Another winner!

I had the pleasure of receiving Karen Witemeyer's newest release "Short -Straw Bride" in the mail this week. I started it last night and finished it in less than 24 hours! 

What a wonderful read! The heroine, Meri, is sweet, and loyal, and feisty! The hero, Travis, is honorable and rugged and fiercely loyal. What a great combination. Could not put this story down, yet I hated for it to end.

Thanks Karen for another amazing romance! When does the next one come out??

Teacher's Day

According to the radio this morning, today is Teacher's Day!  The radio announcer asked the question: "Did you have a teacher who influenced you?" And he proceeded to name a whole list of teachers who had had a great impact on his life. One was a teacher that made him read his story in front of the class and told him he was a good writer. That brought back so many memories for me!!

My Grade 6 teacher, Mr. Guistini, did the same thing for me. Mine was a Halloween story, I believe. He was the first person (only person) to tell me I should write a book. And I did. Started then and continued into Grade 9 when I then learned to type and began to type it all page by page! Daunting compared to today's computers! I even submitted that manuscript (I cringe now) to a publisher and received a very nice rejection letter. That put my writing career on hold for 25 years! Life got in the way, high school, university, marriage, job, kids. Yup -- that's about 25 years worth!

Anyway the writing bug hit again around the time I hit age 40. Not sure why then. Maybe because I started reading again like crazy and got the urge to write my own stories. And one of these days, I will be a published author. It's just a matter of time.

Moral of the story - you never know how you influence someone's life with a few tiny words of encouragement. To all you teachers out there - THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Genesis Semi-Finalist!

Had some good news yesterday! A wonderful phone call from one of the Genesis coordinators to tell me that my entry is a semi-finalist in the GENESIS!  I floated the rest of the day.

Such fun that I knew so many names on the various lists! It will be a close call for the finals, I'm sure.

Hoping all these positive results for this particular piece may mean a sale one day!
Doing a penguin happy dance!

Some good news!

I'm finally getting around to posting this after being sick and having company for a week.

This bit of news gave a nice boost. I came second in the Inspirational category of the Great Expectation contest! And the first place winner is a multi-published Harlequin author so somehow in my heart, I feel I won! LOL.

Now just waiting to hear back from another Agent Query contest. Fingers and toes crossed!

Check out my website!

It's an older website, thinking of updating it, not many views.. so take a look! Comments and suggestions are welcome!
http://www.susanannemason.com/

A New Challenge - SPEEDBO!

Well, here we are at the beginning of March. Two months in 2012 have passed. Where does the time go?

I have been busy revising my first historical - a project still in progress. But now I have accepted Seekerville's latest challenge. SPEEDBO (speed book) for the month of March! We get to set our own goals and our own pace. The purpose is to get those of us participating to set daily word goals and get WRITING!

So I'm taking a stab at a new book - one that's not as fleshed out as the one I wrote in November's NaNoWriMo! But any progress is better than no progress! So I have been doing a ton of research and have now written the first two scenes.

Starting a new project is always exciting. This should keep March from being dull and hopefully I'll have at least half a book done at the end! Now if I could just get someone to cook for me!

My Visit to a Castle!

Had an exciting day yesterday! After finishing my first historical novel, I've been immersed in all things, well, historic. So when my good friend suggested for our Christmas outing that we go to visit Casa Loma in Toronto, I jumped at the chance.

One of Toronto's richest men, Henry Pellatt, built this 'house on the hill' for he and his wife, Mary back in 1911. In its glory days, they entertained lavishly and employed over 40 servants.Even British royalty visited there. It was almost as good as going to Britain to visit a reall life castle!

Sir Henry's library housed wall to ceiling glassed in bookcases filled with really old looking books!

I loved walking through the underground tunnels to get to the stables whose stalls were built with pure mahogany! Since the hero of my latest book was a stable hand at a grand English mansion, this really hit home for me! And when the audio tour told us that Sir Henry's favourite horse was named Prince, I took this as divine confirmation that I was on the right path with my story - since the hero's favourite horse in the stable was - you got it - Prince! And to think I was going to change the horse's name!

I got to see the servants' rooms on the third floor, where my heroine, a kitchen maid, would have lived. And I got to see up close and personal the type of furnishings and fireplaces that I had tried to describe in my book. I especially loved the dining room all in pale blue, ornate plaster ceilings and ornate furniture.

Secret staircases and passageways, turrets and ghost stories, all combined to make it a super day!

I think I'm hooked on historicals!