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 |  It's about adventure! Life, Scouting, Family, writing what else is there? |
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WELCOME TO: GEMINI RISING   UPDATED INTRO 25 OCT 2021: Just a little about me. I've been married for 30 years in NOV this year!! and currently live in Southern California, but I grew up in New Hampshire. I've got 2 boys in their teens. I work as a 911 dispatcher for LAPD. I enjoy my job a lot. I love to write, but since I've been so involved with the Boy Scouts program since 2015 (now Scouts BSA since girls were invited to come on board) I haven't written much. I hope to get back to more writing soon, as I'm scaling back my BSA commitment. Update on this: I was able to get out 2 stories that were previously published. The update/publishing is going slow. I like to get out in nature, take walks around Castaic Lake, drink coffee and watch football. Here's a little bi about my zodiac. GEMINI: Gemini, the sign of the Twins, is dual-natured, elusive, complex and contradictory. On the one hand it produces the virtue of versatility, and on the other the vices of two-facedness and flightiness. The sign is linked with Mercury, the planet of childhood and youth, and its subjects tend to have the graces and faults of the young. When they are good, they are very attractive; when they are bad they are more the worse for being the charmers they are. Like children they are lively, and happy, if circumstances are right for them, or egocentric, imaginative and restless. Their good qualities are attractive and come easily to them. They are affectionate, courteous, kind, generous, and thoughtful towards the poor and suffering - provided none of the activities resulting from expressing these traits interferes too greatly with their own lives and comforts. Geminians can be successful in many walks of life though their general characteristics tend to make them unreliable. They are often skilled manipulators of language, in speech and writing, and may be: debaters, diplomats (though in politics they are more interested in theory than practice), orators, preachers (brilliant rather than profound), teachers, authors, poets, journalists, or lawyers. This is me. I am a Gemini. Pure, Raw, passionate. The NEW focus of this blog is to share my adventures, book reviews, thoughts, opinions, and writing adventures from actual writing, writing/editing tips, marketing, research. I'll get there.  Find me at: WEBSITE: http://www.stephanieburkhart.com FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StephanieBurkhartAuthor GOOD READS: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4031660.Stephanie_Burkhart YOU TUBE CHANNEL: http://www.youtube.com/user/botrina?feature=mhee Previous GRATITIOUS Warning, that I decided to keep in case I post about something that might offend.  WARNING I intend to be open, honest, and forthright. No topic is off limits from religion to you name it, I'm going there. If you think you might be offended...back up now - this blog isn't for you. For those who "dare"  check out the "Gemini Rising..." |
| Hi all -- I know it's been a while, but there's been drama over at the Romance Writer's of America and I was moved to discuss it. I was going to mention it in my upcoming Romance/Love Newsletter here on WDC, but decided against it, as I think a blog is probably more appropriate. PRELUDE I love writing. I have since I was a little kid.I prefer writing mainstream, romance, horror, some thriller and suspense. I have written children's books as well, which, honestly, I just kinda lucked into and I was glad I did. One of the first 'novels' I wrote was "Destination: Berlin" which is geared to be a thriller/suspense with some romantic elements. I used IUniverse but eventually had to take it down. I believe you can find a rough draft in my portfolio if you look. My writing grew from there, I have several mainstream short stories that were acknowledged by Writer's Digest Annual Competition, "Spontaneous Decision" and "Made in America." I have a historical "what if" still with Lulu called "Across the Fickle Winds of History." In 2009, I was offered my first contract with Desert Breeze Publishing for a paranormal romance, called "The Hungarian." During the Teens, I published a lot of romance stories with Desert Breeze and Victory Tales Press. It was during this time, I explored becoming a member of Romance Writers of America. What is RWA? From Wikipedia: It is a national non-profit genre writers association. It provides networking and support to individuals seriously pursuing a career in romance fiction and supports top authors such as Nora Roberts and Judith McNaught. That was me. It still is me. (though since 2016 I got so busy with real life my writing is sparse. I hope to look at my stuff which is out of publication and update it and finish a couple of writing projects I have started) There's two programs in the RWA: PRO and PAN (Pro:wrote a novel and queried) PAN: (Published) . I would fit the PRO. When I was a member, in the early teens, I had a general membership. Membership in RWA is open to those actively pursuing a career in romance fiction regardless of publishing status. A writer does not need to be published to join but must be working toward that goal. At the time, the fee was 80.00 to be a member, now it is 99.00. I liked the goals of the organization: to support romance writers, especially since Romance isn't a genre that isn't taken as seriously as mainstream or thriller/suspense. Still, I found the whole experience, a kind of "strict" one, do this, do that, to get ahead, feedback was more critical than constructive, and with 2 young kids at the time, they required my attention more than my romance writing (hence, my writing drop off after 2016) and I let my membership lapse. WHAT HAPPENED NOW IN 2019? Courtney Milan, a well known romance author of Chinese decent recently tweeted criticizing remarks about another romance author. The other author is Kathryn Lynn Davis who wrote "Somewhere Lies the Moon," in 1999. One of the characters in Davis' novel is of Chinese heritage. Milan called the book "a F*** racist mess." WHY? So who is Courtney Milan? Who is Kathryn Lynn Davis? What's the plot of "Somewhere Lies the Moon?" Why didn't Milan criticize Davis in 1999? Why do it now in 2019, 20 years later? And what did the RWA do about it? It is an organization that is about the writers, the romance writing process? What happened to start this and how can be resolved? I'll tackle some of those questions in Part 2, with my own unique spin on the drama. |
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I love gyros. We have a Greek church and restaurant in town and a festival. But... I'm not there. 