Last Call For Our Latest Autographed Book Winners

ELLENTOO is the winner of one of Linda Conrad's books. Please email Michele at toastfaery@gmail.com, and state which book you'd like: Her Shiek Protector, or Covert Agent's Virgin Affair.

Anthea Lawson wins an advance copy of Michelle Willingham's SURRENDER TO AN IRISH WARRIOR!
LilMissMolly gets Margaret Mallory's KNIGHT OF PLEASURE.
Anthea and Miss Molly, please e-mail kathleen.eagle@comcast.net with your snail mail info.

Laney4's copy of Kathleen Eagle's IN CARE OF SAM BEAUDRY is in the mail!

Kathleen O is the winner of a signed copy of Million-Dollar Marriage Merger, by Charlene Sands. Please send your snail mail info to leannebbb @ aol.com (no spaces)

Great Contest For Writers - DUEL ON THE DELTA

Calling all writers! My local Romance Writers Of America chapter, River City Romance Writers is now accepting entries for their annual contest. 25 pages and NO synopsis. Well, you can send an optional 1-pager if you want but you don't have to!

Baby, it's cold out there. (The weather and publishing) Contests are a way to get your book in front of an agent or editor if you final. Being a contest finalist says, "My book is pick of the litter."

This is a great contest with good feedback and a great new score sheet, which I helped develop. ::Debra blushing demurely:: I'll also be coordinating the Paranormal category. Why do I say that? Well, because that means I'm going to be looking at and reading everything that comes in! That's like having an extra judge free! Plus I'm a first round judge in another category dear to my heart.

Here's a list of our final round judges:

Mystery/Romantic Suspense
Keyren Gerlach, Associate Editor, Silhouette Romantic Suspense

Contemporary (series)
Wanda Ottewell, Senior Editor of Harlequin Superromance

Young Adult
J.L. Stermer, Asst. Agent, Donald Maass Literary Agency

Paranormal
Deb Werksman, Sourcebooks, Inc

Historical
Deborah Nemeth, Editor, Samhain Publishing, LTD

Mainstream/Single Title
Margo Lipschultz, Associate Editor, Harlequin

Inspirational
Tina Colombo, Senior Editor, Love Inspired Historical and
Love Inspired Suspense, Harlequin

SO...what are you waiting for? Get the to the website and print out an entry form. (check the website menu on the left for clickable links to the entry form, last year's winners and scoresheet. Ya'll come! Entry deadline is 2/15. Got questions? Email me at:

BelleBooks AT Bellebooks DOT com

Debra - How I didn't win the Golden Heart

For most of us, writing is something we do because we must. It's not a choice. We are driven to put words on paper. Publication is obviously the goal, but I've found that people who ONLY write for publication rarely make it in this business. There are so many easier more secure ways to make a buck. Seriously.

I knew this. I wrote anyway. For eight years. Well, longer than that but who really counts a sequel to GONE WITH THE WIND written at age twelve? (Even at twelve, I was looking for the happily ever after and I wanted it on the page and not implied.) I wrote a gothic in college. I think it was 96 pages long. And awful. There were twins with switched identities, a fire, a secret passage, a governess and a emotionally damaged child. And very little dialogue.

"Are you...the new governess?"

"Yes...I am."

Did ANYONE hire governesses in the late 1970's? Or speak like a Barbara Cartland novel?

This was written for my own amusement. Never circulated (thank heavens!).

Then in the eighties I met someone who published romance novels. For the first time my brain woke up to the idea that maybe I should consider writing a published novel as a serious and achievable goal. ::gasp:: I read. I studied. I even managed to snag a NY agent. An editor was interested but then she left the publishing house before the manuscript was bought. (I had no idea that this was life in the publishing biz!) Then my agent (a well-credentialed big NY agent) wanted revisions. Big revisions. I was stupid. I said, "No, I don't think so."

I no longer had an agent. But I had learned two valuable lessons. "Don't count your contracts before they hatch." And, "You aren't *that* good." It was back to the trenches for me. I moved from the romance genre to the fantasy genre. My luck wasn't much better, or so I thought. I didn't know it at the time but my rejection letters were stellar. Brilliant, actually. But I didn't know anyone who wrote and submitted to publishers, so I assumed that everyone who submitted got 2 page rejection letters, single-spaced with tiny margins and "pity" invitations to submit more projects.

One day I got a letter from Carin Rafferty, a Harlequin author who was moving to town and wanted to start an RWA chapter. I blew her off twice (I wasn't actively writing romance) but when I got the third reminder of the organizational meeting, I grabbed a sweater and wandered down to the library. We had to tell a little about ourselves and I soon found out that my rejection letters weren't the pathetic responses I thought they were.

I signed up to participate in a critique and got a phone call from Carin. She said that if I was serious, and I wouldn't cry, whine or procrastinate...then she'd work with me one-on-one. To this day I have no idea how she made it through that first manuscript we worked on. She knew it was unpublishable. By the time I'd finished it, I knew it too. I put it away and begin a romance about a woman whose editor sends her back to her hometown in the west to write a story about an adventure vacation cattle drive. Cowboys, cattle and westerns, Oh My!

I'd tapped into one of the strong story genres that publishers like to see in new authors. I didn't know a western was smart. I just knew it was a great story for me. I entered it in the Maggie contest. I didn't final. I did get a note from one of the judges who asked me to come see her at the conference. The lovely Sandra Chastain, now dear friend and business partner, introduced me to agent # 2 and said, "You have to sign this girl. She has amazing talent."

Okay, I added the word "amazing" but Sandra did literally introduce me to every agent at the conference which secured a private appointment with each of them. My new agent didn't ask for revisions but I would have done them! While she was sending the book out, I entered the Golden Heart and FINALED! The Loveswept editor who had requested a revision of my book was the final round judge! Oh, frabjous joy!

I did not win. When introduced to the editor at the conference, she said, "Why on earth did you enter the unrevised version of the book in the GH???" However, shortly after the conference, my agent called to say that editor loved the revision and wanted to offer a 2 book contract. I'm not sure what was said other than that I accepted. I hung up, then I sat down in the middle of my den floor and stared at the phone.

An editor had bought TALL, DARK AND LONESOME.

Next I told the dogs, while I was dialing my hubby, and after telling/screaming the news at him, I began dialing the whole Eastern seaboard--one number at a time. My mother arranged (unbeknownst to me) to buy the original art for my first book as a Christmas present that year.

Very quietly, without a lot of fanfare and a moderately expensive long-distance phone bill, the direction of my life changed. I became an 8 year over-night success.

How about you? What's the best contest you didn't win?? Who's offered you a helping hand along the way?

Kathleen says: You Can't Win If You Don't Enter

News flash!
I did not win the HGTV Dream House. I entered, and I didn't win. I never win anything. From where the sun now stands, I will not waste another precious moment entering contests.

"You can't win if you don't enter" is the current contest motto. We Boomers are first generation tube babies--TV, not test (unless you're talking test pattern). So we know contests. We go back to "The Price Is Right" in black and white. It was one of my parents' faves. (Did you know there's a Bill Cullen fan site? He's been dead since 1990, in case you were wondering.) Back then there was a grand prize for the folks at home--a Newww House!--and people sent in their bids (closest without going over) on postcards. Enter as often as you like. Daddy used to say that somebody had to win, and he always sent in a couple of post cards. He had the same philosophy about Publisher's Clearing House. What have you got to lose besides a stamp?

Nowadays it doesn't even cost a stamp. You could spend all day entering sweepstakes online. I suspect some people do. The ubiquitous author web site contest is, we truly believe, one way to bring in visitors and ultimately get people to try our books. We figure that discovering a new author is the true prize for our guests.

Daddy never won the Grand Prize, but he stuck to his contest philosophy and stuck on a lot of stamps. A little optimism never hurts, right? Daddy was a pilot--20-20 vision--but a little cock-eyed in the optimism department. A true romantic. So I got to thinking: his daughter--chip off the ol' block--says she never wins anything. Is this really true? I think part of my E-Bay addiction (I've all but kicked the habit, thanks be to the 12 steps) was that I kept "winning" auctions. But I NEVER win any of those raffles, drawings, sweepstakes . . . do I?

Well, I searched the house today, and I re-discovered some winnings. The Arthur Amiotte print is a biggie. I taught with Arthur years ago, and his prints are sold in the Mount Rushmore gift shop. He has a painting in the National Gallery. He donated the print to the senior class (back when I was teaching) and I won. I'm sure I didn't buy too many tickets. (I'm cheap.) Clyde won the gorgeous Ojibwa basket in a raffle many years ago. And my granddaughter won Paul, the anatomically correct boy baby, in a grand-opening toy store drawing.

So, see, Kathleen? Stop whining. Plus, you've got your Parade of Ladies. We've been talking about the RITA contest lately, and I've always felt that it's part lottery, part award. It's a contest--you can't win unless you enter--but it's judged. The lottery part comes in drawing the right judges. We all know there's a certain amount of luck involved. So I say, when you're a finalist, you're a winner. For the 20th anniversary (2001) RWA decided to inaugurate the Rita pin--silver for finalist, gold for winner--and they gave them retroactively that year. Nora got so many, she wore them on a Girl Scout-style sash, but the rest of us pinned them to our nametags. Mine are still there. (The silver ones do tarnish.) I'm very proud of each one, but the gold one is special. It stands for the grand prize, forged in the same foundry that produces Oscar. The big girl's plume broke off--be careful, Helen; it's fragile--but otherwise, she still glistens. On the right side of the picture is my Golden Heart, awarded 1983, different from the modern version.

Oh, and on the left for contrast is my usual kind of prize: I won the pearls in an oyster drawing at the Maui Dive Shop. Then I had to pay to have the shop make them into earrings on the spot.

You can't win this prize--an autographed copy of 2006 RITA finalist RIDE A PAINTED PONY (prequel to MYSTIC HORSEMAN (link goes to my web site))--unless you enter by posting a comment here before midnight CDT Sunday April 6. But you won't pay a penny if I draw your name from the posts made to this blog. All you'll have to do is trust me with your home address. I promise not to call on you. And I swear I'll get your prize into the mail in a timely manner.

Are you a contest junkie? Can you pass up a prize drawing box without filling out an entry and stuffing it in the slot? Do you enter raffles "just to make a donation"? What's the best prize you ever won? And what about those contest scams? Any words to the wise?

P.S. I've just entered the HGTV Green Home Giveaway. I have a good feeling about this one.

Debra - Grading On the Curve

That's what we do. Grade what we see. Our experience. Our work. The work of others. (Which is way more fun. Usually.)

A thousand times a day we make quiet little judgments that steer our course. We toss a pebble and the ripple rocks a stranger. Often we aren't aware that we've made a rippling micro-decision. Other times we know what we decide will make a difference.

Judging contest entries by unpublished writers is one of those jobs that will rock strangers, perfectly lovely people who'd might not have ever entered a contest before and have just handed me their baby. Every time I agree to judge I swear I will be better. More lenient. Less blunt. And then the entries come and know that I can only be me. It's not an easy job. (Constructive judging, not being me.) Especially when a contest has a complicated score sheet, not a simple 1-10 scale. Instead of one judgment, I have what seems like millions.

Oh, I don't say evil things like, "A writer? Who you kiddin? Go back to day care." Nor to I subscribe to the hurtful useless Queen of the obvious remarks like, "I've never seen a more convoluted mess of a scene masquerading as a plot and so little understanding of grammar. Have you read a book or been to school at all?"

I don't subscribe to the theory that there is only one way to construct a book or a character. Every book is different. I have to remind myself that some books simply aren't books which will score well in contests but are fabulous books nonetheless. I probably value voice above all. And I've never given a critique that says, "Get that GMC book by Debra Dixon."

Sunday, I grabbed my large stack of entries, fluffed my favorite pillows, prepared to do my duty. I'd done several entries on planes recently but I still had over 10 to plow through. Critiquing is hard work. Start to finish, including my notes, it's about two hours per critique for me. Rare is the entry that you can simply lose yourself in their work, zoom through, and can award a perfect score. Also rare is the genuinely butt-ugly manuscript, especially in an RWA contest of some sort.

For my money, give me the fabulous entry or the awful entry. Give me a brilliant but fundamentally flawed manuscript. Anything but the middle-of-the-road-don't-hate-it-don't-love-it-perfectly-competent manuscript. This is such an industry of fairy dust. A writer needs something more than competency. For the awful manuscript an experienced judge can usually find something to suggest that will genuinely improve the manuscript. We can offer a light bulb moment. For the fabulous entry we can offer the kind of genuine delight in their work that might buoy them along in the hard times as they keep knocking on doors.

But what can you do for the competent manuscript? Writers will shoot you if you tell them, "Find your voice." "Bring something fresh to the table." "We don't fully connect with your characters."

Those are big rocks to throw and the fix always depends on the writer, the book, the genre. Not something I find easy to do in a contest entry scoresheet.

What are the critiques you hate to give? Which ones have you hated to get? For anything, not just writing. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.