Writer Mama Riffs on Raising A Writing Career Alongside Your Kids

The envelope PLEASE!

Hearty congratulations goes out to…

Audrey

Chrysa

Tracy

I already e-mailed each of you to send your snail mail address.

I will have these in the mail by the end of the week.

Congratulations again.

Thanks again for a great giveaway, Bloggy Giveaways!

Thank you to Shawn for letting me know about the Bloggy Giveaways carnival!

(I almost missed! Phew! That was close.)

Okay, so here’s what I’ve got…

This post will stay up Friday, April 25 - Sunday, April 27.

You answer this question:

Why did you start to blog (what you thought before you started) and what have the unexpected benefits been that you’ve gleaned from experience?

I will choose three winners on Monday and give away three signed copies of my book, Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (Writer’s Digest Books, 2007).

(In the continental USA only, please.)

I’ve posted this over at the main Bloggy Giveaway site and you can still get in on this too.

Have a blast! And thank you, Bloggy Giveaways, for hosting.

Look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Laura Williams of Laura Williams’ Musings!

Congratulations, Laura!

Please send me your snail-mail address to:

writer mama at earthlink dot net and I’ll get your book out by the end of the week.

I hope you enjoy it.

For anyone else interested in learning more about the latest version of Ready, Aim, Specialize! Please visit:

Kelly’s site: Become Bodywise

The book’s amazon page (Laura, why not write a review there? I know you’ll love it!)

And Marion Street Press

Happy Monday!

[I've only gotten as far as "P." I'll announce when the blogroll is "done," as if there is ever any such thing!

Wow. I feel like I need to apologize for letting the blogroll get so far off track.

The old rule was all you needed to do was comment in the blog to get in the blogroll.

But I feel like, moving forward, I want to be more writer-mama specific. I also want the primary objective to be that this blog be a helpful resource for writer mamas, who wish to write professionally.

Therefore the new parameters are:

• All blogs must be professional writing-related (freelance & nonfiction are priority)
• All blogs must be helpful or inspirational to writer mamas
• Any blogs not related to professional writing (ie. blogging related) will be considered if they link to this blog on their front page
• Former students are an exception to the above (although most of them are freelancers/write about writing)

Obviously, there may be other exceptions, but I want to make the blogroll more focused.

Please help me in this effort by naming your favorite writer mama blogs in the comments to this post.

Feel free to name your own blog if you don’t see it in the blogroll but only enter once.

I will check all of the suggestions out and consider adding them. We may also feature some of them in the The Writer Mama e-zine.

Whoever makes the best blogroll-addition suggestions by Friday, March 7th will win a free copy of Kelly James-Enger’s newly republished book, Ready, Aim, Specialize! Create Your Own Writing Specialty and Make More Money! (Marion Street Books, 2008).

Thanks! I appreciate your input!

[Please note: As of Sunday, I've cleaned out/up the "Writer Mamas" category up through the letter "M." I'll be sure to let you know when I've finished. It's a lot of work! But worth it.]

The winner of a signed copy of Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (by me) for our 50,000-blog-visitor celebration is…

“Tabitha”

Congratulations, Tabitha! Way to enter.

Please send you snail mail address to me at “writer mama at earthlink dot net” and I’ll get that book in the mail by the end of the week.

To answer a couple of questions. Yes, if you commented after midnight on Sunday, January 20th, your comment wasn’t part of the drawing. But I always appreciate your participation.

Thank you, everyone, for all of your input. I also still treasure traditional books and will be sure to be responsive to your needs in this blog and in The Writer Mama zine.

Have a great week! I’m cranking on my second book, Get Known Before the Book Deal.

I’ll announce the winner of The first Writer Mama Scholarship on Saturday!

As promised, I’m giving away a copy of Writer Mama today through Sunday to celebrate 50,000 visitor to the Writer Mama Riffs blog. Hooray!

All you need to do to enter to win is answer the following three question poll in your comment. Just list 1., 2., and 3.—you don’t need to repeat the question:

1. Which do your turn to for writing support more often, traditionally published books or e-books?

2. What online community-building technologies are you most excited about (blogs, e-zines, chat rooms, forums, teleconferences, or others)?

3. What writing information do you want most that you can’t easily find either yourself or offered by someone else?

Thanks! I appreciate your thoughts! Please respond to this poll by Sunday night at midnight PST.

And don’t forget the deadline for The Writer Mama Scholarship is Saturday night, January 19th at midnight PST!

Wowee, that’s pretty cool. And after only a little over one year.

Thank you so much for coming by!

So, you know what this means…I’ve got to give away a book!

On Thursday and Friday, I’ll be giving one away over the course of 48 hours.

But between now and Wednesday, Stephanie over at Metropolitan Mama is giving away signed copy.

And she’s been so kind as to post an interview with me, too. So, I have to wait.

All you have to do to win the free copy (over there) is comment to this post:

http://metropolitanmama.blogspot.com/2008/01/meet-author-christina-katz.html

I haven’t decided what you need to do to win the one here on Thursday and Friday yet.

But come on back on Thursday and I’ll let you know. I think I’m going to take a little poll.

And p.s. I really would love it if people would take a minute to vote for me in various categories over at the Preditor and Editors Poll. I’ve got a post with all the handy-dandy links, right here.

Thanks! And good luck winning a copy of Writer Mama this week!

Okay, the winner of a signed copy of my book, Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (Writer’s Digest Books) is…

“Abbey”

Congratulations, Abbey! Send me your shipping address at “writer mama at earthlink dot net” and I’ll ship your signed copy this week!

See? It pays to visit this blog on the weekend and comment! Thanks for participating!

Okay, it’s time to talk about my new 2008 Writer Mama Class Scholarship Program.

This will not be the official post, because it will take me a few days to get that written (I learned my lesson when I did the giveaway rules—be very specific!).

But I can go ahead and make the announcement: I will give away one full scholarship for each Writing and Publishing the Short Stuff class that I teach this year to a writer mama, who qualifies and applies.

That’s at least four scholarships this year worth $175 each! Yahoo!

I will announce the scholarship rules one month before each class begins and accept applications for only one week. (So that starts on January 13th for the next class.)

I’ll announce the scholarship participant two weeks before class beings, which is about the same time I start collecting preliminary info from class members.

Sound good? Then stay tuned!

Wow, I’ve been blogging for a year! Look at me.

And to think, I didn’t know what I was doing when I started…and I still don’t!

Amazing what you can learn from observation. Really.

I think I should give something away in honor of this blog’s first birthday, don’t you?

Okay, so here’s what I’m going to do. Comment to this post, today January 5th, by Sunday night at midnight, and I’ll crank up that random number generator, once again, and see who’s going to get a free signed book! (It’s the weekend, so I want to give more people a chance.)

Amazingly, I even have a box of books at my feet.

And that’s not all. I’ve got more stuff to give away in honor of our anniversary month.

As in…I’m starting a scholarship program. More about that soon.

Good luck winning a book!

And the two winners of a signed copy of Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids are…

Karen (Mommy of Three) (#76)

and

AshleyR (#42)

[Sound of thunderous applause!]

Congratulations, ladies! Enjoy your books.

And thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway.

Thank you Rocks in My Dryer for hosting.

Not sure if and what you’ve won?

You can access links to all the winners by visiting Fall Y’All Giveaway.

Hope you won lots of fun stuff!