My Exciting Good News!

Wow...Congrats!

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SC, she doesn't go psycho. She's very rational about it. It's a comedy, so that might explain it a bit. The humor is precisely in her plotting and planning and then things going wrong anyway.

As for that "fourth place" comment, I'll have you know the three of us who are runners-up have no numerical placement (no second, third, or fourth). We're just all bunched together as three runners-up. (So there.)

Last time, some of the runners-up were approached by other publishers, and I know Jenkins said that the guy who came in third (they *did* place people in that contest) had a good shot of being published in the secular world. So, apparently I wasn't the first person to enter something not specifically "religious." We were judged on quality of writing, etc., but not necessarily how "Christian" it was.

Honestly? I used the contest deadline to force myself to finish the first draft. That's all. I literally didn't expect to hear anything after that. When my instructor casually asked if that was my name he heard at the winners' ceremony at their conference, I was sure he'd gotten it wrong. Took me nearly a week to find out for sure that he was right.

I hope to start agent-shopping next week.

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Linda's Author Website
Linda's Amazon Author page

Sorry, sorry, sorry, all I remembered (didn't go back and reread the first post) was that there was a four somewhere. I figured it was more of a comedy, it's just that the idea of a non-religious book about someone who's planning to kill their husband being a runner up in a Christian writing contest was funny to me, thus my ideas spun off out of orbit. Nothing new.

I was funnin' wit' ya. It might be better to think of it as a writing contest first, but also then Christian. Their main goal is to get Christian writers out there and to discover new talents, publishable talents.

Now that the novel's no longer under the restriction of the contest, I'll be marketing it to secular publishers first. It'll fit better there.

Oh, okay. I don't know much about Christian books and all, but I wouldn't have thought a book dealing with someone who wants to kill somebody would work in such a contest without like a Christian message somewhere. I mean, perhaps you did get a message through in it, but, I dunno, I'd imagine it would have to have... I dunno, church scenes, God talk, Biblical references... something like in Diary Of A Mad Black Woman (which is NOT a good thing to compare your book to, I know - but Madea still rocks) but in that movie, a woman gets some serious revenge on her ex-husband while taking care of him after he's been shot and she does things like throw him into a bathtub real hard, hurts him up real bad like you know she just wanted to kill him, and then in the next scene they're at church, they're singing, a miracle is about to happen, that kind of thing.

My mother is part of CWG. She was just recently at the conference in Colorado. ANyways, BIG congratulations. That's a very big thing.

The Christian writer's market is branching out. Frank Perreti writes almost gothic like horror novels, Francine Rivers wrote a book about a prostitute in which the prostitute was the main character and not an object of pity. I personally love the work of Bodie and Brock Theone who wrote a couplw amazing series on Europe before WWII, the Zionist movement and the creation of Israel. The first one si a prequel series called The Ziob Covenant. There's a big move in the market from Elizabeth Elliot's stuff to more contemporary and secular friendly work (which is a good thing).

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I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
T.S Eliot, "Preludes"

Wow, cool. That's the conference where it was announced. My instructor was there and thought he heard my name, and asked me later if I'd placed that high. I didn't have clue what he meant since I wasn't at the conference.

Apparently Jerry Jenkins mentioned my title in one of his Thick-Skinned Critiques as his favorite title of all the entries. Yay me.

Is your mom taking one of their courses? I'm at the Journeyman level and my instructor is novelist Doug Hirt.

Sexy Celeb, I think the message I got through was, "Don't try to kill your husband unless you've seen at least three seasons of CSI."

My mother has been doing the course for a while, about two and half years. She's very busy, raising four children and all that jazz. Her mentor is John Perrodin ( I am pretty sure,I'd have to go check our christmas cards)

I agree with what you added above, ATG. I'm still going to market this piece in the secular market, though, because I think it fits there better. But the other two novels I'm working on would fit better in the Christian market. My dilemma is agents. I will probably start with secular agents and see how that goes.

Yes, John Perrodin is a mentor there, so unless you'd have heard his name for other reasons, he's probably your mom's mentor.

Yeah I checked. Agents are difficult, especially when there is the possibility for cross-marketing in the future. I'll look forward to buying your book though!

One thing I learned was that, if I want to eventually publish in the secular market, it's better to *start* there. It's apparently harder to start in the Christian market and then find success in the secular, than it is to start secular and meander into the Christian market.

Which is another reason I'm starting my agent search in the secular side. I've started jotting down names and should start my research in the next few weeks. First, though, I have to get this novel tidied up a bit. It's a mess.