I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend–and survived the extreme heat if you’re a fellow Texan like me. Man, it’s getting to be brutal out there!
Today is the day we announce the WINNER of the ARC Contest for Elana Johnson’s POSSESSION, which ended on Sunday. I want to thank everyone for dropping in, retweeting, posting, and following this past week. It was so much fun to meet new blog world friends. I always follow back, so it was a pleasure to discover so many new blogs 🙂
Thanks to RANDOM.ORG, we have ourselves a winner . . . (Drum roll please) . . .
Congrats LindsayCWrites over at Lindsay Writes . . . !!
Lindsay, I’ll have the book in the mail this afternoon, so be on the look out!
An interesting tidbit is that I happened to have met Lindsay once before at a writer’s conference we both attended a few months ago. We only talked briefly at the cocktail party, but when I matched the name to the number RANDOM.ORG spit out it sounded familiar, and then I spotted the fellow Texan address.
Lindsay, according to her bio and my fuzzy recollection (I was in a haze of starry-eyed agent excitement at the time) is a 19-year-old-writer who is very active in the writing community. She is out there networking, making connections and contacts, and attending conferences. That impresses me so much. She knows what she wants and she is out there making it happen.
That leads me to the second portion of today’s post, my thoughts on Community.
No, not the show, although I love that, too! (When is Jeff gonna realize how awesome Annie is??)
I mean, the Writing Community.
Querytracker, Twitter, Facebook, other blogs, forums, conferences, organizations . . . thanks to technology, the opportunity to make a connection with other writers out there is almost effortless. Writers love to support one another. It is through groups like these that I have met all of my critique partners, almost all of whom I’ve never actually seen face-to-face.
I met my fellow @KappaDeltaWrite chicas on Twitter (and all these ladies rock so hard, I’m BLESSED to have them in my corner). My YA Sisters and Brothers in the YA Sisterhood meet over at Facebook, but I first met the Wonder Twins who started it all on Twitter, and we often chat there, too(#YASB). And, thanks to Kristen Lamb’s new #MyWana hashtag on Twitter, I’m meeting even more.
Querytracker introduced me to many wonderfully talented friends–in particular, the lovely Anita Howard. And locally I belong to a writers group for Houston YA/MG Writers that not only has given me many ‘in real life’ friendships, but mentors as well.
Why am I rambling here?
The point is that we all need community. Writing can be so lonely–staring at a screen and a box all day, getting carpal tunnel and a stiff neck. We create imaginary friends every day and most of us talk to them. We need social interaction with others, and who better to understand our madness then a fellow writer? Who better to lift us up when we are discouraged and our minds are mush, or cheer us on when we meet our goals and/or get agent requests?
I guess what I’m trying to say . . . not very succinctly . . . is that all of YOU in the writing community at large have blessed me. I hope I’ve been able to be a blessing to others as well.
If you’re reading this and are hesitant about jumping in with any of the places I mentioned, contact me. I’d love to talk with you about this crazy roller coaster and point you in some great directions. Don’t be afraid to reach out. The rewards are priceless 🙂
Question 4 U: What are your favorite Community Building resources?
Let us know about your experiences in the comments! If you’d like to guest post about a particularly great networking or community building experience, contact me at RachelHarris1 at Gmail dot com.
Happy Monday Everyone!
