Crazy Days!

Allie Pleiter here.  This past week was a crazy/happy/busy one for me!

Last Friday I had the honor to accept the RT Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Love Inspired Novel at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Dallas TX.  My book A Heart to Heal earned the distinction.  

I love a celebration, so I made the most of it, getting all dressed up and having a splendid evening with my friend and fellow nominee Lenora Worth.  Often our lives as writers are quiet and solitary, so the chance to get out and celebrate with friends is a welcome event for this raging extrovert!  It’s always nice to have our work recognized, isn’t it?  Congrats also go to other LI author recipients Janet Lee Barton and Jodie Bailey.

From one extreme to the other—I spent the next night visiting my new friends (four-legged and otherwise) at the Lucky B Bison Ranch in Bryan, TX.  The owners and I have become friends since I started researching my upcoming Blue Thorn Ranch series which will debut next year.  From evening gown galas to bison ranch pastures—I have the best job ever, don’t I?

Then I shifted again, this time to Austin TX to help my son move out of his University of Texas freshman year dorm and come home for the summer.  A large, tedious job made better by outstanding meals upon our return to Dallas for the flight home: barbecue, fried chicken, and pie.  You know how I love pie.  Pie makes everything better (and yes, yes it did).

Now life has calmed down.  I’m back in Illinois working away on the Lone Star Cowboy League continuity series that comes out this fall and a second Blue Thorn Ranch book for next year.  My diet had better calm down, too, although turkey breast and rye crackers can’t compare to all the Texan goodies I enjoyed!

Allie Pleiter on high school memories

High School.  So many of us have strong memories of that time in our lives.  It’s such a dramatic, formative era in any life, isn’t it?  I think that’s why so many people work with youth groups and youth organizations—there’s such a powerful potential for a life-long impact.

Max Jones, the hero in A HEART TO HEAL, doesn’t think he’s that type at all.  Still, the problems facing young Simon Williams are so close to Max’s heart that he can’t resist.  I suppose pretty guidance counselor Heather Browning has a bit to do with his saying “yes,” to helping, too.  Max learns what many of us know:  when you offer to help someone, the benefits always run both ways—you often get as much as you give, if not more.

What I remember most about high school was theater.  I was one of those high school “theater geeks,” finding my place and my friends among the drama club.  I’ve kept in touch with many of those people, especially through social media.  I went to college as a theater major, eventually moving from performing to directing to producing, spending my first post-collegiate professional years in the “front of the house” in cultural arts administration.

I remember those times fondly.  If I hear a song from any of my high school musicals, I’ll always sing along (but not THE High School Musical, mind you…I’m a bit older than that…).  What about you?  What group or club was your "home" in high school? 

Allie Pleiter on "pretty, shiny..."

I went to Denver last month, and all I took home was...

...this very pretty trophy!

Now, we are not an athletic family by any stretch of the imagination, but thanks to my husband's sports car enthusiast hobby, we have our fair share of trophies.  As a matter of fact, he won one just the weekend before my acquisition--and his even lights up!  This, however, is my first, it means a lot.

And that's not a bad thing.  I've been nominated for awards several times.  It always feel nice--especially when the nods come from fellow writers or, in this case, from readers.  We want to be appreciated.  We want to have our hard work recognized, no matter what our field of endeavor.

The trouble comes when such snazzy hardware becomes the goal, rather than the happy extra.  If I seek to write for acclaim, that's not nearly enough juice to keep me going through the day-in, day-out slog of sitting down at my computer and making words happen for fourteen years.  Instead, I've found that the real go-power for me comes from love of the process.  Being a writer is about 2% cool public acclaim, and about 93% sitting alone and making it happen.  The other 5% (maybe more) is pure Hand of God.

Am I happy to have this little trinket? You betcha.  It feels great.  I was pleased. I've waited a long time to add the words "award-winning" to my biography.  Does it significantly change my life?  No.  And it's best I keep it that way.

Hardware is fun, but a new book is even better.  Fans of the Gordon Falls series--book #2 The Fireman's Homecoming is the volume which earned me my spiffy trophy--will be happy to know that book #4 was just rated an RT Top Pick for August.  I hope you'll enjoy A Heart to Heal or any of the entire Gordon Falls series.