I was just going through comments left on this site and Suzanne Ong nominated for the Liebster Award. This is a pleasant surprise to find. So you might be asking, "What is a Liebster Award?" Basically it is an award given by fellow bloggers to other bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers. It's a way to help bring them more exposure so that really great blogs that might other wise be missed can be more easily found. Here are the simple rules for accepting the award: List 11 random … [Read more...]
I’ve been away…
My 365 day writing journey, as you've probably notice, has come to stop over the past couple of weeks. I've been dealing with computer issues and also having to try and fix my computers. As a result my writing journey hasn't been happening. My hope is that I will be able to pick it back up at the beginning of June. In the mean time, please stop by each Friday for The Journey. My hope is that each person story that is share might encourage you in some way like it does me. … [Read more...]
Day 104: Writing Your Own Front Yard #acfw
Think about this for a moment. When we write or talk about things do we use our past experiences during those times or do we just guess and hope what we say makes sense to others. Personally, I think our best writing comes from the things we have personally experienced. I'm not saying that those who haven't experience something they've written about is good. What I do mean is when we write from things that have happened in our past, we're able to put part of ourselves into what we write. There … [Read more...]
Reflecting back over the A to Z Challenge #AtoZchallenge
I've now done the A to Z Challenge two years in a row. However, this year I took on an added challenge of my own by not only doing it on this site but also my author site (kristenatunstall.com). I may not have always got my post up on time, which only happened a couple of times, I did get every letter written in the month of April on both sites. Just like last year, for this year's challenge I chose to do each letter about Mari in some way. In a way I hope people could see through each letter … [Read more...]
Y is for Year Journey #AtoZchallenge
For those of you who've been following my site for a while know I've been doing a year-long writing journey. What I've been doing is going through a book with 365 different entries, reading through what the author has put, then I write out my own take on the prompt she had for that day. I temporarily put doing this on hold while doing the A to Z Challenge. However, on May 1 I plan to pick right back up where I left off on day 104. I think by doing this those who read the posts get to know me … [Read more...]
R is for Remember #atozchallenge
It's hard not to remember such a remarkable little girl as Mari. I know that I might be a tad bit biased, but I also know how this one little girl touched so many people's lives in ways I never could have imagined. In the two weeks prior to Mari contracting E. coli, she was in a special summer school program as well as a camp for special needs children. She went to summer school Monday through Thursday until around 1pm and then a bus picked her up and took her to camp. On Friday's she got to go … [Read more...]
Q is for Query #atozchallenge
The dreaded query letter. No one wants to write this yet it is a very important part of the writing process. I wanted to get a specific definition for a query so I thought what better way to find it than by doing a Google search and here is what I found: "A query letter is a formal letter sent to magazine editors, literary agents and sometimes publishing houses or companies. Writers write query letters to propose writing ideas." A query is basically your first step in the door. That all … [Read more...]
J is for Jump
I sometimes used to think of Mari as my little jumping bean due to how much energy she could exude. Right before Mari got sick I'd ordered this trampoline for the backyard. When it came in we had invited part of Keith's family over to help us put it up as Mari was going to love having this. As we were laying out the pieces and checking off all the parts, one of the critical pieces you needed to put it together ended up being missing. So we had to put it all back away. And you've probably … [Read more...]
F is for “Finding Nemo”
Oh, my, yes! Finding Nemo, one of Mari's very favorite movies. If we'd allow her to she'd watch it all day along with Cars, and Jonah: A Veggies Tales Movie. Her little arms would flap in excitement as she watched one of them play our before her. What I noticed about Mari is she never liked movies that had people in them, or if they did it was very small parts, like all the Disney Princess movies. She just had no interest whatsoever. However, is a movie or a TV program had animals, that was her … [Read more...]
E is for Ebook
Have you noticed the amount of ebooks now available for us to purchase today. They are so prevalent. There are so many authors going the indie route as they have more control over how their book is published, or for that matter, getting it published at all. Twenty years ago, if you wanted to see your book in print, you had to go to one of the big New York publishers and hope, that by some small miracle, they'd publish your book. Today you can go to a place like CreateSpace and publish your … [Read more...]
