Happy Gatherversary to Me!

Exactly two years ago, I joined Gather to enter a contest, the TrueTV Search for the Next Great Crime Writer contest. I had no intention of doing it, but I'd reconnected with my sister after a ten-year hiatus, and I didn't want to jeopardize our new understanding by refusing her suggestion that I enter. So I did.

To say that the contest was unpleasant is . . . well, not the whole truth, but close enough. Lots of cheating, backstabbing, name calling, giving single stars to lower rankings (which was silly, to say the least -- the rank was based only on the number of ten stars an entry received.) Then there were those who wrote diatribes against a couple of entries, which turned out to be a good  thing. When I found out that fellow contestant Deborah J Ledford, author of the now published Staccato, also recieved such a slamming, I wrote to commiserate, and we became instant friends, keeping each other sane through the duration of the contest and beyond. (When we finally met in person, it was as if we'd been friends forever.)

Despite that, I couldn't wait for the contest to be over so I could delete my gather account and forget the whole thing. Yet somehow, after the contest, I got talked into starting a writing discussion group -- which I called No Whine, Just Champagne -- and here I am, two years later, still on Gather.

Gather has become home to me. I spend a lot of time elsewhere promoting my books, but I always come back. I've made friends here, and a lot of colleagues. I also found Second Wind Publishing because of a comment I saw on a Gather discussion thread. And now Second Wind is about to publish my third novel Daughter Am I, a young woman/old gangsters coming of age adventure. (It will be available in two weeks, and it's only fair to warn you that I will be sending you a message to announce it's release.)

I know I've mentioned it before, but I find it fascinating -- three entries that finished the first round consecutively also finished the second round consecutively, and now those three entries have been published by Second Wind. I am in good company:

Staccato by Deborah J Ledford
The Medicine People by Lazarus Barnhill
More Deaths Than One by Pat Bertram

Quite an eventful two years, and all because I didn't want to say no.

Thank you everyone for leaving comments on my articles, even though I'm not very good at returning them. Thank you for your participation in my No Whine, Just Champagne live c.hats. Thank you for making my stay here so pleasant.