I have had a busy summer. So busy that I completely abandoned my blog. Here is a re-cap of what I’ve been doing for the past several months.
The day after the last day of school for my kids, June 10, we drove to Portland and flew to Alaska to visit my family. While I was there, I got to do a workshop with my mother at the Big Lake Public Library. It was really my mother’s workshop, but I was able to share about RoboTales and our art contest.
The day I returned from Alaska, I went to the Pacific Northwest Association of Church Libraries in Vancouver, Washington. I taught a workshop there on middle grade and teen books for libraries.
A few weeks later, I traveled to the One Year Adventure Novel Summer Workshop in Olathe, Kansas. I taught several workshops, two with my friend Stephanie Morrill. I also revealed the cover for King’s Folly here first.
The start of July took me to the Nazarene Youth Conference in Louisville, Kentucky as a chaperone for six teens from our youth group. This is where I discovered Rend Collective and For King and Country, my two new favorite bands.
Two weeks later I attended the YOU Lead Women’s Ministry Leadership Conference in Boise, Idaho with some ladies from my church. We attended several inspiring workshops. Two of my favorites were one on different generations and one on different spiritual gifts. The day after the YOU Lead conference, we went to Beth Moore Living Proof Live. It was amazing. I learned so much that day.
August started out with Realm Makers. Realm Makers is a writers conference organized by the Faith and Fantasy Alliance. It was a lot of fun. I got to attend a class by David Farland. I enjoyed his teachings on how he helped to make Harry Potter, Twilight, and Fablehaven into the successes they are. He also taught Brandon Sanderson at BYU.
I hung out with six Enclave Publishing authors (formerly Marcher Lord Press) and the publisher/owner Steve Laube. My friend John Otte was unable to attend, so I reinvented my Stephanie head-on-a-stick for him! I got to meet many people I’ve always wanted to meet, like author Kerry Nietz, cover designer Kirk DouPonce of DogEared Design, author Donita K. Paul and her daughter Evangeline Denmark, and author Robert Liparulo.
I also met up with some OYANers, some Go Teen Writers peeps, my agent, and some dear friends. I recommend you spec fiction writers out there think about attending Realm Makers 2016.
Right after Realm Makers, I attended the Oregon Christian Writers Summer Coaching Conference. I taught a night owl pitch lab, in which conferees learned several different ways to pitch their book idea, then broke up into groups to practice them. I also got to do mentor sessions, meet lots of old friends, meet Jane Kirkpatrick, and my editor friend Becky Miller. I was also surprised and honored with the Trailblazer Award, which is given each year during the Cascade Awards to an author “who has distinguished him/herself in the field of Christian writing.” Apparently OCW thinks that’s me! I was so surprised and honored that I cried and babbled on stage. Sounds about right, huh? *wink*
August brought many forest fires to the Northwest, including a big one to my small town of John Day/Canyon City. The fire was called the Canyon Creek Complex. It began on August 12, started by lightning. It destroyed at least 39 homes, some belonging to people I know. Over 900 firefighters have been living in our small town of 2000 for nearly a month. The local fairgrounds has been a tent city for weeks, but today as I went on my jog, I noticed that most the tents are gone. The fire that burned 110,422 acres is 90% contained now and personnel is down to just over 200. I am so thankful to all the volunteers who helped to put contain this fire, save homes, donated to those who’ve lost homes, and that no lives were lost in this fire.
And at the start of September, my kids went back to school, I tried to catch up to all the things I was so far behind on. But I had bought my husband tickets to Weird Al for his birthday, and the conference was September 4.
And most recent is the water problem. Some ten days ago, we noticed a puddle of water on the sidewalk in front of our house. There had been no rain, and nothing was dripping off the roof. My husband dug a hole and discovered a gushing leak underground. We called the water guy, and he said we were leaking a gallon a minute! So we shut off the water and have been doing without. Sort of. We are fortunate to live next door to our church. So we shower and do our dishes at the church where there is hot water, do our laundry in the empty parsonage house, and use the bathroom facilities at the annex house next door. It’s been a challenge some days, but things could be much worse. Finally today the men came out to do what was necessary, which is to dig up the front yard and see where the pipe goes, then call the plummer to replace it. Here’s a picture I took this morning.
As you can see, life has been pretty busy. I’ve also had edits come on King’s Folly, have been hard at work on King’s Blood (book two), and published RoboTales (official announcement coming soon).
How about you? What have you been up to lately?
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