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Delta Dawn won first place! (Weekend Coffee Share #14)

November 12, 2021 /

Good morning, and happy Friday! I have big writing news to share with y’all, but first: Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer. Have a seat, grab a treat, and let’s chat out in the garden on this gorgeous desert morning.

Big writing news

I’m excited to report that my second novel, a domestic suspense/thriller called Delta Dawn, won first place in the unpublished novel division of the Arizona Authors Association Annual Literary Contest! I still need to make substantial revisions before it will be ready to query, but I’m so excited that people actually liked it. I’m also grateful to the judges, who provided helpful feedback to guide me as I begin another round of revisions.

It was also wonderful to be able to gather in person. Last year’s banquet was canceled (thanks, Microbe That Must Not Be Named), so they also recognized 2020 winners this year (including me for my first-place short story). Long-Suffering Husband and I used the banquet as an excuse to extend costume season a few days past Halloween The theme of the event was a time or place in your life or the life of a character in the past or the life yet to come–pretty wide open. We dressed as postapocalyptic survivors, because a) my winning short story from 2020 was set in a postapocalyptic world, and b) Long-Suffering Husband just got back from a week of postapocalyptic cosplay and had a costume ready to go.

Long-Suffering Husband and I in our end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it finery

Hubs and I have a long-running disagreement about whether or not the apocalypse will involve shoulder pads and feathers. He’s a lifelong member of the Mad Max school of postapocalyptic attire. I… am not. In fairness, I should note that he won the prize for Most Bizarre Costume that night, so he got to share in the evening’s glory.

Not-So-Big Writing News

In other writing-related news, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (#NaNoWriMo) but as a #NaNoRebel. In other words, I’m not writing 50K words of a brand-new novel. Instead, I’m revising a previous project but trying to put in the same amount of time it would take to write 50K words. I literally did the math to figure that out. I looked at my writing log from 2019, the last time I “won” NaNo the official way, and determined that I averaged 20 words per minute over the entire month. So this year I’m crediting myself with 20 words for every minute spent revising. Yes, I am a hopeless nerd. Why do you ask?

Laughs of the Week

I’m hoping to create a tradition by ending my Weekend Coffee Share posts with a few funny memes, so here’s the ridiculousness that dropped over my social media transom this week.

This one sounds accurate:

I argue with inanimate objects all the time–but in the privacy of my own home, not on the internet:

And finally, the amazing intersection of Star Wars and dad jokes:

That’s a wrap for this week. How about y’all? Doing anything fun this weekend? Heard any good jokes lately?

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27 Comments

  • Ally Bean

    November 12, 2021 at 8:40 am

    Congrats! It’s wonderful to read good news. I’ve never contemplated how an author would describe me, but I have pondered how my sisters-in-law describe me. I sense it’s not in glowing terms. Love the Moon Pie account on Twitter.

  • Natalie

    November 12, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    Congratulations, Janet! That’s fantastic news. So great that you and your husband were able to attend the banquet in person. I think your #NaNoRebel plan is smart. Thank you for your #weekendcoffeeshare.

  • Joanne

    November 13, 2021 at 7:10 am

    Congrats on your story award; that’s amazing!! Tough I have to comment on that last meme… in our house “dad” never knows what anyone is getting for Christmas as mom (me) has always done all the shopping.

    • Janet Alcorn

      November 13, 2021 at 10:50 pm

      Sounds like a great opportunity to mess with him. Picture if you will: kid opens present from “dad” and it’s something ridiculous (a tube of Preparation H perhaps, or maybe a can of bug spray).

  • Susanne

    November 14, 2021 at 2:16 am

    Congratulations, Janet!
    That’s funny about the postapocalyptic clothing – I’ve never even thought there is any particular clothing for that! I’d think of whatever you’d need to isolate yourself in a deep forest or similar.
    The weekend has been enjoyable here with some good things being done such as guitar practice, some cleaning, a Zoom whiskey tasting and more.

    • Janet Alcorn

      November 14, 2021 at 5:45 pm

      I agree re: post apocalyptic clothing. It would be whatever you could scrounge that protected you from critters and the elements, I would think. Glad you had a good weekend!

  • msomerville2014

    November 14, 2021 at 2:28 pm

    Congratulations on t he award and the guidance. I am not ready to think in terms of number of words, but I might check that out, still thinking in terms of pages. Not lots of them either, but the book is a work in process. I admit I am not into post-apocalyptic anything, but loved the Star Wars Meme, it made me laugh.

  • Gary A Wilson

    November 15, 2021 at 7:30 am

    Hi Janet.

    Great news on the awards. And did I get this right, you make the time to diary your writing time and production? Gracious! I’m happy if I manage to trap the words into a few readable paragraphs and get them saved in a way that I can find them again.

    I did do a substantial amount of study and work on “Defending Canopy Station” and am thinking about making a “Creating Canopy short article for nerds” piece from that stuff. The speed of light study/story time line alone fascinated me and blew apart my initial timing swags. I’m not a math nerd but the restrictions put on my story by the nonnegotiable speed of light was a hoot to work with and the spreadsheet was way more fun than it should have been.

    So – how far off is Delta Dawn now? I just survived, like three full printed edit versions of “Canopy…” and could see one more round happening after a few real readers spend some time on it, and I don’t see any awards in its future.

    Your coffee share above, because I spent the weekend finishing Canopy, proved to be a fun way to start, rather than end a week.

    Blessings.

    • Janet Alcorn

      November 16, 2021 at 7:53 am

      Congrats on the story progress! I hope you’ll share “Canopy” when you’re done.

      I use a tool called Online Writing Log to track my writing progress. It helps keep me motivated and reassures me that I am, in fact, getting work done.

      Delta Dawn still needs a lot of work. I have a completed draft, but I need to address some plot holes and a character that popped up in the middle with no introduction (I hate it when they do that). I just finished some tweaks to my first novel this morning (getting it ready for another round of querying), so I’ll start fiddling with Delta tomorrow. It would be so easy for writing to become my full-time job–if it weren’t for that whole pesky, need-to-earn-a-living thing.

      Have a great week!

      • Gary A Wilson

        November 16, 2021 at 8:24 am

        Ah yes – regardless of any other passion we might have, we are stuck with the need to feed, thus passions often take second seat to earning an income. So sad for the art within that just wants out.

        But I have news. I got Canopy to that point I was willing to share it out in Beta-read mode. So far, I’ve had several readers and one even came back with some precious corrections that some how this author simply could not see. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it as this was one of the most detail rich stories I’ve produced. You should see the spreadsheet of timing I finally had to make. The whole story pivoted on the speed of light thus things had to work timing wise. Anyway, for the average reader, it’s about 55 minutes worth of words. So, grab some caffeine and tell the world to leave you alone for a while.
        https://garyawilsonstories.wordpress.com/defending-canopy-station/

        This one definitely improved my ability to keep timing straight.

        Have a great week 😉

  • Beaton

    November 15, 2021 at 9:55 am

    congratulations!!!! great work
    and the costumes totally giving Mad Max vibes… maybe cause I recently watched Mad Max Fury Road
    ~B

  • Kirstin

    November 16, 2021 at 10:28 am

    Congratulations Janet. How exciting. When I saw Delta Dawn, I started singing the song…haha. Also those memes were hilarious. Thank you for sharing. We all need more humor these days

    • Janet Alcorn

      November 17, 2021 at 7:03 pm

      Thanks! Delta Dawn can be quite the ear worm. And yes, I think most of us can use some extra laughs. Thanks for stopping by!

  • leannelc

    November 18, 2021 at 12:06 am

    Wow! Well done on the novel and the short story winning awards Janet! And I loved the costumes you and your hubby came up with – it all looksl like it would have been a blast – and being a winner would have been the icing on the cake.