I'm Famous!

...And not for the reasons you might think. Remember the power line fiasco in December? If not, read about it here.

Anyway, here was a write-up in my employer's community newsletter:

Officer...Stewart was commended at the annual law enforcement awards ceremony and has been named Officer of the Year by [the community]. When a live wire fell across a resident's driveway and mailbox, he prevented the neighbor [well, that's supposed to be me--the neighbor's house cleaner. Close.] from exiting her car, which the wire was touching, and stopped the mail carrier from touching the mailbox, thereby saving their lives.

Thank you, Officer Stewart! You will end up in a novel soon.

RT Book Reviews Article

Just a heads up that if you're bored at your local bookstore (as if that could happen), wander over to the magazines and see if they have the September issue of *RT Book Reviews. If you want to learn a little about writing category romances (shorter romances that fall in a line like Love Inspired or other Harlequin series romances), look up the article called The Farm Team. And there you'll find me. :-) Shocker, eh? I was honored to be interviewed along with some other authors, and it was fun to see what they had to say from their experiences. Some veteran writers like Debbie Macomber chimed in as well. Fun stuff.

*I should probably warn you, however, that this is not an inspirational magazine. It reviews all forms of romance, from mild and sweet to rather, um, spicy. :-)

Story Sparkers

Just a note to say it was my turn to blog on the MBT Ponderers' site. I wrote about some places to look for story ideas. Come on over and add to the list! Oh, and we have another contest for the month, so make sure to check that out, too.

Thoughts on Twilight

A month or so ago, the latest movie in the Twilight series released. You probably saw news articles about women of all ages camped out in California for days on end, sporting “Be safe” tattoos or shirts with “I love Edward” scrawled across the front in marker. Were you with them in spirit, or did it make you shake your head in disgust?

Personally, I enjoyed the books. Except for the last one, which I pretty much hated, but that’s a different topic. I get that people loved the story. I do NOT get the obsessive fans, like the ones who are now having marital problems because they fawn so much over these fictional heroes.

How did that hero worship happen? How does a book or a movie spawn this kind of following? I really doubt that was Meyer’s intention. It might actually be a little creepy to her to have fans love her characters even more than she does.

I have to wonder what would have happened if Meyer was a Christian and reflected that in the series. I do respect that she put some morals in there—no drugs, no sex before marriage for Edward and Bella—but what if she went further? What if when Edward left and Bella hit rock bottom, Jacob helped her realize that GOD needed to be her everything? If Meyer put God first in the story—the true God—would fans become more interested in learning about Jesus Christ than in debating Team Jacob or Team Edward?

It's something to think about. I'm not likely to see any of my stories in film, but if I did, I don't ever want my fans to make fools of themselves or jeopordize their real life relationships over a product of my imagination. I want to make sure the shining star in the story is Jesus.

Have you read any novels lately that helped you to see your relationship with Him in a new light or challenged your spiritual walk in some way?

Confession Session

I'm a fairly good speller (wait--did I spell that right?), but there are some things I struggle with. I read old novels growing up. I mean, seriously old. As in, one of my favorites was a best-seller in 1900. So I sometimes struggle with spelling, as those books tended to use British spelling. Like "colour." "Savior" still doesn't look right to me without the u. I didn't learn how to spell "practice" until 10th grade, when a math teacher wrote an assignment on the board. I had spelled it "practise" up till then.

I also never remember whether potato and tomato have e's, especially if you make them plural. And the city I was born in? I think I finally figured it out, but until recently, I had to google the spelling.

Your turn. What word can you never spell right?

Let Me Introduce...

All of my two readers probably already know about my writer buddy and co-author, Tracy Bowen. But I don't think I've ever introduced her properly.

Meet Tracy: The mother of four very funny boys. The wife of an even funnier husband--I'm talking stand-up comedian funny. The owner of the largest assortment of flipflops I have ever seen. The fryer of some really awesome chicken. The decorater of many a banquet. And the woman with a sense of humor and writer's brain and personality that perfectly complements mine. It's such a pleasure writing with her. I miss her when we're not involved in a project!

How did we get started?

Tracy and I were choir buddies, hanging out in the alto section, talking when the director wasn't looking. (I could do that--the director just happened to be my father.) I also followed Tracy's blog (don't look for it--she hasn't updated in ages. lol. But a new one is coming soon!), and she always managed to crack me up with her unique take on things or her drama queen storytelling skills. It helped, of course, that she had plenty of real-life fodder to pull from. Surviving an airplane crash in a soybean field in Santa Claus, GA, for example.

One day, Tracy mentioned she'd love to write a book. At that time, the chick lit genre was all the rage, with its snarky heroines and light-hearted take on life. In my idea file was this little tidbit I really wanted to take somewhere that would fit perfectly in the chick lit world. But I'd tried to write a romantic comedy already, and though I called it funny, an editor called it slapstick, which equaled a rejection. So one more funny blog from Tracy, and I was ready with a proposal.

"I have this idea. What would you think about writing it with me?" Tracy was game. After a long brainstorming session during an even longer walk on the beach (which took my feet a few days to recover from), we had a story.

After much research, we came up with a "contract" for co-writing. With a plan in place, we figured we wouldn't end up suing each other or getting into random cat fights during choir practice. Tracy Bowen and Jenness Walker were now officially writing partners.

It took a while. We did character sketches. We experimented with writing processes. We finally settled into a system that has worked well for us. (Tracy writes the skeleton of a scene, complete with her great one-liners; I come along and flesh it out while she works on the next section. I send my stuff back, she agrees or points out any issues, etc.) We submitted the first three chapters to a writing contest and Bliss placed in the Genesis Contest. The writing was slow, but we made progress.

Soon we signed with my agent, Tamela Hancock Murray from Hartline Literary Agency. We went out to dinner at a steakhouse to celebrate. And we didn't spill A-1 on the contract, either. Then we went back to writing.

When we were a couple chapters from the end, we took an editing retreat. At a country inn about 30 minutes from home, we sat on our twin beds for two days. Tracy read from the printed copy on her lap. I followed along and made approved changed on the laptop. Then, while I implemented the more involved changes, she whipped out the skeleton for the rest of the book. It was a crazy couple days, let me tell ya. But the end result? Tons of fun.

While we waited for Bliss to find a home, we started another project, then got involved in the group project I blogged about last week. Then, just in the past couple months, we got some news on Bliss again. The chick lit boom has faded, so though we did get some interest in it from a big house previously, they couldn't make a place for Bliss. So when a start-up company with a different type of publishing model (similar to the one Marcher Lord Press is using) made us an offer, we decided to go for it. Last month we signed a contract and Bliss should be released later this year. I'll post more details when I can.

Meanwhile, Tracy and I are working on creating a joint blog/website. We had a kind of an impromptu photo shoot together with Erica from Erica J Photography. We revised Bliss and are working on some marketing stuff for it as the release date looms.

Now my awesome writing buddy has started a project on her own, as well. It's non-fiction, and it's so cool to see how she's grown as a writer. As for me, we both cheer when I manage to make a funny all by myself. :-) Even though we both have separate works-in-progress and plans for many more, we love writing together. It was amazing how we never argued once through this entire process. We had very few differences, but when we didn't see quite eye to eye, it still never got to the place where we had to bust out our co-author contract to see who got to make the final decision. It's been a great experience having a built-in brainstorming buddy, encourager and accountability partner, and it's a partnership we plan to continue indefinitely.

Thanks, Tracy, for being such a great friend and co-author. Couldn't have asked for a better one!