God Bless our Troops!

That's really all I have to say today. My son-in-law is on another deployment, and my heart is really full of soft, motherly feelings for him (which would have him rolling his eyes since he's a big, tough guy, and all.) 

So I'm just flying the flag today ... for Ian. 

_______________________________

Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis

Celebrating!

A few hours ago, I hit "send" on an e-mail that's been a long time coming. My latest mystery proposal is now in my editor's in-box, and I'm thrilled. The book is tentatively called DEAD ON ARRIVAL, and it centers around Katie Scarlett O'Banyon, a cop in West Yellowstone, Montana.

As difficult as the waiting period is, I'm ready to let the work do what it was created to do. Whether she loves it or hates it, offers to buy it or rejects it, I know that I did my best and now is the time for me to stand still and let the work speak for itself. 

Meanwhile, I'm ready to really dig into that romantic suspense I've been moodling on forever -- a grittier book set along Florida's Emerald Coast. This book is still in its very early stages, so stay tuned for more details!

_______________________________
Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis

Do you Feel Lucky? Well, do Ya?

I don't enter many contests, whether they're writing contests or author contests, or name that tune contests, or any other kind. I'm not sure why. People tell me I have a strong competitive streak, and I'm reluctantly beginning to acknowledge they may be right. I'm not sure why the concept of being competitive packs such a negative connotation. Our country was built by competitive people. The American Dream is all about being competitive. But somewhere along the way, we began to lose sight of just what made us great. 

I'm not sure how or why it happened, but in the past few decades "we" started to think of competition as negative. Anyone who showed signs of being competitive was wrong--unless they were an adult male athlete. Then it was okay, I guess.  But heaven forbid we should teach our kids that there are rewards in this world for making the effort, and that life rewards action, not intentions. The collective "we" decided, in our infinite wisdom, that our kids' feelings were far too tender to survive not being the best, and we set about giving trophies to everybody for everything they ever did. I'm sure there are other components to the cultural cocktail we've been downing for the past 30 years or so, but the result is a society fueled by an attitude of entitlement. 

But I digress (as I often do.) This blog isn't about that.  This blog is about the fact that the other day, as I was writing away on my romantic-suspense-in-progress, a Tweet came in from the Attorney General of the state where I live. I'm not sure how he saw my name or why he started following me, but I decided turn-about was fair play, and I clicked the button to follow him back. Being the polite Tweeter I am, and all. 

Anyway, he sent me a nice, polite note about how he's running for senate in 2010, and I said, "aha! No wonder!" because, after all, my Tweets are hardly the thing a state's attorney general might want to be reading in the course of his day. 

Tuesday's Tweet from the AG contained a message about a trivia question of the day and announced that the winner would win an autographed cap. Boy howdy! My competitive nature clicked on before I could even fully absorb what the message said. I mean, nothing against our illustrious AG, but really, I don't wear caps much (or ever) so, you know, an autographed one isn't exactly the sort of thing I fall all over my feet to get. 

Unless, apparently, I'm sitting at my desk on a Tuesday morning dragging words out of my pores with tweezers in an effort to make my daily page quota. Apparently, under those circumstances, I'll trip all over myself to zing back an answer.  

Which I did. And then reality clicked on, and I laughed at myself because, really, I had no idea what I'd do with an autographed baseball cap.  

I told my kids about it, and we all had a good laugh, and that was that. 

Until Wednesday morning when I logged into Twitter and discovered a message that said "Congrats! @SherryLewis...." and went on to leave the impression that maybe I had won the trivia contest. I wasn't sure. The message wasn't completely clear, so I had another good laugh and went to work on my synopsis. 

A few hours later, when the synopsis bogged down in mud, I decided I really should follow through and fhind out whether I really won or not, so I sent Mr. S a private message and asked if his congratulatory message meant that I won, or if I was just one of many who sent in the right answer.  A few hours later, back came this message:  

You are the winner!! You get the cap! .... Congrats!

As you can imagine, this news was just too splendid to keep to myself, so I once again went through the round of phone calls with my kids. My youngest asserts that she should get custody of the cap for 6 months out of every year since she provided moral support in the early hours of the contest process.  

I contend that since the contest was apparently somewhat controversial (the AG/candidate is awarding a second hat to someone who might have beat my time, but who missed the win on a technicality because the park's name was changed 10 years into its history) the value of my winning cap has increased exponentially, and it's now way too valuable to entrust to the USPS or some courier service.  

But again I digress.  

Because I realized last night that this is my second contest win in just a couple of weeks. I was kicking around online one day and decided to check out my friend Michelle Monkou's blog. Lo and behold, she was holding a contest to celebrate her book Trail of Kisses. The prizes were goodies she'd picked up on a recent trip to England, and I thought what fun! and entered with a little "essay" about my critique group. A few days later, I found out that I'd won the random draw, so besides my autographed cap, I also have an autographed cover flat, a cotton tea towel featuring Warwick Castle (built in 1068) in Warwickshire, England, and a 2010 calendar from Stratford-on-Avon and Shakespeare's home heading my way.  

Is it any wonder I'm feeling lucky?  I wonder what's coming next??? 

_______________________________Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis

What's Your Myers-Briggs Personality Type?

I just took the Facebook version of the Myers Briggs personality test, and I'm a little surprised by the results. I took the Myers-Briggs test several years ago when I was working in the federal court system and the Clerks of Court arranged for specialists to administer the test to everyone who worked at the two different courts housed in the building. At that time, I came out a strong INFJ--introverted, intuitive, feeling, and ??? Judging? Yeah, I think that's it. Tonight, my results indicated that I'm an ENFP (Extraversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perception) The pop-up window with the results said:

You are warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. You see life as full of possibilities. You make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns you see. You want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. You are spontaneous and flexible, and often rely on your ability to improvise and verbal fluency. Famous people with your same ENFP personality include: Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Andy Kaufman, Bill Cosby, Robin Williams, Sandra Bullock, and Robert Downey Jr.

Now, maybe this is silly, and maybe it's not a real Myers-Briggs test. It seemed to be, but in this day of rampant online piracy, who can tell for sure? There were about 50 questions, and they were pretty similar to what I remember them being all those years ago at the federal courthouse. The point is, I'm not surprised that my results are different. I know I've changed since I took the test all those years ago. I've been through too many things, experienced too much, met too many people, had my perceptions of the world changed, and done things that have challenged my long-held beliefs about life, about reality, and about how things "should" be. (A nasty word, "should." I'm trying to ban it from my vocabulary. But I digress.) The point is that I think I'd be a pretty sorry kind of person if I'd done all that and remained exactly the same. I'm interested, but not really surprised, to learn that I've changed from someone who's introverted to someone who's extroverted. I always liked people, but it used to be that I needed a lot of solitary time to recharge the old batteries. Now . . . not so much. I may not be the life of the party yet, but I'm a whole lot more comfortable in social situations than I used to be. I'm also a lot more open to new information and opinions than I used to be -- a direct result of serving on the board of directors for RWA. If spending four years doing that job doesn't open a person to new information and opinions, I don't know what will. And now, I think I'll take my extroverted self off to bed. All this self-awareness has worn me out! _______________________________ Copyright © 2009 Sherry Lewis

Writing: A Magical Journey

I'm going to take a minute to plug my local chapter's upcoming conference for writers -- and not only because I'm going to be there, or because I'll be giving a workshop during the PAN/PRO sessions on rediscovering the joy of writing. I'm going to plug the conference because it's always a good time, always informative and, once again, this year's line-up of speakers is stellar. Besides that, Park City is an incredible place to be at any time of the year. Hope to see some of you there! _____

“Writing: A Magical Journey”

~~Romance in the Mountains~~ 2009 Heart of the West Writing Conference Romance Writers of America® Utah Chapter

October 9 & 10, 2009 at The Lodges at Deer Valley in Park City, Utah

Featured Author and Keynote Speaker Rachel Gibson New York Times Bestselling Author 2009 RITA Award Winner for Best Contemporary Single Title Romance Four of her novels were named among the top ten favorite books of the year by Romance Writers of America. Some of Rachel's other awards and achievements include The Golden Heart award, the National Reader's Choice, Amazon Editor's Top Pick, Publisher Weekly's Quill nominee and Borders bestselling romantic comedy for 2006.

Awards Luncheon Keynote Speaker RaeAnne Thayne Author of more than thirty books for Bantam Loveswept, Silhouette Intimate Moments/Romantic Suspense and Silhouette Special Edition. Awards include: 2009 RITA Finalist, and two previous RITA nominations.

Featured Editor Amanda Bergeron Avon Books, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Amanda Bergeron joined Avon in Fall 2008. Along with Executive Editor Erika Tsang and Editor May Chen she has worked closely with authors such as Lynsay Sands, Jeaniene Frost, Loretta Chase and Anna Campbell. She is looking to acquire all genres of romance, particularly Regency historicals and dark paranormals, as well as commercial women's fiction. http://avonromanceblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/four-things-amanda-bergeron.html

Featured Agents To Be Announced

Conference Registration is open between April 15, 2009 and October 6, 2009***

See Conference Highlights for details on: PRO/PAN Workshops Conference Schedule Pitch Appointments Author Panelists Extra Meal Tickets Miscellaneous Information

Authors Participating in Booksigning

Conference fee is $149 for URWA members and $165 for all others. To register, complete the online registration form. You may either pay via PayPal or check. Please see Registration and Fee Schedule to sign up. -OR- Make check or money order payable to: Utah RWA Mail check with a copy of your registration to: Utah Chapter of Romance Writers c/o Heart of the West Conference P.O. Box 997 West Jordan, UT 84084