We apologize for the technical difficulty...

...but the winner of the latest book giveaway will be chosen tomorrow (the 12th).

You see my hubby has been working crazy hours - 75 this week. He usually wakes up anywhere from 3:15-4:15 am and works until around 7 or 7:30 pm.

He had to be at work at 4am and made it home by 3pm (nice short day!). I was out with a friend when he got home. By the time I walked into the house (4:30 pm) he was already passed out in bed. It's now 6pm and he hasn't moved. I'm pretty sure he'll sleep until tomorrow morning.

With all of this happening it would be very difficult for him to help pick a winner! So we'll do that tomorrow, k?

Thanks for understanding!

Potentially Encouraging (if you're that kind of person)

This next bit of news has the power to cripple or encourage you. I hope you'll go for option #2, cause here's the info:

Did you know it took Tolkien 16 years to write the Lord of the Rings books? And it took Peter Jackson eight years to get all three movies onto the screen. Who do you know that will argue in defense of these works as being subpar, or mediocre works?

I really don't have anything to complain about, considering I got my first draft down in six weeks and only worked on revising it for a couple of months before realizing I have a lot more to learn. Taking a couple of years doesn't sound nearly so bad anymore.

Tackling the Tower

Okay...I've been doing my daily writing (mostly). I've been reading my craft and genre books. But I really need a break! Without the distraction of working on my novels I'm sort of...blah. I didn't think it would be so hard to set those aside, but I want to jump back in (patience grasshopper).

To give myself a break I'm doing what needs to be done: organizing my receipts.

AUGHGHGHGGHGH!!!!

Yep. It's usually not that big of a deal, but when I got married I inherited my hubby's accountant. I was fine going through life paying taxes and not itemizing anything. That so doesn't work with a former business owner. And I guess I'm thankful, since I started actually getting paid for some of my writing I'll probably want to start claiming things.

But that puts a kink in my system. Now I have to go back through everything and find all of my writing receipts. Which really won't be too hard since I haven't actually filed anything since ... anyway.

Okay, I'm off now. I think I throw LOTR into the DVD player and get to work. If I'm not back by Friday, send in pizza.

More free books can be YOURS!

I was going to do this last week, but I didn't want to take attention away from Jill's great book (did I mention that "By Darkness Hid" is a fabulous story?).

So I'm sending out another freebie this week - yeah! This week I have a two-fer: two fer the price of one!

Here's the story behind these books. With people worried about finances and jobs I know there will be a lot of folks who can't attend writing conferences this year. That breaks my heart! I've learned so much at Write-To-Publish and ACW that I wish I had a way to share all of the info with y'all. But since I can't do that, I'm going to do something that I hope will be just as fun!

Both conferences I attended gave away free books. In order to win one you had to write a blurb saying why you deserved a free book. My explanation (at both conferences) was simple: I want to give a book away to someone who doesn't have the chance to attend a conference this year.

And now's my chance! I have two books here: "The Official Soccer Mom Devotional: A Book of 50 Brief and Inspiring Devotions" by Lynne Thompson and "Fractured Parables: And Other Tales to Lighten the Heart and Quicken the Spirit" by A. Kenneth Wilson.

My hubby and I will read through your comments on Saturday (July 11th) and pick a winner to receive BOTH books! Just let us know:

Why do YOU deserve a free book?

Would You Read It?

I'm obsessed with opening lines. (You may have already realized that). Because of this new hysteria I've been thinking about the opening line for novel #2 (that one that I will be revising after I complete my 2nd month of continued education).

In a nutshell: #2 is about a self-centered woman who things men are the problem in her relationships until all of her relationships (friends and family) fall apart and she does some soul searching. (Women's fiction with humor and romance)

Would this hook you:

I hate breaking up with boyfriends, but it beats the alternative.

Thoughts?
****************************************************************************
MODIFIED:

I hate breaking up with boyfriends, but it sure beats marrying them.

I'm Ruined

I can't read novels anymore.

After two craft books and two conferences I sat down to read a novel and I couldn't do it. The first sentence bored me. The first two pages were back story and by the fourth page I had picked out three or four blurbs of telling.

I would like to thank Jeff Gerke and "The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction" for my demise. Without his fabulous book (which includes samples to help you identify those mistakes) I might have enjoyed my novel in ignorance. Instead, I'll be taking Dr. Dennis Hensley's idea and taking a colored pencil to the pages to highlight the telling, the back story, and hopefully also some good dialogue and description.

And so I turn to another craft book, because that novel isn't getting read anytime soon.

And the winner is...

Edna - Congratulations!!

Thanks to everyone who visited - this is the first giveaway I've done where everyone who left a comment was new! I hope you enjoyed meeting Jill, and I KNOW you'll love "By Darkness Hid".

If you're interested learning more about Christian speculative fiction you can visit Marcher Lord Press (Jill Williamson's publisher) or Where The Map Ends (run by the same publisher).

Stop by at the end of the month for a chance to win another book.