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. š 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 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/pastorās 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. Vannatterās 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 likeāand 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?? š 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!
by Roseanna White | Jul 6, 2011 | Uncategorized
Today (blissful sigh) is a writing day. The kids stayed with their nonna last night, and all is quiet and serene here in the Maison du Blanc. And crazy as it seems, if I don’t dive right in, I’ll waste hours online, LOL. So. Rather than taking the time for an original post, I’m sharing something that’s going up at Go Teen Writers today. Stephanie Morrill asked me to write some guest posts on grammar, and the three-part series begins today, aimed at young novelists. I don’t know if I’ll post the other parts here (they’ll go up Friday and Monday), but to since everyone can use a refresher in grammar now and then . . .
~*~
Faster with a red pen than an errant three-year-old . . .
More apt to spout rules than your high school English teacher . . .
Able to correct commas with a single glance . . .
Sheās [insert bugle blare here] Grammar Girl!
Are you imagining me soaring through the clouds with cape billowing behind me and GG emblazoned across my oh-so-cute costume? Excellent. Now letās begin. =)
Grammar is important. (Stop groaning, now!) Grammar is what helps us fine tune what we say so that it comes out clearly and has the best possible impact. If your words are a sword, then grammar is the sharpness of the bladeāan integral part of the words themselves, and that which gives them their shape and power.
I was one of those nuts who was always in the highest percentile in the Mechanics section of the standardized tests in English. I was editing my sisterās college English papers for her when I was 14. My college professors bandied about phrases like āyour stylistic prowess.ā (Oh yeah, I wrote that one down, LOL.) Am I the best writer in the world? Ahem. NO. But I know my grammar, which means I turn in polished, clean manuscripts.
That counts.
Stephanie asked me if Iād be willing to do some grammar posts, and I enthusiastically said, āYES!! Iād love to! How many? What about? When do I start??ā (I told youāIām a nut.) So over the next ### Iām going to give a crash course in a few rules you should keep handy while youāre writing and check over before you send your work out into the world.
First, if weāre dealing with a manuscript, letās talk basic formatting. You should always set up your page with 1ā margins all around, double spaced, first line of a paragraph indented to .5ā through your Format/Paragraph option. Donāt put extra spaces between paragraphs, not in a book. Donāt use hard returns to get to the next pageāuse a page break (Ctrl + Enter). Keep your alignment Left (not justified) except for chapter headings and section breaks, which are centered.
Okay. Now that your page is set up, you begin writing. Once youāve written your first sentence, you hit the space bar, right? Be sure you only hit it once. Back in the day when I was in high school, we were taught to put two spaces between sentences, but no longer. So I had to retrain myself, and I still mess that up occasionally. So at the end of a document, Iāll do a Find search for two spaces and Replace All with one.
A few more āalwaysā rules.
Always, a comma comes directly after a wordāno space before it, but one after it. Same goes for a period, question mark, exclamation point, quotation mark, and any other form of punctuation. (Now, no rolling your eyes. Iāve seen this mistake often enough to make me cringe, LOL.)
Always, commas and period go within quotation marks, whether the sentence ends with the quotation end or not. (i.e. He barged into the room and said, āHello,ā then left again. NEVER: He barged into the room and said, āHelloā, then left again.) For question marks and exclamation points, they go within the quote only when part of the quote. (i.e. Have you ever heard the saying āeat, drink, and be merryā? BUT: Did she just ask, āCan I join you?ā)
Always, each new speaker in dialogue gets his or her own paragraph. (Always, always, always!!)
See, not so bad, is it? I wonāt start the real torture until next time. š Check back in for the finer points of commas, quotes, and caps!
And if you have any questions, be they general or particular, bring āem on! Grammar Girl to the rescue!
by Roseanna White | Jul 5, 2011 | Uncategorized
Did everyone enjoy a great Independence Day? We did. Homemade ice cream, and the enthusiasm for fireworks that only kids can lend to the day. They got especially excited when the neighbors shot off some really great ones, up close and personal. I’m always afraid those will scare the kiddos, but they whooped and clapped along with the rest of us.
Now. I spent part of last week toying with a new website design. And since that took up the time I should have spent reading, I have no book to discuss with y’all this week (oops), so I figured I’d talk about this instead. š
So, step #1. Go Here.
Step #2. Look around, keeping in mind that full content is nowhere near up yet. I’m just working on overall design before sinking time into transferring my Companion Guides.
~ On the homepage, I’m planning on having one of those little feed preview-of-latest-blog thingies under the welcome. (Anyone know how to do that with a WordPress site, when the blog’s on Blogger??)
~ In the left sidebar, there will be a page for links (like to ACFW, my Colonial Blog, Go Teen Writers, Christian Review of Books) and then quick links to my books’ pages, maybe an Events page . . . anything else you’d like to see there? Or on the top menu?
~ The picture of the book on the homepage will change as new books come out to feature the latest. So soon you’ll see the Annapolis cover there. =) Which has some purple in the sky, so it’ll perfectly coordinate with the site, LOL. Yes, I did that on purpose.
Step #3. Come back here and tell me what you think.
~ I’d like some feedback on how the colors work for you, especially in relation to visibility and readability for those whose eyes are sensitive to these things. (Let’s keep in mind that I like purple, so just saying ‘I don’t like purple’ isn’t going to change my mind š Saying it hurts your eyes, however, may.)
~ I’d also love your feedback on what else you’d like to see on the site. A newsletter subscription, maybe (which would mean I’d have to start a newsletter)? Should I put up a digital version of my marketing workshop, after I’ve done it (Spirit-Led Marketing, by the way)? Something else I’m totally forgetting?
Thanks! I look forward to your feedback. =)
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, sheās 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 booksā¦to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.