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.