It’s that time again: send in your entries to the Emerald City Open (ECO) and sign up for the Emerald City Writer’s Conference for fabulous workshops, the chance to dazzle agents and editors, and a rollicking good time with fellow writers. I had a lovely time last year and intend to be there this year too.

Conference registration begins May 16th.

ECO contest deadline June 1st.

Christine Warren at ECWC 2008

20th Anniversary
Emerald City Writer’s Conference
Sponsored by the Greater Seattle Romance Writer’s of America
October 9-11, 2009
Bellevue Hilton
Bellevue, Washington

• Editor & Agent Appointments
• Educational & Inspirational Sessions
• Bookfair
• Chat Sessions with Your Favorite Authors
• Social Events for Networking

Join us as we celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the first Emerald City Writers Conference. In addition to group editor and agent appointments, the conference features educational sessions taught by published authors and experts in their field. Classes cover everything from the writing craft to online marketing. Chat sessions with best selling authors are also featured.

The annual bookfair offers opportunities to mingle with your favorite authors. Several social events provide opportunities for networking with other writers, published authors, editors and agents making this annual conference a not-to-miss event.

Our Speakers
Keynote Speaker: Claire Delacroix
Featured Speakers: Lisa Jackson & Christine Warren

Special Guests
Cherry Adair, Elizabeth Boyle, Stella Cameron, Megan Chance, Bob Dugoni, Yasmine Galenorn, Susan Mallery, Bob Mayer, Jane Porter and more!

Editor & Agent Appointments
Registrants are offered the opportunity to pitch in group appointments to editors and agents of their choice; appointments are scheduled on a first come, first served basis, so register today! Emerald City Opener finalists will receive private appointments.

Editors
• Wanda Ottewell, Editor: Harlequin
• Peter Senftleben, Editor: Kensington
NOTE: Peter will also be speaking at a session entitled “The Editor/Author Relationship: How to work with your editor from the call to published book and beyond”
• Megan McKeever, Editor: Pocket Books

Agents
• Steven Axelrod, Agent: The Axelrod Agency
• Alexandra Machinist, Agent: Linda Chester Literary Agency
NOTE: Alexandra is also speaking at a session entitled “What Every Agent Wishes Every Author Knew.”
• Vivian Chum, Agent: Prospect Agency

Registration is limited. To register, visit www.gsrwa.org.

Emerald City Opener
Deadline June 1

Does your first scene compel editors to ask for more?
Your opener is the hook that attracts an editor or makes a potential reader decide to purchase your book.

Polish the first seven pages of your manuscript and send them to the Emerald City Opener Contest. You will receive feedback in the form of detailed score sheets. Your judges (published writers or Golden Heart finalists and winners) are encouraged to include comments on your entry. First, second, and third place winners in each category will receive an award certificate and an individual editor or agent appointment at the Emerald City Writers’ Conference (Oct. 9-11, 2009). In addition, the first place winner in each category will receive a $25 gift card.

Here in Seattle we are all about the NaNoWriMo. Our region has been the first place winner for most words written in both 2006 and 2007 and are on track to win again this year. That’s right- we are #1 in the whole entire WORLD. Mwuhahahahahaha!! Our mascot is the ducks, something long and convoluted about hydrophobic ducks that you can read about here. We try to put a duck into our NaNo stories and bring them to write-ins. I bought mine at Archie McPhee this week: Pink Devil Duckie.

Pink Devil Duckie, you’re the one,
Making writing lots of fun,
Pink Devil Duckie, I’m awfully fond of you.

Everyday when I make my way to the laptop,
I find an evil fellow who yells and bellows, and words jump
Onto the page.

Pink Devil Duckie, you’re so fine
And I’m lucky that you’re mine
Pink Devil Duckie I’m awfully fond of you.

I’m behind in my NaNo word count, as you can see from the sidebar. At the end of today I should be at 11,669 words, and so far I’m only at 8,201. Next week I’ll be living in a hotel in San Francisco, hopefully writing my arse off.

PS: if you’re in San Fran and you wanna meet up for coffee and gush about books and writing, let me know!

This is for Patti O’Shea, who asked yesterday on Twitter what her heroine would wear in Seattle on March 15th at 10 pm and what the weather would be like. Gortex and Rain, of course!

And for Marjorie M. Liu, whose new Urban Fantasy, The Iron Hunt, is set in Seattle, and who got it all right. Thanks for saying “Pike Place” and not “Pike’s Market.

1. She feels guilty throwing aluminum cans or paper in the trash.
2. She uses the statement “sun break” and know what it means.
3. She stands on a deserted corner in the rain waiting for the “Walk” signal.
4. She considers that if it has no snow or has not recently erupted, it is not a real mountain.
5. She is able to use 10 words to order a beverage the rest of the country calls “coffee.”
6. In winter, she goes to work in the dark and come home in the dark—while only working eight-hour days.
7. She never goes camping without waterproof matches and a poncho.
8. She is not fazed by “Today’s forecast: showers followed by rain,” and “Tomorrow’s forecast: rain followed by showers.”
9. She can point to at least two volcanoes, even if she cannot see through the cloud cover.
10. She notices, “The mountain is out” when it is a pretty day and she can actually see it.
11. She puts on her shorts when the temperature gets above 50, but still wears her hiking boots and parka.
12. She switches to sandals when it gets about 60, but keeps the socks on.
13. She thinks people who use umbrellas are either wimps or tourists.

EDITED TO ADD: Gah! Now I feel terrible. I didn’t invent these. The original author has been lost to the sands of time. These are the 13 items with which I agree most from a list of about 30 entitled “You know you’re from the Pacific Northwest when…” of which there are many versions. The list has been around the internet for years and years. I first saw it ten years or so ago. Here is one version posted on the Lewis & Clark College website and another version from the Democratic Underground. Sorry!

Yesterday will go down in history with the opening of the Seattle South Lake Union Trolley, the first streetcar line in 25 years. Buy your tee shirt here or visit Kapow Coffee in South Lake Union when you ride. Solving all the cities transportation woes, the S.L.U.T. connects Paul Allentown with Westlake Mall, cutting what would be a half-hour walk into a 10 minute ride in this a high commute area. During December the streetcar is free: making the Seattle S.L.U.T. a Cheap Trick. It was a smooth ride with full carriages as Seattlites flocked to try the new toy. Your intrepid reporter and sometime city planner Ciaralira was there in the trenches to take the maiden voyage and report back to her eager fans.

Great things about the S.L.U.T.:

It was free. It was clean. It didn’t smell like a bus, but like a new car. A barbershop quartet serenaded me at the South Lake Union Park stop. Starbucks gave me a free sample peppermint hot chocolate at the end of my ride. Some salon gave me a goodie bag at the end of my ride in the other direction. I got free stickers.

Not-So-Great things about the S.L.U.T.:

There will never be a time when I will need to travel between Allentown and Westlake. It gets stuck in traffic too. The real traffic tangles- I-5, the 520 floating bridge, Ballard- will be completely unaffected by the S.L.U.T.

IF the city were to put in trolley lines all over, connecting the major commuter routes and especially the high density areas that it has created with commercial hubs, then…well then Seattle could really be considered a first class city, not a frontier town of highly-caffeinated computer nerds. There used to be streetcar lines all over the city and many of the streets are still extra-wide to accommodate them. Currently the city has no funding plans for further development. Separately, the city of Shoreline is putting in Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along Aurora Blvd (aka highway 99) and King County Executive Ron Sims has promised to put in BRT lines through the county connecting poor neglected Ballard, which voters approved in the last election. Sound Transit is still building it’s single light rail line from Northgate to the airport, with plans to connect the University of Washington eventually.

Let’s not even mention the Monorail. (Shown passing the S.L.U.T. overhead at left.)

What makes mass transit effective? It needs to be Reliable – to get commuters where they want to go when they want to get there. It needs to be Affordable – cheaper than taking a car. It needs to be Efficient – to get commuters there faster than taking a car. Why would a person take mass transit if driving a car can get you there in half the time? Studies have shown that commuters are unwilling to make multiple transfers on multiple different forms of transportation. This is the problem. The state, the county, the city of Seattle and the surrounding cities need to work TOGETHER for ONE, EFFICIENT, RELIABLE, and AFFORDABLE system.

But, hey, I gave up saving the world through smart planning. I’m left to make snarky comments, sing jesting songs, and enjoy my time riding the Seattle S.L.U.T.

Early this morning, braving the cold and a few lazy snowflakes, thousands of hearty Seattlites descended on downtown Seattle to participate in the 2007 Arthritis Foundation Jingle Bell 5K Run & Walk. Santa led the race in a yellow sports car (he’s a twenty-first century elf). It was a sea of red and green; hats sporting Christmas trees, antlers, elf ears, holiday viking horns, Santa caps, Grinch wigs, and even a menorah; Reindeer pushing little elves in sleigh-strollers; winged Sugar Plum Fairies dancing with a flurry of Snowflakes; Felt christmas trees and a gingerbread man. The air was filled with the jingle of bells tied to our running shoes and palpable cheer, warming the chilly air. I got positively overheated by the middle of the race. We ran along the I-5 express lanes, jumping the cracks and holes of the broken pavement. Hundreds of voices bounced off the tunnel walls as the crowd burst into a spontaneous rendition of “Jingle Bells”. This is what the Christmas Spirit is to me: neighbors and strangers joining together by the thousands to celebrate the season and raise money for a worthy cause. Happy Holidays!

Ah, November… the month of unceasing rain. Lucky us, it’s come early this year. Paraphrasing Bradbury:

It was a soft rain, a perpetual rain, a cold and melancholy rain; it was a mist, a drizzle, a fountain, dripping down the spine, soaking through raincoats; it was a rain to drown all rains and the memory of rains; and it never stopped.

November, and indeed most of the Pacific Northwest winter, reminds me of Bradbury’s All Summer in a Day, where children living on a foreign planet get to see the sun for only one hour every seven years. Forget Venus – come to Seattle.

So what are we to do to chase the chill from our bones and bring the memory of light back to our ashen faces? Why, write of course! The rain may keep us inside for a month (or seven) but that just gives us fewer interruptions to participate in National Novel Writing Month. What is NaNoWriMo? It’s the “Kamikaze” approach to Novel Writing. As I’ve mentioned before, everyone has a story to write and all we really need to get it out is a DEADLINE and a concrete goal. Use NaNoWriMo to get a big head start on your entry for the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association Literary Contest! (Due February 22, 2008, in case you forgot.)

Who: You, Me, and thousands of other poor sods around the world
What: Write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel
When: Between midnight, November 1 and midnight, November 30. Sign up between October 1 and November 30.
Why: Because Deadlines are Magic. I never wrote a paper through high school or college that wasn’t done the Night Before It Was Due. After, of course, cleaning my dorm room, doing my laundry, calling my parents, and bellyaching to my roommate. Without a deadline, nothing gets done. With a long, drawn-out deadline, nothing gets done. Here is your chance to get that story out of your head and down on paper. Your soul will feel better for it.

Think you are too busy to do it this November? I just signed up (friend me) and I’m spending my November traipsing around the world: London through November 6, Zurich November 9-15, and Denver November 21-25. That being the case, I’ve signed up for the NaNoWriMo regional groups for all three cities in addition my hometown. When will I have time to write? That’s what airplanes are for!

As a project-oriented perfectionist, NaNoWriMo is what I need to finally get my butt in gear: a deadline and a low-bar for quality. My biggest obstacle to writing is that I always feel it isn’t good enough, despite the fact that my rational brain knows the first step is getting the ideas on paper and editing-polishing-perfectionizing comes much later. Earlier this summer I started writing a paranormal romance novel, only to write the first three chapters and then rewrite the first three chapters and then start rewriting them again…. finally abandoning the project in frustration. I need to get. it. out. Most publishers are looking for 90-100 thousand words, so NaNoWriMo will get me half-way there. I’ll have December through February 22nd to polish the first 28 pages for my entry to the PNWA Lit Contest and March through July to write and polish another 50 thousand words for a complete manuscript. Wish me luck!

The NaNoWriMo people sum it up best – “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”