Summer's over for me....Boo Hoo...

So now that summer is over I feel like I can start my old routine again.  The kiddo goes to school and I get about an hour of writing in before I go to work, etc. During the summer I slept in until I had to go to work. Only writing I did was after work on most days.  My days off the kiddo was home, so I was easily distracted.

This summer we went to the condo for about 4 days or so, and no it is never long enough.  I keep trying to get the hubby to take more than two days off of work, but it never seems to happen.  The beach was great though and I can't wait to go back.

Another great summer moment was when Liz Pelletier (Entangled Publishing) came down for the weekend to teach a day long class. I love, Liz. She's pretty awesome. She also invited me to write a short story for a submission call they are putting out soon. I wrote it in 4 days. LOL  Maybe submission requests are they way to go for me.

Then I went to Atlanta in July to RWA National. There were about 9 Sola-RWA chapter mates there, and we all got together for lunch one day and breakfast another day.

I attended several classes, but I missed many of them too.  Seems self-publishing was the biggie this year, and that's great, but I'm still working on my craft. I took lots of craft classes. I'm still learning my voice right now, which I'm thinking is pretty simple. No flowery prose at all.  I say what I gotta' say and get out. Sometimes its more telling, though I do work hard to show when needed.

While at RWA I decided I know what I want when I grow up.  I want my book covers on elevator doors. Those elevator covers were just too cool! And Sylvia Day had drink coasters in the bar with her books and name on them. Whoa. Now that was a great idea. Mostly everyone hung out at the bar.

I got to chat with Barbara Vey, Jade Lee, Laura Bradford, Pamela Clare, (and her cute audio guy, Kaleo.), Sabrina Jeffries, and we even sat next to Nora Roberts once. Yes. I was an amazing time. And for the Rita/Golden Heart awards my buddy Devon Alexander and I got to sit with some amazing talented people.

 So where is my name you ask....Well, we sort of just sat down, and then realized we were crashing Table #64. We leaned over and asked two ladies who happened to be The Librarian and Bookseller of the year, Cathy and Sarah if someone was sitting there, and they said nope. LOL They said Devon and I where there guest. Sweet, huh. Congrats to these wonderful ladies...They rock!


So what did I learn from the conference? The number one thing was to write the next book.  Series sell better on Amazon. Readers still love paperbacks as much as e-readers.

So what did I do all summer on the writing front? Well I wrote a short novella in less than a week as I mentioned above. And I'm working on another short contemporary set in a small Louisiana town set in the Bayou. I'm still playing around with my witch novel, but it's been the hardest book to write.  Maybe because I re-wrote it 3x's and it's telling me enough.(Never)  I also got a new critique partner. And I hope she'll push me to do my best. She's already doing really awesome, but she has lots more on the way. I'll do my best to help her as best I can too. :-)

I hope you had a great summer. I would love to hear what you did or still doing.

Hugs,
Dawn Chartier