Conference Organization ~ Lexa Fisher

Who knew you could learn so much by volunteering!? This is my fifth year volunteering in the organization of a local writers' conference, and my first year as committee chair for registration. My friend Joanne Jaytanie also mentioned our conference in her recent post.


Though registration for the annual October conference opens every June1st, preparation begins in April with committee planning meetings. 




My position on various committees provides learning opportunities that I don't have in my day job. Public speaking in a friendly, welcoming environment, and event coordination are two I especially enjoy. But one opportunity I haven't been grateful to learn is Mail Merge in MS Word. I never want to hear that term again! 😅 Anything except a very basic spreadsheet taxes my abilities.

Everything ready to go into registration packets.

Before conference, several of my colleagues gather to create order out of the chaos of materials that go into registration packets. Not only do many hands make for light work, but extra sets of eyes double-checking helps make sure there are fewer errors encountered during registration.


On opening day of the conference everything comes together as we welcome attendees. The registration desk is the first place everyone heads for to pick up their registration materials and ask questions. Where do I get coffee? How can I change my pitch appointment? What time is dinner?

Ready for showtime!

One quickly learns the value of volunteers, as my chapter mate Aedyn Brooks pointed out in her post, The Value of Volunteering. Committee chairs need their co-chairs and the attendees who volunteer to help during conference. A big thanks to everyone who pitches in!

Emerald City Writers' Conference provides a welcoming venue to meet new people, learn about the craft of writing, and pitch a story to agents or editors. There are many repeat attendees who volunteer to match up with newcomers to answer questions and make sure first-time attendees have someone to sit with at dinner.

It's a lot of fun in just 2.5 days, but by the end of the weekend my brain is ready for a day of recovery before I step back into the real world.

Meet Our Members ~ Grace Augustine

Author, Editor, and Artist

Grace Augustine

A native of Montana, Grace has never lost her love for the mountains. On any given day, she will randomly post photos from the Glacier National Park webcams, sharing the beauty of the Rockies with her friends and family.

Her background in administration and journalism has taken her on several journeys including in the fields of title and abstracting, chiropractic, owning a weekly newspaper, church administration and she's even delivered a sermon or two.

Grace began an editing business several years ago because "every book I picked up had errors" and she wanted to help authors put out the best products possible. She is also a top ten selling Amazon author with her book SO YOU HAVE MS. NOW WHAT? her personal journey with Multiple Sclerosis.  With twenty books published and more in the works, she plans to write until she can't.

You can find out more about her artwork and novels by clicking the links below.

MEMBER PAGE

ARTWORK

EDITING WEBSITE

PERSONAL WEBSITE

Never Say Never ~ by Joanne Jaytanie

I've been crazy busy the last two months, and I veered off my writing schedule for the year. But, I didn’t do so lightly. I weighed the pros and cons and thought it was well worth the left turn. One could even say that I didn’t take a sharp turn, rather a slight bend. 

I was invited to take part in a Christmas collection with a fantastic group of authors. And, if you look closely at my very professional list and read #7, it says Christmas book 3. 

For the last two years, I've wanted to do another Christmas story, but I never made the time. It worked out that the theme of our Christmas collection: Christmas at Mistletoe Lodge couldn’t have been a better fit for Forever Christmas in Glenville, book three, Christmas Chemistry.

The cover turned out perfect. It always does when Linda Boulanger designs it. The special part is the Doberman. It's my beautiful girl, Maya. I still remember the day I took this photo, she was chasing snowballs. It was a perfect moment.

I was nervous that I wouldn’t make the deadline – two deadlines on the same day, but I made them. I stuck to my writing schedule, and more importantly, I have an editor that is always there and willing to take on my next project. I took care of my new puppy – Mazie, just in case you haven’t heard 😉 and made dinner. Everything else took a backseat, and I made my deadlines!! 

A few weeks before being invited into the Christmas collection, I committed to a different type of story with the authors of Romance Books 4 Us. Each author in the book is writing their own serial or episodic story for Soldiers of Fortune or SOF. Volume 3 of SOF releases on October 15th, and it's the part 2 of my story, Dogs of Fortune.

I hadn’t included dogs in either of my last two books, Salvaging Truth or Twice As Bad. I think I was having withdrawals. Christmas Chemistry is Gina's story, and she's been in love with Dobermans since the day she started working at Forever Christmas, in Christmas Reflections, book 1. So, along comes Angel and the two are nearly inseparable. And Dogs of Fortune – well, doesn’t the title tell it all? It has dogs! Blair Sellick is a well-known dog trainer with exceptional skills. Some, like Zane Kelly, might even call her psychically enhanced.

So, if you haven’t seen me around the watercooler (otherwise known as FaceBook) much lately, now you know why. I've been WRITING. I love it, I do. I certainly wouldn't want to try and keep up this pace for an entire year.

This is the first time in over two years that I've written in a collection with other authors. I'd said that I wouldn't do multiple-author collections again because they pull me away from my writing goals. I have my reasons for the choice to do so this time…What were they? If you want to know the answer to that question, you must attend the workshop I’m co-teaching with my dear friend, Jacquolyn McMurray, this Friday at the Emerald City Writers Conference or ECWC. What’s the workshop? Participating in a Collection: Pros and Cons. We chose this topic back in February, and I already had my year planned out, or so I thought.

Kinda ironic, wouldn't you say? Yep, that's my life.

I'm beyond thrilled and honored to be a finalist in the ECWC Best Blurb Contest! Thank you, judges!

For more information on my new and upcoming releases, or the ECWC you can visit my personal page.

Until next time…

Joanne

Choosing Historical Fiction ~ by Author DK Marley

I am sure my story is not unique among writers. We all have that little itch that begins in childhood (at least that is when mine started) of telling stories, creating imaginary worlds, falling down rabbit holes, and the like. Alice and I were kindred spirits, skipping through the woods behind my grandparent's house, lost in a world of our own.

My childhood imaginings later developed into writing around middle school. The book that truly got me thinking about writing something of my own was Green Mansions by William Henry Hudson, as well as an insatiable appetite for all the books of Victoria Holt.

During my first year of High School, I started my very first novel. I think about that story now and cringe, but also smile to see how far I have come on my writing journey Oh, how I have learned and continue to learn, which is how it should be for a writer in any genre. For me, a writer needs to be a voracious reader, which I am to my own detriment sometimes because I have to remind myself that I need to get back to own stories.

The choice to become a historical fiction author felt so comfortable when I finally started finding my voice in the late 1980s. I wrote a novel back then of a young girl growing up in Kashmir during the British occupation, right before the Indian Mutiny, who was half Indian and half British. When I started doing the research for the novel, I knew then where I needed to be. Researching historical people and events found a home in my heart and in my novels.

That manuscript still sits on my shelf waiting for awakening. Perhaps, one day.

In 1997 is really when I started finding my voice as a writer for that

year was my very first visit to the UK. I dove into the history, toured every historical place I always heard about and dreamed about, especially anything having to do with William Shakespeare.

All those years ago, when I was that little girl creating worlds in my mind, my grandmother, an English Literature teacher, sparked my interest in literature and Shakespeare at the burgeoning age of eleven. She gave me her college textbooks and I finished reading both from cover to cover within a few months. My mind blossomed with the words of the Bard, Milton, Marlowe, Jonson, Sidney, and on and on... So when I visited the places in 1997, I knew a story was begging to be told. I just needed to find the right one.

During the trip, I visited the Globe Theatre in Southwark, and it was here that something spoke to me. A pair of eyes looked back at me from a display in the museum at the Globe, almost begging for me to tell his story. I started researching the relationship between Kit Marlowe and William Shakespeare, about the authorship question, and the rest is history.

Since that faithful day, and after years of writing, and editing, and

rewriting, and crying, and almost giving up; then going to an amazing writer's retreat and finding some incredible mentors, my first novel saw the light of day.

I published "Blood and Ink" (the first edition was only ten copies for my family and friends in 2010). The reaction was not what I hoped for and as a newbie writer, my heart broke. I gave up writing for five whole years. For five years, the itch never left me, but I never scratched. And then, tragedy struck our family. In February of 2015, a drunk driver took the lives of my daughter and son-in-law. In a flash, everything changed.

During my attempt to find a way to cope with the unbearable grief, I started a journal to my daughter, telling her things I wanted her to know as if we were still having conversations on the phone. A grief counselor told me that I needed to use this outlet as a way to heal. Writing burst back into my life at the moment I truly needed it. The release of writing the actions of my characters, the arc of the story, and the way the story ends gave control back to my life in a most unexpected way. Even the decision to self-publish empowered me.

Too many things were out of my control - the loss of my precious children, the day-to-day waking up with the emptiness and depression, the dealing with a callous unrepentant wrongdoer in the court case against the driver - so writing is healing me.

I will never be the same, of course. I am forever in that club now, a club I never wanted to be a part of, but it is what it is. Writing gives me a voice and writing about historical people and the past gives me the chance to connect with the past. Through the generations and centuries, we touch those now gone, we hear their voices, when we write historical fiction. Who knows, perhaps one day I will write a story for my daughter; but for now, to continue the legacy my grandmother gave me is enough. One day at a time, one word at a time, we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past (my favorite line from F. Scott Fitzgerald).

D. K. Marley is a historical fiction author specializing in Shakespearean themes. The "Shakespearean Madeline Miller", if you will. She is a true Stratfordian (despite the topic of her novel "Blood and Ink"), a Marlowe fan, a member of the Marlowe Society, the Shakespeare Fellowship and a signer of the Declaration of Intent for the Shakespeare Authorship Debate. Her new series titled "The Fractured Shakespeare Series" adapts each legendary play into a historical fiction novel. She has traveled to England three times for intensive research and debate workshops and is a graduate of the intense training workshop "The Writer's Retreat Workshop" founded by Gary Provost and hosted by Jason Sitzes. She lives in Georgia with her husband and a Scottish Terrier named Molly. You can get in touch with her via the links below.

WEBSITE

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

BOOKBUB
GOODREADS
AMAZON

Handcrafting music ~ by Kristine Raymond

Music has always been a part of life.  You know those scenes in movies where the mom and kids dance around singing their favorite songs?  Yeah, that happened in my house.  The stereo was alive from sunup to sundown and if Mom wasn't playing her vinyl, then the radio was on.  In addition, both my sister and I took piano lessons - she excelled, I barely learned the scales - and I sang in my school chorus from seventh grade through eleventh. 

What intrigued me, though, was my Dad's guitar, mostly because I'd never seen him play it.  It was a basic acoustic instrument, nothing fancy, and sat in a corner of the basement, its strings untouched.  Every once in a while, he'd let me pick it up, my fingers producing a horribly out of tune racket in my attempt to make music.  When I left home to begin my own life, he gave it to me, but I never learned to play and eventually sold it in a yard sale.  (Man, I wish I'd hung onto it - but that's another story.)

Fast forward a a few years.  How lucky was I that the man who became my husband shared my love of music?  Not only that, his fascination with guitars rivaled my own.  It wasn't long before he bought one.  There's just something about having a musical instrument around - any musical instrument - that adds a homey feel.  Kind of like having a fireplace.  But I digress.  
 

Copyright © Kristine Raymond

A second acoustic guitar soon followed the first, then an electric model with an amp.  To date, I think we're up to eight, including a classical guitar.  Or is it nine?  I've lost count.  And there's a mandolin in there somewhere, too.  (Funny thing to note is that I still don't play - we both took lessons a few years ago and, as with the piano, I struggled to learn scales.  I'm definitely less musically-inclined than I'd like to be.)  The hubs, on the other hand, picked it up right away and is quite talented.  He'd play all day long if he could.  

Copyright © Kristine Raymond

Another of his passions is working with wood and, recently, he combined the two.  Cleaning up the yard not too long ago after a storm, he picked up a tree branch and an idea formed.  (Isn't that how it happens?)  Cutting a manageable-sized chunk, he brought it inside and set to work, chiseling and shaping and sanding, then hand-polishing his creation with beeswax and mineral oil to a satiny finish.  

Voilà!  A handmade guitar pick.

Copyright © Kristine Raymond

Not only are his picks beautiful, they're functional, and produce a lovely tone when stroked against an instrument's strings.  He's been experimenting with different varieties of wood - the ones in the pic below are made from black locust.  (Check out the one shaped like an arrowhead.) 

Copyright © Kristine Raymond

There's nothing better than tapping into your source of creativity and letting it take you places you never imagined.  In my case, it's crafting new worlds with words.  In my hubs' case, it's crafting music with wood.

Note - if you're interested in owning one, please contact me for pricing.