The Book Bracelet

Dear Reader,

I joined the RWA recently, which is the national organization, Romance Writers of America. Within that, I joined a local chapter, the North Texas RWA. It’s a super friendly group, and if you’re in the DFW area, I highly suggest checking them out. The women are all very friendly and there’s a lot of good stuff going on. The group is also celebrating their 30th anniversary next year. Over the next twelve months, they’re doing a Book In A Year (BIAY) program.

The idea is to write a book in a year, but with the way I work, I will do more than just one book. It’s the nature of how I work. So I’m doing a few different projects. There are monthly goals of words written or pages edited. If you meet these goals, you get a charm to put on your bracelet. You get the bracelet for being in the program.

To date, I have two BIAY charms, a brass cowboy hat and a boot. The hat symbolizes the beginning of the group. I think I missed what the boot was supposed to be for, but it’s cute!

Usually I don’t like bracelets, but for some reason I’ve hardly taken this one off for over a month.

I’ve gotten into the idea of this bracelet. At the meeting someone also had a charm bracelet they decorated with charms that represented their books. I’ve decided to combine these all into one. Not ambitious at all!

So here’s a few pictures of my charms.

There’s the Starfish, which is more or less a joke from my critique partners. We watched the Charlie the Unicorn videos and there’s this really spaztic starfish that pops out and says, "Starfish love you!" And it’s become our tagline.

 Next up is a little tiara. This is mostly just because I liked the charm, but also because I have a Serious Writing Tiara. This started because of a local event called Boas and Tiaras, where you get dolled up, wear a boa and tiara and have a high tea with authors. During NaNoWriMo this turned into the writing tiara, and now on days when I have to write or edit a lot, I wear my Writing Tiara.

I’m also adding charms per contracted book. For example, Flirting with Rescue has this horse head in a horse shoe. No, it’s not the most unique charm, but this is also very similar to my mother’s wedding ring, if it were gold and the horse shoe lined with diamonds. Since I drew a lot from my past and the idea came from horses, I thought it was appropriate. Several of the book charms I’ve splurged for sterling silver. The first few charms I bought have already worn down and needed to be replaced with something more durable. I’m hoping that the silver weathers my life better!

The cabin is for Personal Adventures. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for this book. Did I want to get a raft? Maybe mountains or something out doorsey. I stumbled across this cabin charm and – it was perfect! The cabin is where the characters really connect and I love that it has a tree with it. This is a peweter charm I got off ebay, in case you’re interested!

Now, of course for Under His Skin, my first book about tattoo artists, I needed a tattoo machine charm. I wasn’t sure how I was going to find a tiny tattoo machine, but I found one on ebay. It would have to be shipped from China, but the price was good. However, the measurements were way off. Instead of the half inch long charm, it’s a few inches long, big and bulky. So since the other tattoo machine charms I’ve found have been about $50+, I went for a ship, which once you read the book or even see the cover, you’ll understand.

And, since I got to share this on Monday, I can show you this charm. It’s for my short story contribution to the Foreign Affairs anthology. I struggled with finding a charm that would fit the story. Everything that I thought of was goofy or didn’t fit it just so. And then I started thinking about the heroine and her love for the story, The Secret Garden, and a skeleton key seemed perfect! 

I’ll have another one to add to the bracelet in a few weeks. I’ve actually ordered it already, though I haven’t technically sold it.