had scavenged for moldy bread, why would God have sent a feast?
What plates are we filling today with garbage, just to have something, when we should be waiting for Him to provide the right thing?
Lack will never be easy. It’s not meant to be. Not many people in this world ever seek it. But it finds us, in one form or another, always. There is always something more we want. Some hole we see in our lives. Some empty place.
But let’s try doing it like the Müllers did. Let’s set the table anyway. Let’s sit down together, join hands, and praise Him. Praise Him not just for what He will provide, but for the empty places just waiting for Him.
by Roseanna White | Mar 6, 2013 | Uncategorized
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
I just got home yesterday from my first annual writing retreat with my super-awesome best friend/critique partner, Stephanie Morrill, and we had a totally awesome time. We both logged over 35,000 words in our long weekend of nothing-but-writing!
I got cuddled in at home well before the big snow hit, but now it’s puttin’ it down out there, and I promised my kiddos a snow day. Figure that’s a good way for me to ease back into the home school schedule. 😉
BUT–a few links had to be passed along anyway. =) First of all, the aforementioned super-friend Stephanie’s first book is FREE on Kindle and Nook! Please download and pass along the links! This is the first of her young adult series, which is wonderful. I read and loved them all (several times, LOL), and the timing is perfect, as her next book will be out soon. =)
Also courtesy Stephanie and Jill Williamson is a new writing craft book on turning your first draft into a publishable novel–the only craft book I’ve ever read all the way through, LOL. It’s priced to sell, so check it out too!
Happy snow day! Now back to reality I go. I have a feeling I won’t be writing 10,000 words today, LOL.
by Roseanna White | Feb 28, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
Well, it is nearly time for the event I’ve been counting down to since last June–a writing retreat with my best friend/critique partner! We’re renting a cabin, settling down with our laptops, and taking three whole days (and two partial ones) to do nothing but WRITE! Heaven!!
That’s tomorrow. Today I need to get everything ready, LOL. Kinda short on time!
|
Peek of just a corner of the
cover for the free novella! |
Which, of course, is when a new project comes along. =) A fun one, but one that can’t be put off. I’m working with Harvest House on a free novella that takes place between
Ring of Secrets and
Whispers from the Shadows. We’re all very excited about it, and it needs to be turned in (cover, edits, etc) by tomorrow–and included in it we need a title for a
second free story that was just brought up yesterday. So I’m scrambling to come up with a plot so that I can title it, LOL.
Any ideas? Anyone? 😉 I know the setting is 1835 and who the characters are, a basic plot. Title still eluding me…
So I’d better spend my few free minutes working on that. I know you’ll understand. 😉
But don’t forget to check out the
Colonial Quill, where I took my spy-name game yesterday! And also up today is a post I put together for
Go Teen Writers asking some of the CBA’s top editors how they got into their jobs and what they love/hate about it. It’s a fun one!
by Roseanna White | Feb 21, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized
My computer is going blind. Which is to say, its video card is failing. It’s annoying on a good day–it won’t play video, crashes any time flash comes up–and kinda terrifying on a bad day when the screen just blinks out and then doesn’t recover quite as it should.
I still think of this thing as “my new laptop.” But really it’s four years old, which is about the life expectancy of a computer these days (let’s not get into why…). And as I sit here and contemplate getting a new one, I remember a conversation I had with my best friend five years ago. She was getting a new desktop computer, and while she was happy, she was also sorry to let her old one go. Because, she said, she thought that would be the computer she was using when she got published.
I’d never paused to think about the machines that might be tied to certain periods in my life, but it came back to me yesterday while I stared at my crazy-big-looking, wonky screen. And thought to think back on what I’d been through with this one.
I had a laptop in college, but it went kaput shortly after Rowyn was born, so just about five years ago. I wanted to get another right away, but finances didn’t permit. So I used an ancient, wheezing desktop for my projects then. That’s where I wrote a contemporary romance I pitched to Summerside, another contemporary romance that I thought would be a fun followup to it with another house. Yeah…both of those are just sitting in my Completed MSS folder now.
Then I finally got the laptop I wanted in the summer of 2009. Right before the ACFW conference. I picked based on battery life, and man was I impressed! I didn’t have to plug the thing in at all while I was away. Then I came home and got down to work on another historical, also destined to sit on the my harddrive for a while. Then, then I wrote
Jewel of Persia on this lovely little Acer. I carried it around with me, writing in every room of the house, often making a desk of the end table in my living room. From there, I went to
Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland. Which lead to
Ring of Secrets.
Yeah–this is the computer I used to write these books that got me published. This is the computer that will be forever tied to my big break, to those thrill-inducing emails. The computer that has seen born and has saved for me the first books of mine to really get into readers’ hands.
Sniff, sniff. I love this little laptop!
So while this isn’t exactly a post that waxes philosophical on things of faith, it seemed appropriate to take a minute to be thankful for this gift. It’s just a computer. Just a collection of parts that can fail and get sick and find any number of ways to infuriate us daily. But it’s also a little machine that has made my life easier. That has seen me through a lot of manuscripts, a lot of dreams, a lot of disappointments. I’ve cried with it and laughed with it and learned how to work around its quirks. And I’m going to miss it when it’s gone.
~*~
I’m a guest again today on the
Borrowed Book, where I’m talking about a day in my life–don’t miss your chance to enter to win a signed copy of
Ring of Secrets (one just for the commenters there) and also get more entries into my
Box of Secrets giveaway!
by Roseanna White | Feb 20, 2013 | Uncategorized
We have some winner! From the giveaway for Susie Finkbeiner’s Paint Chips and a necklace from her store, that is. =) First, the book goes too…
Annette {This Simple Home}!
And the jewelry of her choice goes to…
Leila (http://leliaroseforeman.blogspot.com/)
I’ll be contacting you both. Remember, one week to claim the prize!
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.