My blog post on the ACFW blog called "20 Years: Happily Ever After." … [Read more...]
Day 64: Writing Is Not Pretty
Are you a little confused by today's title? To be honest, so was I. So I got to thinking. When we're writing a book, or a play, or a blog post, or whatever type of writing that needs to be done, our first drafts are anything but pretty. There are grammar mistakes galore (even though in our head it was perfect :( ). We have all the spelling errors that either our auto-correct didn't change our word automatically or we really messed up the spelling (gotta love spell check, a writer's best friend). … [Read more...]
Day 63: Feast or Famine: Part 2
Have you ever sat down to your computer or your binder paper and suddenly you have nothing to write. In fact, this goes on for several days. Nothing is coming to you. This is what we writers hate to have happen: Writer's Block. Or the famine. For whatever reason, all of our ideas have dried up like a lake that goes through a severe drought and dries all up. We want to write. We've scheduled our time out and yet here we sit. This has happened with my daughter's dedication website for me. If … [Read more...]
Day 48: Community
When I think of a writing community I think of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers). This little community of writers is so much more than writing. There is Novel Track. It's a place of accountability and support. You let the group know what your goal is at the beginning of each month. Then, as each day goes by you report in your numbers for that day. In return, you will receive positive reinforcement. Even on the days where you did nothing and tell the group you have a great big goose … [Read more...]
The Journey with Lillian Duncan
Please welcome this weeks guest Lillian Duncan for The Journey. She answers the question: How have you seen God work in your writing journey? How has God figured into my writing journey? In more ways than I have space to tell. I started writing when I was 40. As much as I hate to admit it now, I wasn’t living a Christian lifestyle at the time, even though I’d become a Christian as a young teenager many years before. My writing reflected the fact that I wasn’t living a Christian … [Read more...]
Day 33: Diving, Not Drowning
When I went to go read today excerpt, this was the first line: "The fear of going back into your past — reliving trauma or grief — sometimes can block writing about the most important part of your story." This struck me to the core. I have so many things in my past, the good, the ugly and the tragic. All of which have shaped and molded me into the person I am today. The unfortunate part to all of this is there has been those very ugly things that no one ever wants to have happen to themselves … [Read more...]
Day 26: The Trampoline as a Metaphor
Life sometimes can totally surprise us in the most unexpected ways. For instance, a big trampoline. How in the world is a trampoline possibly related to writing? Before I read today's except on the phrase above, I was stumped. Then I started to read how scared to death the woman was by "what looked like a big lake of black water." She said, "I’m here to tell you that it is impossible to be calm and dignified on a trampoline. It is also impossible to feel safe on one. I crawled onto [it] and … [Read more...]
Day 2: Sacred Space
When I think of "Sacred Space" I think of it more in the abstract. I can be sitting in my living room in my comfy cozy chair or like I am now, writing this on my Kindle as I walk on my treadmill. For me my space becomes sacred when I need to write something. I don't like to be interrupted as I can lose my train of thought just like the snap of my fingers. Sometimes I'm so engrossed in what I'm doing that others may try to talk to me but I don't hear them as my mind's been turned off to … [Read more...]
Making a change
I've been trying to make NaBloPoMo work here on this site and I've never felt fully comfortable as it's more personal than writing related. Whereas on my daughter's dedication website (mommysangelinheaven.com) I've been doing this 365 day journey through this book called A Year of Writing Dangerously: 365 Days of Inspiration & Encouragement by Barbara Abercrombie. I've been reflecting on what the author has said and writing my post in reference to it. However, what I've come to realize is … [Read more...]
The First Blog Post I Ever Wrote
Blogs. There are so many of them out there today and the plethora of topics that each one is on can seem to never end. After my daughter pasted, my grief ran so deep. I bought a new diary (yes, I still call my journal a diary :) ) to write all those thoughts constantly swimming around in my head. I needed an outlet to be able to just vent. Then approximately three months later I had all those words I just had to get written down. So I sat down at my dining room table and began to write those … [Read more...]
