Showing posts with label writing contest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing contest. Show all posts

Friday, August 28, 2026

Rest In Peace Dolly Parton

 

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

 

The world lost an amazing person this week with the passing of Dolly Parton. Not gonna wax poetic because there's plenty of beautiful things being said about her. But I love her music, I love her acting, I love her philanthropic endeavors. She was a soul without match.

* * * * *

And there's really no graceful segue from Dolly Parton to "I've apparently decided I don't have enough to do," so I'm not even going to try.

I've been busy as heck between writing, publishing, and my Etsy endeavors. So naturally, I've added running my writers group's annual romance contest back onto the pile.

The Carolyn Readers Choice Award and I go way back. I was its first coordinator back in the day, then handed it off and watched other people keep it going. The most recent crew has been running it for five years, which is a long time to wrangle entries, judges, scores, deadlines, emails, and all the other moving parts that go into a book contest.

They were understandably ready for a break.

And somehow, here I am again.

The good news is that I'm not just stepping back into the old system. We're taking the opportunity to overhaul a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff and make the contest easier to run—not just for me now, but for whoever gets handed the reins next.

Which means I've spent an inordinate amount of time lately buried in forms, rules, category descriptions, judging procedures, spreadsheets, old files, and approximately eight thousand tiny decisions nobody entering a book will ever know had to be made.

Because apparently this is what I do for fun.

That's about all the chaos I've got to report for now. Catch you in two weeks—and until then, stay cool, stay hydrated, and try not to add any new projects to your plate.

I'll try to take my own advice.

 

Friday, October 12, 2018

Very Good News...


Happy Friday, y'all!

KDP sent me an email the other day that my books have been shipped and are scheduled to arrive Saturday in Raleigh. Woo hoo!!

Thanks to everyone who sent good vibes into the universe. :0)

Also...FALL has arrived. Temperatures have reached the cool-over-night and warm-during-the-day balance that I love so much. I've had the windows open whenever I can to get rid of the stuffy AC recycled air.

In other news, I am handing off the reins of the contest I've been running for my writers group to a chaptermate. I'm very excited to place the contest into capable hands. Of course, I've taken on another, though smaller, program for the chapter because I just can't seem to help myself. But I don't have to do much of anything for that until January or February, so: Yay!

Preparations for my trip are winding down aside from the packing, which requires laundry, which will happen tomorrow. Just a few more minor things to get done as far as conference event prep goes and if I don't get to it, nothing bad will happen.

Anyway, have a great weekend and I'll catch you Monday!!


Monday, January 16, 2017

And so it begins...contest and writing...contest and writing...contest and writing...



Well, technically it began in November, but judging began this past Sunday. Meaning lots and lots of emails to send out. Scores to receive and log. In a continuous cycle until the beginning of April. Getting started is the busiest part because you're sending books out to all judges. Once that first blast is complete, then it slows down because everyone reads at different speeds. I'll might get a day or two of a reprieve, but then the score sheets will start to trickle in, which means sending another book to those judges. And so on and so on until all books have gotten the minimum number of scores.

I finally got my writing groove back. Well, I say that, but really I forced myself to do what needed to be done, whatever it was. What I mean is that I created a new document for book three and copied and pasted chapters in, one at a time, reading through them as I went and fixing whatever needed to be fixed. The first seven / eight chapters were fine, which I knew, but things started getting a little more messed up around chapter ten. So nose to the grindstone. Read and fix, read and fix, read and fix.

Anyway, it worked. I made really great progress last weekend. My self-imposed deadline for getting this book in order is January 28th, two weeks from this past Saturday. I'm not talking ready-for-the-editor finished, but all pieces in place even if they're a little rough around the edges. Then I'll go back with the sandpaper and smooth those edges.

My time is going to be very precious for the next couple of months, but it's good training for publishing three books a year. That's a goal for 2018 and beyond.

Hope you had a relaxing or productive weekend!

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

A respite...


Things are finally calming down! Despite my upcoming trip.

The birthday girl loved her birth sampler of love, so that is all history now. Phew.



I've finished both series bibles, so for now, I'm done. One of the series has at least two more books coming, but they're not quite ready for me. A breather a few weeks.

Someone stepped up to be membership chair for my chapter, so keeping up with/setting up new members is no longer my responsibility (aside from processing dues payments and send confirmations). Yay!

The contest has slowed way down which is a good thing. There's still another month, maybe two of tasks, but the frantic pace is behind me. Thanks goodness for small favors.

Of course, there were two classes having to do with Scotland happening in April. Since I'm writing the epic highlander fic and hope to a) convert it to a publishable book and b) write more highland based tales, I wanted to take them both. Just not in April right after my con. I contacted one instructor and asked if she was giving it later in the year. She said she wasn't, but she'd give it to me one-on-one. How about that? And for cheaper than the original class. We're scheduled for August. I couldn't find contact info for the other instructor but, the class is gonna be more about the basics of life during the middle ages, so I've signed up and will more than likely just file away the information. I may or may not participate depending on how I feel and the clarity of the information.

So how's your spring going so far??



Monday, February 8, 2016

I made it through...


Last week was a pretty crazy week and it got a little rough around the edges, but I made it through. Whew.

And now here I am at the start of another likely busy week. My contest closes on Sunday, so there will probably another mild flurry of entries. But because we've started the judging process, there's not gonna be a stressful week of parsing entries to judges and sending out panels. I've been in the cycle for two weeks now and things are going rather well.

My online class is over, so that's one thing off my plate...

On the other hand, I spent Saturday afternoon at my critique partner's house along with two other writers working on city planning and timelines and characters for a Christmas anthology we're writing together. It was a blast and, man-oh-man, I just want to dive into my writing worlds and get lost for a while. Unfortunately, it'll be another couple of months until my contest is put to bed.

Hope you have a productive and pleasant week...


Wednesday, February 3, 2016

The power of a spreadsheet...


Do you use spreadsheets? Do you love them?

I do and I do. I have one labeled "The Master Spreadsheet of Stuff" and I keep track of all kinds of random information that I want to have available at the drop of a hat. Like my daily writing word counts, like how many words I've read and where those words came from. Remember those 13+ million words I read last year? This is a screen shot of a random section of that page. I used four columns and a few mathematical functions. My spreadsheet has about a dozen tabs, although some are previous years' info and are just there for occasional reference.


For the past three years (2016/2015/2014), I have run one of my writing group's two contests. Spreadsheets are a contest coordinator's best friend and (mostly) one-stop location to keep all the various data on hand and organized. Here's a peek at a random page of my contest spreadsheet. All personal information has been changed to generic filler.

The first fourteen columns hold entrant information: name, email address, book title, and assigned book number. Those columns on right side hold scores once they start coming back. In addition to rows and columns, I've utilized the power of fill color. The highlighted book titles (the wide column in the center) means that one author wrote both books. We try to refrain from sending judges more than one book by any given author. The brighter green at the top of those two columns just to the right of the book titles is just a visual indicator to me that every book has at least (in this case) two judges assigned. Our goal is five reads/five scores. So I've been working column by column.


Now, the other half of the spread sheet, the judges' half is a bit more colorful. You can see we've a got a bit of crossover because the scores are the crossover data. I won't bore you with explaining what all that color means, but suffice it to say, it's a handy to know where the contest stands at a glance.


As treasurer for my writing group, I have yet another spreadsheet that I use to track all the money. I have a tab for each category of income and expenses (membership dues, contest one, contest two, etc). A hand feature for this particular job is that I can reference cell data from one tab into another.

So, tell me, are you a spreadsheet junkie like me?


Wednesday, November 12, 2014

The Carolyn Readers Choice Award Contest, 2015


My writing group sponsors two writing contests a year. The Carolyn being one of them. And we need reader-only judges.


If you'd be interested in free romance novels of varying length in exchange for answering a few question about each book, then please sign up to judge. You can choose the number of books, the categories you prefer, as well as heat level. And if you have family or friends who may be interested, please pass along the info.

For more information and to sign up, visit the Carolyn Readers Choice Award Judge Info page.


Wednesday, February 26, 2014

What was I thinking?


So I took on my writing group's newest biggest project--a writing contest for published works. We had a former board member who suggested it, the board discussed it, and we (**I**) researched other similar contests and decided to go for it.

For various reasons, I then volunteered to be the coordinator. Luckily, our group has been sponsoring an unpublished works contest for many many years and we did not have to re-invent the wheel for most processes. The gal who has coordinated that contest for more years than not is still a member and has been an invaluable resource for me. She's also a dear friend--THANK YOU, ANGI MORGAN!

Anyway, Feb. 14th was the big moment for our contest--the closing to entries and the sending of same to the judges. It was a daunting task, assigning entries to judges and judges to entries based on the judges' preferred romance category and heat levels. I started with the categories that had fewer entries, but discovered I should have started with those that had more entries and more judges. Note made for the next coordinator.

Once I made sure I had final round judges selected and entry/judge assignments set as well as I could for my first time, it was time to email all the judges with the books. There were over 260 judges and over 130 entries. About half the possible entries and half the necessary judges if we'd had a full complement of entries. Some judges received more than one panel of entries.

I spent four days, as much time as I could spare or handle, emailing out book panels to the judges.

That's what happened to last Friday's post...I was busy and exhausted and just didn't get to it.

But the bulk of the work is done and it's all downhill from here. Thank goodness!

I've created FAQs, recommendations for next and future years, I've broken the jobs out into small chunks so hopefully others will take on some ownership and responsibility.

So my reward to myself for making it through last week is this purse:


I can hardly wait for it to arrive. I'm not really much of a purse person, in that I use them, and I'm picky about them, but I just have one. I don't have a closetful and I use the one until it falls apart and then I have to go in search of a new one. I hate that part.

Is it me or what??



Monday, February 24, 2014

Taking a breath and catching up...and considering the very near future.


The bulk of the work for my writing group's new contest (more on that Wednesday) is done.

I spent the weekend worried that there was something I should have been doing. I kept pondering what that might have been. I kept up with questions and judges acknowledging receipt of panels, but other than that, there wasn't anything that needed my undivided constant attention. Whew.

Instead, I puttered around the house. Something I haven't done in ages and it felt good and nice and a tad bit indulgent. I still kept thinking that some task for the contest needed doing, but I couldn't think of what aside from what I was already doing (see above).

Of course, I did the usual must-accomplish weekend chores: grocery shopping and laundry.

I also cleaned out a closet. It's practically empty now. Some stuff went straight in the bin, some went into the donation pile, one box had an assortment of old VHS tapes. I'd been wondering what had happened to Gone With the Wind! There were some other movie treasures in there that I think I can make some money from at some point, but that's a post and project for another day.

 The house still needs a good going over, though. Once I'm working part time from home, I plan on getting back to my old method of cleaning house (another blog post for later).

As for my future, a few weeks ago, I mentioned DD had talked about moving out by May when Sonshine graduates from high school. Then the plan sort of stalled for a few weeks. But it appears to be on again and the move-out date has been moved up to no later than mid-March. I mean, she packing her room up and making lists of must-have things for her new abode...

So soon I will have a bedroom to decide what to do with and then redecorate!

Here's what it sort of looks like now:

Yes, the ceiling and upper portion of the walls are that beige.
And then the lower part of the walls are pink...

...except the inside of the closet.
Which is still blue--from when Sonshine was little and used that room!

Sonshine has requested a guest room, though I'm not sure why since we rarely have guests that stay overnight. Well, except a random friend of his, but they usually end up crashing on the couch.

I guess it's time for a trip to Lowe's to look at their paint cards. I like the ones that show the rooms painted already rather than just the cards with variations on a shade.

Any suggestions for my new room?

Monday, February 17, 2014

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date...


..with my blog and my faithful readers!

Yesterday, I had every intention on working on a post for today, but my writing group's contest closed for entries and it's my job to sort the judges and assign entries. And so that's what I spent the majority of yesterday doing, along with my regular Sunday tasks like grocery shopping and laundry.

So dear blog readers, I have nothing much to share today other than I'm pooped and I cannot wait until "THIS" has passed. I have several things I'm waiting on to pass, but one day at a time...

Hope you had a lovely weekend and here's to a pleasant week.

Friday, January 3, 2014

The new year starts of with a bang!


We sold a record number of fireworks this season, though we won't get to enjoy much of the proceeds as we have a few things needing to be paid. But it's nice to have it to rely on. We were busy from noon to 11:30 PM on the 31st. No kidding. Had at least three customers in the store at any given time except for a short TEN SECOND stint at around 9:30 PM. It's not an exaggeration.

My writers group is sponsoring two contests and I'm knee deep in both of them.

The beginning of the month means a lot of work in the office. The beginning of the new year in addition to being the first of the month--ugh.

I even started my first book of the year--Coconut Oil Recipes: Nature's Remedy for Health, Beauty, Weight Loss, Allergies, & Detoxing by Scarlett Aphra. Free for the Kindle yesterday--maybe today, if you hurry. No guarantees.

Twenty-fourteen, here I come...

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

SPARK is subjective


I'm not an acquiring editor, though I wouldn't mind being one. I've submitted exactly one manuscript to an editor and received a rejection. As I said on Monday, the reason for rejection was because the editor didn't feel my manuscript fit the line I was submitting to. Which is fine, though she didn't say specifically how.

Over the years, a lot of authors, aspiring and otherwise have received rejections from agents and editors that really told then nothing except no. Reasons for rejections are generally vague at best and leave the writer frustrated and wondering what she might need to do to make her book wanted.

Sometimes, the answer really is nothing. Being an acquiring editor is, I think, a lot like judging a contest. You receive a slew of submissions and must read all levels of writing, from the beginner who is nowhere near ready to be published (that's what the contests are for) to the prolific writer who's been around the block a few times.

Since January, I've judged three RWA chapter contests with a total of sixteen entries. Of those sixteen entries, there have been two entries that I would have loved to have gotten my hands on the rest of the manuscripts. What was about them that made me cry out in dismay when I reached the end of the 25 pages I read?

It's that elusive thing I'll call SPARK. Some might say voice, but I can appreciate someone's unique voice without the writing sparking at me and making me want to read the whole damn book. In one sitting.

SPARK is subjective. What sparks for me doesn't spark for everyone.

And SPARK doesn't always equate to a higher score in a contest. Conversely, a higher score doesn't always mean an entry has that spark. That entry mentioned above--it didn't receive the highest score of the entries I judged.

The very last question on the score sheet for this last contest asks: After completing the selection, how much did you want to read more of the story? I get to answer by way of a number rating, 1 to 5. One being not very much and five being very much indeed.

The last couple of entries I read received relatively high marks from me overall. But when asked this last question, I'm compelled to rate them rather low. And why? Because, for me they didn't SPARK.

If you judge contests, are you a generous judge or a tough judge in terms of score? Do you give comments/feedback to the entrant?

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

It's raining, it's pouring...


And has been for almost 24 hours. We definitely need the rain and it isn't coming down so hard and fast that it's leaking into our office space as it is wont to do. I only I wish I could be enjoying it from home rather than my office. I'd curl up with a good book--next book to read is Blood Marriage by my lovely friend Regina Richards. (Can't wait, Regina!!!)--some music playing softly in the background and a never-ending supply of hot mint tea. (And possibly a sweet kitty curled up with me.)

This week, I am wearing my judge/beta reader hat. My writing group holds a contest each year as our primary fundraiser. I have five entries, one is completely done, one is almost done, and three to go. These contestants are going to get their money's worth in terms of feedback even if they don't like what I have to say.

I haven't quite finished outlining my goals, but I'm not sure what the plan is for the next item on the list: writing. I've had no desire to open my any of my manuscripts for several weeks and have given myself permission to continue ignoring them until the 19th. (The new charm/writing cycle begins the 20th.) That'll be two cycles in a row I haven't earned my charm. The coordinator tried to convince me I'd earned it last cycle, but I didn't feel like I had, so I wouldn't take it. I suppose I ought to figure out my problem in the next week or so, huh?

There's nothing else major on my goals for the upcoming year, just things I want to accomplish around the house and yard.

On that note, I'll sign off for the day!

What's your favorite way to spend a rainy day?

Friday, September 21, 2012

Keep on truckin'...


I've been wanting to share this for a while.


I see this old man almost everyday out walking his dog. This man has been out walking with his walker and his dog for at least six years as I used to see him when DD was in high school. It warms my heart to see him everyday. Never give up and never surrender, even to getting older.

Info on another novella contest has crossed my path. I'm going to enter A Snowball's Chance in Texas for sure, since it's finished (one of the stipulations of the contest). And I'd like to enter a second manuscript, but nothing else is finished so I have to determine if I can finish something else by November 1st.

If I can buckle down and finish Children With a Chance of Marriage by then, that would be awesome. Then I'd have the duet finished, too. But I'm afraid the story still needs some tweaking and I'm not sure what to tweak or how. *sigh* But tomorrow will have a couple of hours--after grocery shopping--devoted to writing.

Last night, I worked on the synopsis for Snowball. It still needs some work, but at least now I have something to work on/with.

I did go work in the garage last night and it despite it being the garage, I was blessedly alone and it was wonderful. Until everyone thought they needed to let me know they were leaving and when they got back. Can you just leave me a not eon the door please??? We're gonna talk about that.

And since it's Friday, I bid you a good weekend!!

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Contest Entry Returned

I received my contest entry back this morning times three--I had three judges, so three copies with comments. One judge was a published author.

Two of them agreed my main plot point was rather weak. Okay, good to know. I didn't think so, but I'm not that objective. The published author liked my writing style and voice. The third judge on the other hand, apparently didn't quite get my style as she marked me way down on the grammar section because of my use of incomplete sentences. Has she read a novel lately? Or listened to people talk or herself think? People use a lot of fragments in their speech and thoughts. Oh, well. That's fine.

So now I have some more work to do on this dratted WIP. Though I am going to wait until I have finished it completely. My goal is to have it complete, no matter how rough, by the 15th. Of course, now that I think about it, at the rate I'm going, that may not happen. But I have the weekend. I'll see how it plays out.

Fingers crossed!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Snoopy Dancing

Two of my critique partners finaled in our chapter's writing contest. Now they get to take a look at their first round critiques, make any changes they deem necessary and resubmit to the final round judge--an agent or editor.

I too entered the contest, Apparently no finalling for me, but that's okay. I wanted feedback more than I wanted to final.

On another exciting note, I helped one of my other CPs get her website up and published. It's probably not available yet, but the URL is www.lavenderdaye.com. (Just a warning, she writes erotic romance. There's nothing too erotic on the site, at the moment, except maybe the picture, but even that's tasteful. Well, I like it, anyway. :)

The weather is cloudy again and therefore warmer. My CP Lavender gave me a pedometer the other day and I wore it while I walked my morning blocks--@3740 steps yesterday and @4380 today. I read somewhere that you should take 10,000 steps a day. I wore the pedometer all day yesterday but only ended up with @5700, almost 5800 steps. And that was a busier than normal day for me. I guess I need to add that fourth block soon and the aerobics.

Well, time to get busy....

Monday, January 19, 2009

When it rains it pours...

Not an exact match for what's going on, but three weeks ago, I was bored silly. Didn't have much to keep me busy, everyone was absorbed in their preparation or recovery from the holidays.

Now I'm up to my eye balls in things to keep busy with.

I'm judging my writing chapter's annual contest. I normally enjoy judging. But I have a couple of entries I just don't know what to do with. One is pretty--I don't want to say bad, because we all have to start somewhere--but it's rough. And sometimes it's hard to find anything nice to say except, "Congratulations for that taking that step and entering the contest." But I focused on a couple of issues. And someone else can point out the rest.

I'm the new Web mistress for the chapter as well. And what an undertaking that is--I knew it was going to be, and was one of the reasons I actually ran for the position. I'm probably one of the few people in the chapter who has more than a passing knowledge of the back end of a Web site. And so it is now my job to clean it up. The gal who originally designed it--and we love the original design--had some extensive code *on every single page*. So my task is to clean up all the code and clean up the files. Yikes. When I first took over the updates, it was overwhelming--even for me. And all I had to do was one page. A minor change of information. There was sooooooo much extraneous stuff, I just didn't know where to start. Because I play with the code--I don't look at the design view, the what-it'll-look-like view--I saw all that gobbeldy gook and felt like a three year old told to clean her room. There was no way I could deal it. I had to recreate the page from scratch. Actually, create a template to use for all the pages. It took me two days to get all the pieces-parts to fit together properly. And then I began to systematically re-create each and every page with the cleaner, sleeker, slimmer page. Ahhh... it's so much better now. I've been waiting two years to get my hands on it. And now it's mine, all mine...

I'm also supposed performing a final read on a manuscript for an e-publisher. I made the mistake of reading the whole thing first--and know I don't want to go back through and mark all the errors...but I've got to. Argh...

Started watching The West Wing through Netflix. I can spend several hours in front of the tube there...

But I did get my employees W2s all taken care of. Finally. Whew.

Well, back to the NTRWA Web site...