Lisa Hendrix

Raisin Brahms!

Enjoy!

via Boing-Boing

Visit us over there, where we’re all revealing our favorite conference moments:

http://rosecityromancewriters.blogspot.com/

Sometimes, people say things in a way that make me laugh or cry. Things that make my heart sing. Things that I would like to have said myself, or that I have said, but not nearly so well.

Toni McGee Causey did all that and more this morning over at Murderati. Go read.

I’m immersed in the bliss of a deadline.  Where will you find your joy today?

Okay, maybe not.  But here’s someone who did, and it’s fun to see how he did it. Since there’s a scene in IMMORTAL WARRIOR in which the the serfs at Alnwick spend a rainy day in the hall making spoons, I was interested to see this authentic recreation of the process, and I hope you are, too.

When I was a kid, I was so jealous of my older male cousins and their pocket knives that I nagged my Grammie into giving me one.  I immediately started “whittling” — not well, but enthusiastically, and there’s still a part of me that wants to carve something wonderful from wood.  (Note to self: Add to Life List)

How about you?  Did you ever carve/whittle?  What did you want to do as a kid that you haven’t done yet?  Have you put it on your Life List?

(via Boing-Boing)

PS:  Okay, I’m going to come clean.  I originally went to Boing-Boing’s post because the title that came up on my RSS feed was “howto-make-a-viking.” Now there’s a worthwhile project…

I’m on Facebook, both with a Profile — that place to conglomerate your Friends that everyone’s supposed to have — and with a Page, a relatively new venue that’s more Fan oriented. Pages are for celebs, poiticians, restaurants, places, sports, etc.

The problem is, there’s no way (or at least no obvious way) for people to find your Page unless they already know it’s there (unless, of course, you throw money at Facebook Ads…hmmm).  So, I’m trying a work-around, via the following contest, which has been posted on both my Profile and Page.  Now you, Gentle Reader, can get in on it, too — at least if you’re on, or want to be on, Facebook.

Here’s the deal:

Invite 10 or more of your (non-mutual) Facebook Friends to become Fans of my Page, and you’ll automatically be entered to win an autographed, bound ARC of my upcoming book, IMMORTAL WARRIOR. All you have to do to enter is send out a Facebook Message and include me, Lisa Hendrix, in the recipient list along with those 10 or more other names (I have to be your Friend in order to include me). Next Saturday, August 23, 2008, at noon, I will post the winner’s name in my Page Notes and ship the ARC off Priority Mail just as soon as she or he sends me the address.

So get those fingers typing. Remember, invite them to my Page (not my Profile):

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lisa-Hendrix/18625590885

Thanks much for your help.

And for you writer types: I will let you know how well this worked, also on Notes

Addendum: The contest is open to anyone who is or *becomes* a Lisa Hendrix Page Fan before the deadline. In other words, if you join as a new Fan on the Lisa Hendrix Page, even as a result of being invited by someone entering this contest, you can invite your friends, too, and be eligible to win the ARC. Just be sure to follow the entry instructions above.

So, Wednesday, I had a dinner meeting with a local group of writers, and they asked those of us who had gone to RWA to give a brief rundown of what we’d seen & heard. Easy, right?

Uh, no.  Apparently, my brain fell out somewhere along Highway 1—probably slid out the window on one of the hairpin curves and tumbled over the cliff into the Pacific—because I literally could NOT remember more than two of the workshops I’d attended.  In fact, if hard pressed, I would have sworn I didn’t attend more than three. I think it was the usual conference exhaustion followed by the immediate application of serious lazy vacation that did me in. Somewhere between Jenner and that beach horseback ride I mentioned last time, I stopped caring.

Now, fortunately, I’m a champion note taker—modified Cornell style, multiple colors of pens, fast and efficient summarizer—because I was able to learn that I’d actually taken six full workshops and popped in on several more between appointments. I applied those summarizing skills I just mentioned and let the other writers know what they’d missed.  Now, in the interest of memory preservation, I’m going to give you the most important/striking points from each of the full sessions (after the jump). Read the rest of this entry »

I finally caught my breath, I think.  It’s taken me this long to decompress from conference.

That’s mostly due to the fact that I was away for just shy of two weeks. My daughter and I went down early to visit old neighbors who now live in the Bay area.  Last January or so, they invited the girl child to go on a week-long vacation with them. They planned to visit Yosemite, then take a few days at one of the lakes to do some boating. I was supposed to house sit while they were gone, take care of their cats, etc., and then mosey over to SF for the conference after having 5 days of peaceful writers retreat.

Not.

Due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, including *two* Read the rest of this entry »

The RWA National Conference ended Saturday evening with the presentation of the Rita and Golden Heart awards, and people are bugging me about why I haven’t posted a conference wrap up yet.  Well, I’m driving up the coast on the amazing and amazingly slow Highway 1 with my darling daughter, riding horses on some beaches and combing others and generally letting the world pass by while we have fun and eat junk food. I found WiFi tonight and turned on the computer with good intentions, but you know what?  Y’all can just wait.

I’m laying here in bed at a friend’s house in Dublin, CA, enjoying a final few moments before the week of craziness begins.  In  a couple of hours, I’ll hop on BART and—with a stop to meet my buddy Sheila Roberts at the Oakland BART station—head for downtown San Francisco and the RWA National Conference.  I’m taking advantage of these last restful moments because I know what a madhouse conference will be.

Not only is the conference itself packed with wonderful workshops and speakers (for some of whom I intend to turn total FanGrrl), but every moment in between is full of teas, dinners, cocktail parties, drinks, editor and agent appointment, and various casual sit-downs, not to mention all the friends you bump into in the lobby.

The official start of conference action is the Library and Bookseller event, which for the L&Bs begins Wednesday morning with workshops and presentations, but which for us author types begins mid-afternoon when we get to meet and schmooze with all those lovely folks. They’re both our heroes and our biggest supporters, and we love them to death–literally, you’d think by the amount of stuff we force into their hands with the hope of endearing ourselves to them, and thus to their patrons. The whole thing gets so overwhelming (500+ published authors and maybe 100 of the L&Bs) that some wise soul at RWA decided to split up the authors into three batches this years. We’ll take shifts, and the theory is that it will be less traumatic for all.  And we may even be able to talk to each other.

The unofficial start for me, however, is the squeal as I see Sheila at BART this afternoon, followed shortly thereafter by the squeal as I see Debbie Macomber, whom we’re meeting for tea at ___ (you don’t really think I’m going to tell you where, do you?).  I’ve actually known Debbie longer than Sheila*, and consider her a mentor as well as a dear friend. We used to be in the same chapter of RWA, but because I’ve moved and she now winters somewhere warm (not telling you that either), we haven’t seen each other in several years.  It’s going to be great to sit down with her, and I’m sure I’ll be laughing within minutes. And knowing Debbie, it may just be the most informative hour I spend at conference. It’s certainly one of the things I’m looking forward to the most.

The other thing I’m looking forward to is the annual Readers for Life Literacy Autographing, which I talk about here (and a bunch of other places, too, but I won’t bug you with them, since you can learn everything you really need to know HERE).

Whether you’re a reader or a writer, I hope to see you at one or the other of these events.  If you spot me, say hi and introduce yourself.

* I can keep track because shortly after I met Debbie, she asked me to help her with a computer problem.  As I worked, she bounced my 5 mo-old baby boy on her hip.  He’s now 17, 6′2″, and totally unbounceable.  I met Sheila the following year.

Apparently so.  Today is my regular monthly blog slot at Rose City Romance Writers.  The topic of the month is research, which could be boring, but has turned out not to be at all.  What’s most interesting to me is how differently each person approaches both the topic and the research itself. Pop on over and check it out. I promise we won’t bite.