You Like Me!! I've Been Tagged After All

Egad, I just lost my eight unique things about me because I've been tagged. Here after I was feeling left out of the fun.

Well here's the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.8 random facts/habits about me ...

1. I once climbed a mountain.
2. I've lived on both coasts, but live in the Midwest again where I was raised.
3. I'm the only first cousin to my five living first cousins.
4. I hate brussel sprouts.
5. An ancestor was secretary of the Navy under President Buchanan, wrote American History, and helped start the Naval Academy. Bancroft Hall is named for him.
6. My Great Grandfather invented a hair crimper.
7. I have ancestors from both sides of the Civil War.
8. I've interpreted in sign language at my church for almost 25 years.

Okay, before I lose this again. I'm gonna tag: Lena Nelson Dooley, Cynthia Ruchti, Sally Bradley, and the Girls Write Out team (ha! four in one fell swoop!)

Manuscript is in the Mail!

Well, I did it . Today I packed up my nearly 250-page manuscript and sent it off to the editor. Then I took a mini vacation in Barnes and Noble where I spent about an hour musing amongst the books and wondering if my own book will ever be sitting on those shelves. If God wills it, it will happen.

I went through a panic after I handed the box over to the post office woman. Did I make sure all the pages were there? Did I check every page to make sure all the highlighted words were gone. (That's how I find repeated words, phrases, beats, etc.) I know I did all that yesterday as it was printing, but even so I asked myself if I'd overlooked something. I've always been something of a control freak, although I've mellowed in recent years. But, a situation like this is so huge. Until now this story was under my control. I could always change a word, add a line, take out a scene. But now it's over. There's nothing more for me to do until I hear from the editor. That's not exactly true. I will be pitching it to potential agents in Colorado, but until I hear from the editor I won't be sending it to any other publisher.

Time to move on and finish judging for the ACFW contest and most of all--clean my condo!! My little home has been neglected over the past couple months as I've focused almost entirely on this novel. Starting tomorrow instead of a keyboard under my fingers, I'll be hanging onto a dust rag! Then it's get ready for Colorado. I leave next week!

For the rest of today I think I'll relax a little by judging a contest entry. It never stops. :-)

Announcing Bygones Winner and Thoughts on Gazing, Staring, and Lifting One's Chin

Michelle Shocklee wins Bygones! Michelle, I'll get the book off to Texas early next week. You are gonna love it.

Thanks to everyone who took time to check out my blog and sign up to win Kim's book. It was a lot of fun. Watch this space for more book contests coming soon.

Now On To Those Curious Things We Do With Our Eyes and Chins...

Right now it's back to the MFB manuscript. I'm down to the last little tweaking, looking for repeated words. Every author has their pet words and phrases that are repeated so much they become a cliche in their own right within the story.

What are mine? Thanks to my crit partner, Tammy, I've discovered I love for people to angle their head back to look at someone. Or as Donna Fleisher pointed out to me, I have everyone chuckling or nodding their head.

One area that is really hard for me is what to do with people when they look at someone or something...there are only so many words for gaze, stare, glare, etc. For a while I had my people gazing at everything and each other. So I changed out some of the gazes, and now I have too many stares going on. Checking out my Flip Dictionary and Synonym Finder don't help much. Seems the compilers of those resources also have a hard time coming up with other words to use in place of gaze or stare. I just read a novel where the author was always having someone gaze or her gaze did this or that. We gotta make up some new words here to avoid repeating the same ones!

An action beat I use a lot has to do with chins. My heroine lifts, juts, and raises her chin a lot to show determination, indignation, and to receive a kiss from the hero. I wonder how many times in a day we actaully lift our chins. My heroine is probably getting a strained neck muscle from doing that so much. There's gotta be other ways to show these attitudes.

Well, no matter what, this manuscript has got to be mailed Monday along with Michelle's copy of Bygones. I have the mailing materials. Now all I need is a new word for stare.

CFBA Blog Tour: Chris Well's Tribulation House

This week
the
Christian Fiction Blog Alliance
is introducing
TRIBULATION HOUSE
(Harvest House 2007)
by
Chris Well

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Chris Well is a fellow member of the CFBA and founder of its sister organization, FIRST. He is an acclaimed novelist and award–winning magazine editor and has previously written the “laugh–out–loud Christian thrillers” Deliver Us from Evelyn and Forgiving Solomon Long(one of Booklist’s Top 10 Christian Novels of 2005). He has also contributed to 7ball, Infuze, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Chris and his wife live in Tennessee, where he is hard at work on his next novel.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD—WHICH COULD BE A PROBLEM...Mark Hogan has it all. The job. The family. A position on the board at church. All he’s missing is a boat. Not just any boat—a 2008 Bayliner 192.When Reverend Daniel Glory announces that the Rapture is taking place on October 17 at 5:51am, Hogan realizes his boat–buying days are numbered. So he does what any man in his situation would do—he borrows a load of money from the mob.Not that there’s any risk involved: After all, when the Rapture comes, Hogan will be long gone. The mob will never find him.But when Jesus fails to come back on schedule, Mark Hogan finds the mob is in no mood to discuss the finer points of end–times theology...Chris Well’s laugh–out–loud Christian thrillers appeal to the millions of readers who gobble up the rollicking crime fiction of Janet Evanovich and Elmore Leonard. TRIBULATION HOUSE does not disappoint!

You can order it from Amazon

Kim Sawyer's Bygones - A Must Read!

I've known Kim Sawyer ever since we both joined what was then American Christian Romance Writers and attended the very first conference held in Kansas City. Since that time both Kim and ACRW have come a long way. ACRW became American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and Kim became a very accomplished and published author. Both ACFW and Kim just keep getting better and better.The best thing of all is that even with her successes as a writer Kim has remained the same humble person she was the first day we met.

Here she is at our last ACFW conference in Dallas during the book signing event.

I am so excited to tell you about her latest release called Bygones. This is one of Kim's rare ventures into contemporary fiction and I hope she does more! Kim has some firsthand knowledge about the Mennonite community and that is exactly where the story is set.

Widow Marie Koeppler and her grown daughter Beth reluctantly return to the Mennonite community Marie abandoned twenty-three years ago. Soon after their arrival in Sommerfeld, a series of mysterious thefts raises the community's suspicions against the "outsiders." Can Marie prove their innocence, or will she be forced to flee once more? Henry Braun thought he'd gotten his love for Marie out of his system, but soon begins to wonder if she's stolen more than his heart. When it's all said and done, can Henry and Marie let bygones be bygones, or has their love been doomed from the start?

I learned so much about the Mennonites. They are similar to the Amish yet there are subtle differences. For one thing, today's Mennonites usually use electricity and own their own cars. In the story Marie's aunt's home where she and her daughter stay does not have electricity, because her aunt was old school so to speak. This causes some interesting conflict as the daughter who is used to Internet connections and her Stereo has to adjust. I love how Kim slowly allows Marie's spiritual arc to swing back to the faith of her childhood, one she'd forsaken for so long. Of course her relationship with God had nothing to do with whether or not she uses electricity or wears a prayer cap, but everything to do with repentance and forgiveness through faith in Christ. There are so many other conflicts going on throughout the story as well that you can't put the book down, wanting to know how everything is going to work out.

This is the first of three in a series and I can't wait for the next book!

Want to have a copy of Bygones for your self? Leave me a comment and I'll draw a name this coming Saturday, May 5th.