Loads of prizes up for grabs!

This week is the final week of the Minxes' Birthday Bash. Up for grabs this week are a copy of Sally Clements' Catch Me a Catch, which was shortlisted for the RNA's Joan Hessayon award, and also a RIVA! bag made by Minx Lorraine.

Grand Prix Contest

In order to enter the Grand Prix contest, you'll need to be a follower of the Minxes Blog, and the question you need to answer is simple: How old is Minxes of Romance?

The first prize will include:

• A signed copy of Sally Clements' Bound to Love
• A "Careful or you'll end up in my novel" t-shirt
• A personalised Minxy notebook courtesy of Minx Jo P
• An Amazon gift voucher valued at $10 courtesy of Minx Sri

One runner-up will also win the following:

• Claire Robyns' historical novel Betrayed
• An Amazon gift voucher valued at $10 courtesy of Minx Maya

This contest will close on Sunday 29th May, and the winners will be announced on Monday 30th May.
And where is all of this happening? http://minxesofromance.blogspot.com 

A copy of my novella is up for grabs!

As part of the Minxy Birthday Bash, I'm offering one commenter on today's blog post a chance to win a copy of my 1920s novella, Let's Misbehave. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on Maureen Child's interview here.

Each week in May we're running two contests, and there is also a Grand Prix contest that runs all month. You can find out more about how to enter these contests here.


Happy birthday Minxes!

Thank you to New Voices

I'll admit to feeling a tad disappointed when I saw The List on the New Voices contest site and not only did I not make it, but none of my CPs or online friends did either. (And by the way, you were all fantastic!)

On the plus side, this contest has been an awesome experience for me, because it introduced me to a whole new bunch of aspiring South African authors. For more information on the South African entrants and other entries set in Africa or with South African characters, you can view the list here: http://saromancewriters.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-voices-entries.html

Our country is a little backward when it comes to genre fiction, and until now most romance writers battle away quietly on their own while lots of fuss gets made about literary authors and poets. So we're not going to win any Booker or Nobel prizes (which have both incidentally been awarded this last week, in case you've missed the news) but we are steadily growing in numbers and in strength.

Just watch this space: we South African romance writers are going to take on the world!

Finally, I'd like to congratulate the Top 10 New Voices Finalists. Their second chapters are currently up at www.romanceisnotdead.com, and there is still time to vote, so please head on over and support these new writers. Good luck to all of them!

I've read all ten and voted, and I'll admit it was a tough choice. There were some really good entries. I would, however, like to do a shout out here for my friend Leah Ashton, who has broken the mould with her very yummy bartender hero.

To sub or not to sub

While over 800 aspirant writers anxiously await The List (for those who aren't as obssessed by the New Voices contest as I am, this is the list HMB have promised us of entries they want to see more of), I have a question to pose: 

If HMB does not request your contest entry, do you plan to stick it in a bottom drawer or to sub this story elsewhere?

Of course, I'm one of the 814 hoping this is not a situation I'll have to face, but even so I know exactly what I'd do: the bottom drawer.

Why?
Because when I do sell to HMB one day (and I'm determined to!) I want to have a whole bunch of manuscripts ready to be re-worked and re-submitted. I'm hoping that by then I'll be more experienced and know how to 'fix' them, so that instead of making just the one sale, I'll be able to sell a whole bunch more to my dream publisher!

But I also realise that there are times when submitting to A.N. Other publisher might be a better option for a manuscript. If you know the story doesn't really fit the targeted HMB line but it'd break your heart to change it to fit, then you need to follow your heart.

There are also times when the validation of having an editor say "I love this and I want to buy it" is more important than sticking to the longer term dream.

So if Harlequin Mills & Boon is your dream, what would you do?

New Voices Winners Announced

The winners have been announced over at: http://www.romanceisnotdead.com/News/23-The-Top-Ten-Announcement

To the Top Ten: Massive congratulations to all of you. I can't wait to read your next chapters.

To all those who didn't final: I share your disappointment, but don't let you get it down. Take note of the comments you received, learn from the chapters you most enjoyed, polish your partials and send them in via the traditional route. You haven't lost anything by entering. In fact, you may not know it yet, but you've gained so much. You deserve your medals of bravery. Incidentally, if you haven't yet picked up your badges: pop on over to Lacey Devlin's blog and collect one now!

While we wait ...

So it seems that we may be waiting a little longer than expected for the announcement of the Top 10 finalists in the New Voices contest. Hardly surprising since the editors and judges have 824 entries to read this weekend, and among them are a whole lot of fantastic chapters.

So while we wait, please check out the SA Romance Writers blog for a list of South African entrants, and show your support for the burgeoning talent from this southern-most tip of Africa. I've been really thrilled to find so many entries featuring Africa or South Africans.

Over at Minxes of Romance are links to the New Voices entries by me and my crit partners, and in the most recent post you can also find out what writing romance and trees have in common.

And last, but not least, on my Rae Summers blog I'm starting a new series of posts: Cocktail Fridays. On the Friday closest to pay day each month (25th) I'll be bringing you a new cocktail recipe from the 1920s. Kicking off the series is my personal favourite: the mojito.

Wild Roses Blog Tour and Contest

My alter ego, Rae Summers, is currently participating in a blog tour with a group of lovely authors from The Wild Rose Press to promote her release of Let's Misbehave.

At the end of August the tour will be rounded up with an amazing give-away to one lucky commenter. So if you'd like a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment on one of the participating blogs during the month of August.

To view the prize, visit Rae's blog at http://raesummers.wordpress.com and leave a comment on one of the blog tour posts.

I'm published!

Those who follow this blog might remember my excitement and disappointment a couple of months ago when a short story I entered in a contest (run by local Essentials magazine and Mills & Boon) first made the Top 20, but then didn't win.

So I was very surprised today to get a message via Facebook from someone who'd read my story in the latest edition of Essentials!

It is so amazing to see my writing in print (though there was one misprint) and I'm hoping this is the start of great things to come ...

Ups and Downs

Thanks to a cold, I've been feeling down all week-end. Not the best frame of mind to pick up the May issue of Essentials magazine to discover that I didn't win their writing contest. In fact, I didn't even make runner-up.

Part of me is saying "Cheer up; at least you made the top 20 shortlist." That same part reasons that it's only a short story of 1,500 words and maybe short stories just aren't my thing.
A rather louder voice in my head is saying that maybe my writing is just crap and there are many others who write better than I do. I've consumed rather a lot of Haagen-Dasz Belgian chocolate ice cream in an attempt to silence that voice. Lucky for me, the ice cream is working.

On the plus side, my company has bought me a brand new laptop to work on. It's very nice but I can't get too comfortable yet as one of the bosses is now toying with taking this new one and letting me have hers. In the meantime, I've taken Jackie's advice and started re-reading my manuscript. And she was so right - I'm rediscovering my passion for it. Though the new story is burning to be told, I've written a rough synopsis for it and gone back to the WIP. So far I have 6 chapters I'm pretty happy with, three of which I've circulated to my crit group. I plan to keep on editing in the hopes that as I go along I'll see clearly how to tie up the ending.

Now more than ever, with this fresh rejection pushing me, I want to finish this manuscript and send it off to the RNA. I need a fresh and objective opinion to tell me if the voice in my head is right or wrong.

Whoopee!

At the end of last year I entered a short story contest run by local Essentials magazine together with Mills&Boon. As I hadn't heard anything from, I'd pretty much decided that meant I hadn't won. Out of interest I picked up the new issue this morning - and discovered that I'd made the shortlist of the final 20!

Next month's issue will announce the final winners, so please keep all fingers crossed for me. Apart from the fact that the first prize is a laptop (which I now desperately need!) two of the judges are Mills&Boon editors, so this might be the first slow step to getting out of that slush pile.

This little piece of good news has made all the stress and strain of the past week fade away. Now I can't wait to get back to that last 8,000 words on my current WIP!