Kari's Kave: A Trip Down Rose Ceremony Lane...

Ah, the memories. I joined CNYRWA romance writers group back in 2004. Each year they have a ceremony at the holiday party in December called the Rose Ceremony. Each member fills out a Rose Sheet listing all their accomplishments throughout the entire year. Each category is a different colored rose for everything from how many contests entered, conferences attended, speaking engagements, books written, sold, rejected, etc. Only, the roses don't have to be roses. We've used flowers, beads, office supplies, etc. The point is to celebrate how hard authors work all year long.

In 2005 a group of us became the Rose Queen (Barbie Jo) and all her princesses (the rest of us). We wore crowns and toilet paper sashes that said Miss Spell, Miss Take, etc. That year we didn't take pictures and didn't really know what we were doing, but we sure had a ball.

Then in 2006 the fun really began when Barbie Jo and I took over as the Rose Queens. That year we chose a Survivor Romance Island theme. Outwrite, Outsell, Outlast!


We had buffs and flowers and bongos and torches and even created the famous coveted Rose Cup Award for the person with the most roses (who got a fancy cup) to the person with the fewest roses who got a decorated athletic cup. The look on her face was priceless when I draped that sucker over her neck. She was a good sport, though, and the cup was clean...I promise :-)

In 2007 we chose American Writer as our theme. We had Oprah, Nora Roberts, and Stephen King as our judges. We had our contestants read a one line blurb of their work in progress, and then we critiqued them in a Simon, Paula, and Randy fashion. It was a hoot.

Then in 2008 and 2009 we took a couple years off. We had the CDC committee of fairy godmothers in 2008, which was a lot of fun, and then Holly and Shannon put on a red carpet show worthy of the Oscars in 2009.

In 2010 Barbie Jo and I stepped up to the plate once more. This time we created a talk show called Barbie and Kari Lee. Regis would have been proud. We had news and headlines from the paper and magazines, as well as a makeover, and interviews to boot. We even spun the wheel to win a prize and talked to our "caller" of the day. Talk about fun. We always have fun.

And now jump ahead to the present. 2011. Last weekend Barbie Jo and I once again pulled off another fabulous Rose Ceremony. This year we chose Who Wants to be a Bestseller as our theme. We started out with, Who wants to see if it's in the cards to be a star like us? Then we proceeded to put each of our contestants in the hot seat and ask them 3 questions with only one lifeline. The questions all pertained to the current bestsellers out there. Once again we had a blast.

We will miss being Rose Queens, but we figured it was time to let someone else bring out there creativity and entertain us for a change while we retreat back to our writing caves and pour out our creativity on the pages of our books.

Seriously, though, I think every chapter should do something like this. It's so much fun and a great way to celebrate just how hard writers work all year long.

Hope you enjoyed my trip down memory lane. So tell me? Do you belong to a writers group? Do they do anything to recognize the efforts of their members? Inquiring minds want to know :-)