Hi everybody!

I'm yet another newbie to the forum, but it looks like you guys have some great discussions going on here. I'll try to do the short version of an intro. (Warning: Brevity is NOT my strong suit)

I'm a homeschooling mom of 3, just starting my journey towards the publication of a Christian Fantasy novel. That book, The Sword of the Patron, is currently slugging it out in a "reader's choice" contest over at Marcher Lord Press' forums. Very exciting, but nerve racking to boot.

I love richly drawn fantasy worlds, challenging vocabulary and the occasional really long sentence. I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody's chatting about 'round these parts.

Hi, hola, aloha,

Welcome.

I am Simon Peter( you probably know that, just look to the left

I am homeschooled(kinda obvious)

Glad to welcome you

Welcome to the forum!
I'm excited to hear what you have to say; your posts so far have been great!

Welcome
Yay for homeschooling!!

It's wonderful that you've joined the HW forum! How did you find us?

"Sir Emeth" forwarded me a link in a comment he left on my blog, so I thought I'd come check it out. I'm in the process of trying to get a novel published, so I'm haunting as many Christian/Fantasy/Writing sites as I can so I can be in tune with my potential audience.

Not to mention, it's always nice to hear other people's passion for the genre.

Welcome, Mrs. Minor!

It's great to have you on the forum! I think it is awesome that you are homeschooling your children and writing at the same time. (I am homeschooled [well, technically I am graduated, but I am still learning] and have six younger siblings, so I admire you greatly, having an idea of what that must be like. ) I intend, Lord willing, to homeschool my children (should He bless me with any) and I also like to write... so it is entirely likely that I will one day be in a similar situation.

And I hope your book wins! If we get it figured out, we will try to vote for your book.

Looking forward to getting to know you better through your posts!

God bless,

Carissa aka Duchess Daisy aka The Editor

Welcome!

Glad you were able to finally get on here. Sorry it took so long.

We seem very similar in many ways: if not in preferences in sentence structure, then in reading tastes and homeschooling. Glad you are on board!

Thanks, all of you, for your warm welcome! I hope I'll be able to get to some of the posted stories and the like and offer what I can to the discussion. And I want to thank any and all of you who voted over at Marcher Lord Select. It looks like my novel, The Sword of the Patron, shall live to see the next phase of competition!

Blessings!

Wow! The Windrider looks fascinating! What is this competition you have entered?

Thanks, Mindy!

The competition is called Marcher Lord Select, and it's being run by a small Christian Speculative Fiction publisher--Marcher Lord Press.

In a nutshell, 36 authors who had submitted their manuscripts to the publisher got to be involved in a "readers' choice" contest, where different portions of their manuscripts will be posted on a website, readers can read through them, and then vote on which books they think MLP should publish.

The first round, which just ended, involved blurbs and synopses of the novels, and the voting cut the field to 18, of which I am one.

In round two (which the materials should be available to read by sometime on 11-17) the first 500 words of each of the competitors' novels will be up for reading. The another vote.

Those who survive have a chance to go through two more rounds of this...a 30 page round and a 60 page round. Whoever comes out of the last round with the most votes gets their novel published in the spring of 2010.

So needless to say, it's a very big deal for the winner! (And I said that was going to be "in a nutshell, but that would have to be one alien-sized giagantor nut to hold all that I just wrote! )

But anyway, people can register and join in any time...so if you want to help pick the next book MLP publishes, shoot me a PM and I'll give you the link. At this point I already am having guilt about flagrant "campaigning" in this thread.

And by the way, thanks all of you for being so sweet and letting an old mom crash the party over here.

Well, if he is an adult, than so am I. (I am nineteen, same as he is)

29 days older than me. I do not consider myself an adult per se, though. I try to consider myself a young man until I wed. That is just personal preference.

How could an 'old' mom crash a party by us?! We pride ourselves on enjoying the company of those who are more mature than us. Besides, you aren't the first adult, nor the oldest. I hope we get quite a few more.

Wow, Mrs. Minor! (do you mind us calling you that?) That sounds like a HUGE deal! I really hope you win!


And Absolutely, Jay!! I'm trying to get my mother to join the forum too, but so far, it hasn't worked.

Haha, Keep trying!

Well, here's hoping you have some luck getting the grown-ups to chime in. I'm all for cross-generational discussion. Things are always more interesting from a variety of viewpoints and levels of experience.

And yes, Mindy, it does seem like a pretty big deal to keep forging ahead with Marcher Lord Select. I keep trying to keep it in perspective, though...should I not make it to the end of this contest, then I'll just have to keep my eye out for what the Lord would do with my writing. My prayer is that I will have the patience to wait on His timing. (I heard that Frank Peretti went through 30 some publishers before his first book got picked up!)