Workshop approved!

I found out a workshop workshop proposal I’d submitted for a writer’s conference in New England was approved! This is so exciting. I’ll be speaking about tips for constructing a compelling partial submission through page 1, page 5 and page 50.

It’s a little nerve-wracking to do a craft workshop since I’m so new at this, but I have spent a lot of time learning how to put together the opening chapters, how to make them stand out and what pitfalls to avoid. It’s been over two years since I stood in front of a class to teach. At least I have a couple months to smooth out the presentation since the conference isn’t until March.

I’m using some of the material for the workshop in my post for Tuesday at the Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood blog which is titled, “The First Five Pages…and the Red Line of Death”. Hope you can come by! Maybe the comments from the post to help me prepare for the workshop.

Voting opens in Chase the Dream contest!

All eight finalists have been posted and voting opens from March 5 to March 11. There’s quite a range there — historicals from different time periods, paranormals, contemporaries. Butterfly Swords is in good company and I feel like I’ve already won since the lovely panel of judges will read over all the final entries.

I feel silly trolling for votes, so if you’d like to check out some interesting openings, click on over and vote your conscience. 🙂

To read the final entries
http://chasethedreamcontest.wordpress.com/entries/

To vote:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=OQvSykwHXYudFZ5C3hcdoA_3d_3d