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A Mother’s Day Message
writing
2015 Pikes Peak Writers Conference: What a Blast!
Two days after conference I am finally getting my bearings again. I go to a writers conference to learn and to connect like most everyone else. Like most everyone else I work my ass off doing it. 14 hours of workshops, 7 hours of connecting and schmoozing whilst having a meal and several more cocktail hours of connecting and schmoozing. All this over the course of a three-day weekend (there is a fourth, optional day on Thursday that I didn’t participate in). By Sunday morning I am usually hiding behind copious amounts of coffee, overstimulated, exhausted, and walking around in a bit of a fog. At the same time I am content and happy to be among my people all weekend and thrilled with the learning experience. I noticed several others in the same condition. I tell people it’s like going to Hogwarts. Well, I think there is a clear correlation anyway.
Conference Experience
The Pikes Peak Writers Conference (PPWC) is known as the friendliest conference in the country and ranks as one of the top ten writers conferences in the U.S. This year the conference earned attendees from as far away as Ireland. So is it true? Is PPWC the friendliest writers conference in the nation? You betcha! This was my second year at conference. I was so overwhelmed my first year I kept to my workshops and didn’t talk with much of anybody. That was not for lack of trying on the staff’s part. PPWC staff made me feel so welcome and comfortable that first year that when I returned this year I made nearly two dozen connections including authors, publishers, and editors in several different genres. I practically felt like an old pro at this conference stuff.
Registration is a breeze, swag bags are awesome (this year included a free book!), and if you even think that you might be feeling lost or overwhelmed there is always someone nearby to help you out. In fact, they may know you need help before you do. Most likely they have been there and done that.
How friendly are these people. Well, I walked up to a keynote speaker’s table and asked if a seat was taken. Staff members piped up trying to gently tell me the table was reserved when I saw the sign. I played it off with some clever comment (at least I hoped it was clever) and ended up being complimented on my “radio voice” (I was a little hoarse that day). No snooty upturned noses, no rude comments or questioning of my cranial fortitude. No, instead I was complimented.
Speakers
Holy cow, the speakers! Move over Tony Robbins. Get out of the way Zig Zigler. Find a new gig Mike Dooley. Meet the 2015 PPWC speakers, Mary Kay Andrews, Andrew Gross, R.L. Stine (I call him Bob), and Seanan McGuire! All wonderful authors, highly inspiring, with impressive histories, and individual flair and styles all their own. If you’re not motivated about your writing by the time these people are done with you, you need to find something else to do with yourself. You should have heard some of Bob’s fan letters, hysterical!
Workshops
There are up to six workshops going on at any given time between breakfast and dinner. Open and closed critique groups and speaker panels round out this portion of the conference. Authors, editors, agents, and specialists present workshops on everything from craft to the business of writing. Tough stuff like plotting, keeping the pages turning, query letters, what agents are really looking for, platform building, how the process of writing a book and getting published works and many more. My best advice, fork over the cash for a recording so you can get all the fabulous workshops you’re going to miss while attending to your priorities or stuff that’s not recorded. So many talented people including Barbara (Samuel) O’Neal, Josh Vogt, Robert Spiller, Angie Hodapp, Cara Lopez Lee, Kevin Ikenberry, Laura DiSilverio, Liz Pelletier, and many more! Once again, if you’re not on fire about your writing after these people are done with you, you need to find something else to do. Maybe even check to see if you still have a pulse. Just sayin’. No, there is not Kool Aid.
The Zebulon
The Zebulon is a comprehensive writing contest that includes a rounded list of genres and mimics the process of submitting a story for publication…only much faster. You can purchase a critique of your story and you will receive a scorecard so you can identify your strong points and work on the areas you’re not so strong in, including your query letter. So worth the small investment.
Start Saving Up Now
So much more is available including query 1-on-1 and professional headshots as well as a book store. Then there’s the friends, comradery, and priceless moments to be had at every turn. This year there was even a ghost hunt. I save up all year just to go to this conference. I suggest you do the same and I’ll see you next year! There is a payment plan, so there’s not much of an excuse. I met writers of all kinds from erotica to nonfiction and everything between.
If you’re a writer and wondering if a conference is something you should do, let me save you the trouble. As the Nike ad says “Just Do It”. It could be one of the best decisions you could make about your writing career. Until Next year, adieu, magical PPWC. Back to the muggle world for now.
As always, feel free to drop comments or questions below and discuss. Love to see what you think.
Review – 50 Shades of Grey
The highly controversial movie debuted in theaters this Valentine’s Day weekend. The internet has been abuzz about it for weeks before its opening. Rumors about who was going to play Christian Grey went on even longer. Having read the first book in the series which I found disinteresting enough to not bother with the next two, I thought maybe the movie would improve what the book was lacking (like that ever happens). So for our dinner and a movie Valentine’s date, hubby and I stood in the line that everyone eyed to see 50 Shades of Grey.
If you are offended by nakedness of any kind, BDSM behavior, or sex in general, you should probably sit this one out. If you aren’t interested in shallow storylines that just don’t really work, don’t bother. If you’re looking for a good example of what the BDSM lifestyle entails, do not look to this movie to give it to you. If you want to see this movie so you can flood the internet with petitions to ban it because it’s an example of abuse, please don’t waste your time…and everyone else’s on the internet.
Anastasia is a literary student who does her roommate a favor that puts her life on a major detour. She attempts to interview Christian Grey, a magnetic, rich, well-dressed businessman with a supposedly tortured soul and a dark secret. Chemistry apparently happens during the interview and Christian decides he wants to get to know Anastasia better…no he doesn’t…yes, oh God yes, he does. Anastasia decides that, even though she’s terrified of Christian’s dark side, she still wants to get to know him and his “secret” better…no she doesn’t…wait, yes she does. This is about as much tension as this movie manages to muster out of a situation that is rife with potential to be a veritable tightrope.
Instead, the sold out theater of movie-goers I was with did a whole lot of laughing. So did I. It was like a cheesey wannabe porn flick. The ones that make a big production of making a storyline so it’s not so much like a taboo thing. Making a real case for Christian Grey as a twisted and tortured soul was never quite convincing because of this cheesiness.
Is there abuse in this movie? That is arguable. I know, I know “but what about the scene at the end???” I’m not going to give it away, I’m trying not to create any spoilers here. What I can say is the same thing I said when I started this review, if you are offended or triggered by BDSM behavior, you probably don’t want to go there. If you don’t know what BDSM is, please, look it up. Yes, the last scene is difficult and even more so because it plays like an over-the-top effort to try shock us into investing in the belief in Christians poor, tortured, soul. The effect fails miserably and we end up grateful for the abrupt ending to the movie, which I found…unsatisfying.
In my humble opinion, there are only a few groups of people who could be truly offended by this movie.
- Those who are truly triggered by the types of sex acts portrayed in this movie.
- The BDSM community in general, this film makes an already stigmatized group of people seem even worse.
- Anyone who believes that not-so-great writing should make it to print, let alone film.
Bottom line, 50 Shades of Grey is not nearly as dangerous to your average, fairly well adjusted person as certain people would have you believe. It is the same as any other movie, simple entertainment. An evening (or maybe afternoon, if you’re into that sort of thing) diversion that I wouldn’t pay to see in the theater. Wait for the DVD or Blueray unless you’re like me and just can’t stay out of a good down and dirty controversial conversation (no pun intended).
What did you think of 50 Shades of Grey? If you’ve read the books or seen the movie please feel free to share your opinions in the comments.
Excerpt from Lux Lucis Proeliator
Here we go…it’s been a while friends and fiends of the blogosphere. I’ve been busy with a number of things including writing my first novel. The following is an excerpt from my newly finished novel Lux Lucis Proeliator (The Light Warriors) in which we meet James Brigand. Irish, doctor, and high-ranking Proeliator who doesn’t know it yet. Feedback is welcome and certainly considered.
Somewhere in the chilling drizzle doctor James Brigand thought he heard and even more chilling sound. An unearthly howling yanked him out of his lucid meditative state. It must have been that damned O’connell dog howling again, he thought he remembered some kind of warning about this kind of howling. Yes, there it was again, then a yelp, then silence. O’connell must have thrown a shoe at the animal as he often did to make shush him up, but then James realized it was too quiet. Rising from his meditation rug, and moving silently across the stone floor to the back window on bare feet, he drew back the curtain just a crack to see if he could see the dog in the back yard adjacent to his own. It was quite foggy and the drizzle had been coming down for days, but none of that changed what he saw with his own two eyes. Something was eating O’Connell’s dog alive and it was not animal nor human. In fact he wasn’t completely sure what it was he was looking at, but it somehow seemed vaguely familiar. Although James was sure he had but slit of the curtain open the creature locked eyes with him. Its eyes were red and wild, and strips of flesh and fur hung from its bloody maw that was lined with pointy, razor sharp teeth. It looked somewhat like Grogoch, but the Grogoch were benevolent creatures that helped with planting and domestic things asking nothing more than a jug of cream for their trouble. The Grogoch would certainly not eat one’s dog. The next thing James knew the creature had appeared at his window, just the other side of the glass. Its hideous jaws wide open and snarling like a rabid animal.
1st Time NaNoWriMo Observations: Pansters vs. Planners
So like a good little NaNoWriPar (National Novel Writing Month Participant) I’ve been following my local activity threads on the NaNoWriMo website. The first thing I notice is that there are few first-time participants like myself and these seem to me much younger than me. Oh well. C’est la vie. I didn’t get into this to hang out with any particular crowd. Our Municipal Liason (ML) is the owner of a local book store in her tenth year of doing NaNoWriMo. In an event where it seems that one is considered a winner simply by finishing, this seems to be big deal. And believe me, finishing, is no easy feat. We are talking 50,000 words in 30 days (November 1 – 30). Around 300,000 writers will participate and about 10% will actually finish. Pray for me people. Pray really, really hard!
An interesting dichotomy has garnered more of my attention as of late that is basic to writing and yet nonetheless fascinating. It is the division of the “pansters” and the “planners” otherwise known as “plotters” (suddenly I’m hearing the battle of the pugs and the poms from the musical Cats in my head). It’s not a new concept and much has been written on the subject. Basically, some writers write by the seat of their pants, throwing everything out there and seeing what ends up sticking during the rewrites, yes plural, meaning several. Obviously if you throw so much spaghetti at the ceiling, you’re going to have to clean it up. Others, opt for a more organized approach, these are the planners. Planners write outlines, make meticulous character development charts, create complicated story trees, map plot points, and basically leave as little to chance as possible. There are pros and cons to both approaches making neither one necessarily right or wrong except in the eye of the person doing the actual writing.
Pansters experience the divine art of creation through sheer imagination. A panster doesn’t think about where the story is going, how many scenes it’s going to take to develop each chapter, whether or not he is hitting plot points at the right time or if the character that just appeared out of nowhere is actually necessary to the story or what kind of ice cream she likes. Pantsters just write. In fact, the less thinking there is, the better. This allows for a purer channel for the story to come through and pantsters live on a kind of faith that their characters will come through and introduce themselves in all their idiosyncratic glory when the time is right. Of course this means tons of work on the tail end in the form of re-writes, but allows for a free and flexible flow of creativity. Sometimes pantsters don’t even know how a book is going to end until they are quite a ways into it. Hence the pantster runs a high risk of getting hopelessly lost in the big, scary forest of a story of her very own making <shiver>.
Planners/Plotters on the other hand, plan as much as possible on the front end of a project. They are the ones busy making outlines, developing story trees, mind-mapping and using any number of other ingenious organizational tools to map out a book long before any actual writing begins. By the time a good planner is finished with her planning, why, the book has nearly written itself. Unfortunately, writing this way doesn’t leave a lot of room for creative flexibility and when new material shows up that doesn’t fit into the paradigm of the world already built, it often must be scrapped or tabled for use somewhere else rather than be explored. However, Planners usually have little to do once the first draft is written as they’ve already planned out the entire thing and know how everything is going to turn out.
Who are these pantsters and plotters? Well, I’m about to drop some heavy duty, maybe even surprising names on you here:
Pantsters
Stephen King –
Preeminent “King” of horror, notorious pantster
Ray Bradbury –
Science fiction writer extraordinaire, pantster
Kim Olgren –
NaNoWriMo participant, multi-genre writer and blogger, pantster (okay, maybe not that big of a name…yet)
Planners
Charles Dickens –
Master Storyteller, planner
Edgar Allen Poe –
Yes, really, despite spending most of his time in one intoxicated state or another, planner
J.K. Rowling –
as with many fantasy writers, planner
Most writers fall somewhere in between the two. pantsters might use some plot points or a loose outline and many planners are not nearly as structured and rigid as the tools of the trade may indicate. However, I’m learning that many pantsters and planners are quite passionate about their particular approach to writing.
If you are a writer, which method do you prefer? Are you a pantster, riding the wave of the story and seeing it through to the end? Or are you a planner/plotter, putting things together with an end already in mind? Why does your particular method work so well for you?
Demons, and Heros, and NaNoWriMo…Oh MY!
Not so long ago I was in the midst of finding a new job and trying to solve some nasty medical issues while my daughter and two precious grandkids moved into our house doubling the headcount overnight. Fast forward five months and now I’m feeling healthier than I have in a long time, all the “kids” are still here, I found a full time job, and I’ve joined NaNoWriMo. What? Nanowhomo? Nanowhatnow? I know, I’m beginning to see it too, I may just be a glutton for punishment. Before all this I spent four years working full time while going to school full time to earn a degree that has recently become absolutely meaningless to me (no, I will not discuss the financial implications of this).
I have always been a somewhat introspective person and it only took one simple question to turn my whole psyche, not to mention my world, upside down. I hate it when that happens! So now that you’re dying to know how one little question turned a grounded, down-to-earth, professional, level-headed, practical gal into a mental, gelatinous pile of goo I’ll tell you what the seemingly innocuous inquiry was.
“What if there is no retirement?”
That’s it. Six simple words, “What if there is no retirement?” Did I freak out because our 401k is nonexistent after stints of unemployment for both me and my hubby? No. Did I lose it because I had just realized there will likely be no Social Security when I reach “retirement” age? Nope. It was much more horrifying that that. Something went off in my soul. My heart felt stifled, I couldn’t breathe for a moment, and for once, my ego had absolutely nothing to say. In that moment of pure clarity and suspended time I realized something big. No, something HUGE. Suddenly and large part of my life lost all meaning entirely, which left an opening for a true and passionate calling. No matter how terrified I was, there it was, plain as the nose on my face.
I couldn’t keep doing what I’ve been doing only to get what I’ve been getting and I certainly didn’t want to live… be…die…”retire” living the life I was living. Suddenly Peter Gibbons voice is in my head from the movie Office Space and I’m thinking every day I have to go into the office is the worst day of my life. Guess what? It is, and there’s nothing I can do about that right now. However, I can’t undo what I’ve seen and it’s funny how being really sick forces you to take a look at your life and figure out what your real priorities are.
Enter NaNoWriMo.org. Before this major epiphany I had resigned myself to being “okay” with the slow and constant drudgery that is my life with maybe an occasional vacation, but now that I know what I know, it has become slow torture leading to certain death. Think I’m overdramatizing? Show me someone who has heard his or her true calling and I’ll show you someone who would wither and die on any other path. I had begun writing a novel several months ago but it has been slow going as I learn a new job and juggle a house full of six people while trying to find the time to write.
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is put on by The Office of Letters and Light. You can go to the website NaNoWriMo.org for more information. What NaNoWriMo participants do is write the rough draft of a novel, all 50,000 words, in one month from November 1 to November 30. Gah! Yep. This writer is going to attempt a 50k novel in 30 days working full time with six people in the house! Go me! This is my first time at NaNoWriMo, so I’m doubly nervous and excited. If you are a writer and have always wanted to write a novel but procrastination, fear, or whatever other excuse you’ve made has stopped you, maybe you’ll want to check NaNoWriMo out to get your feet wet.
Once I realized that every day was going to be the worst day of my life until I could get out of the cycle of going to a j-o-b every day I had to move. I had to set things in motion to be and do more, to create a life with more meaning and to give meaning to what I do day in and day out.
All that said, I am ever so grateful to my employer for giving me the means to pay the bills and I work for some wonderful people who will still be wonderful without me pushing papers around for them once I’m ready to become free. Even the caterpillar has to take it on faith that it will become a butterfly because it basically becomes caterpillar soup in that chrysalis before a beautiful butterfly is formed and bursts from it. I am stepping out in faith that out of the soupiness of what’s gone before, I’m changing into something different, something beautiful and someone who can offer the world a little something more. The demons of the past will meet the heroes of the future on the field at NaNoWriMo. Stay tuned.
How about you? What was your epiphany? Your wake-up call? Are you still trying to figure out what you want to be when you grow up? I felt that way for a long time. How did you know when the defining moment had arrived?
What Is Your Relationship to Silence? – Danielle LaPorte
Danielle LaPorte asks her burning question of the week. What is your relationship to silence? I found this a very intriguing question. As I began to ponder the question I wondered how many uber-busy people out there would even get the question. In a time of e-mail, Facebook, smart phones, electronic tablets, and huge TVs, I began to wonder how many people actually know what real silence is anymore. If I grabbed fifty of my Facebook friends and asked them if they meditated or spent any time in silence on a regular basis, what would I find? I suspect that very few would respond that they do.
For me silence is comforting. The world has become a noisy, dirty, mean, joyous, frenetic, volume on max, cacophony of speedy activity. I guess I’m kind of old fashioned or maybe it’s because I’ve found that my best writing comes to me out of silence. I own an android phone, I have a Facebook account, email, and entertainment system that includes a 47” flat screen TV, as big ‘ol stereo receiver and surround sound, but I spend the majority of my day – quiet. I’m sure that will change once I find a day gig to support me while I’m writing, but for now, I relish each quiet day. I don’t turn on the 47” TV during the day. In fact it is off until my husband gets home from work in the evening. Most days, I don’t even turn on my favorite companion, music. It’s fabulous, but then I’ve always been the kind of person who grabbed a bit of silence whenever I could. Don’t get me wrong though, I also do my fair share of making noise and running around like a madwoman.
Silence is refreshing. Silence is grounding. Silence is soothing. Silence is the place where the infinite, the holy, and I meet. Silence is the place where my angel wraps her wings around me and gives me strength. In silence my spirit rests. In silence I find the beauty of my own spirit. Silence makes no demands and yet its incredible power changes lives.
I appreciate the quiet moments in my life. Not long ago, my son and I sat in the living room, each on our respective computer. Me working on a story and he working on some video editing, I believe. We sat silently working for some time and I deeply appreciated the fact that this person who had been raised with all the modern day distractions our electronic era has to offer, could still sit comfortably in silence with another. He is a mere twenty-one years old and is already wiser in the ways of silence than many other adults I know.
Obviously I think silence is a good thing. I think everyone should get a little bit of it every day. Not necessarily in the form of intentional meditation, but if nothing else, to unplug for a while. In taking a moment to hear yourself, you connect to the divine or higher self. Silence allows us to give our brains a rest from the myriad of stimuli that are thrown at it every other second of the day. I know a few people, myself included, who tend to go outside, take a walk or find a quiet place to sit when a particularly difficult or complicated issue comes up at work. Many times that few moments of silence is all that is needed for the answer to a problem to show itself. Silence is valuable.
Now that I’ve told you mine, what is your relationship to silence? Is it a good thing, or do you have better things to do with your time? Does silence make things you don’t want to think about crop up for you, or is it a comfort?
Sorry May Not Be The Hardest Word…
According to Sir Elton John, Sorry seems to be the hardest word. Although sorry is a heavy, heavy, word there may be an even harder word to deal with…forgive. Forgive can be an extremely difficult concept, especially when it comes to people, ourselves included. According to Merriam-Webster.com, this kind of forgiveness is defined as “to cease to feel resentment against.” Seems simple enough in theory, but it can be oh so hard in practice. Many people seem to think that to forgive someone they have to accept whatever the transgression has been as okay. That’s not true. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the violator but naming him/her, and everything to do with the victim.
And still it is sometimes so difficult to forgive. Knowing that it will free you, knowing that it will make you lighter, knowing that it will release the burden…still it can be so daunting. So some people keep dragging that burden around keep letting it make little cuts in their psyche, keep letting it hold them back, from the right relationship, the right job, the right whatever. Think about it, is there someone that still burns your chaps when you think about him/her? I bet there is. Maybe it’s an ex maybe it’s a family member or a friend, maybe it’s a stranger. Recently, for me, it was some previous coworkers.
I was recently reminded of my neglect in forgiving them when they ended up sitting in my line of sight at a local event. The first thing that entered my head was “You gotta be kidding me! There goes my afternoon!” Then “Really, you’re going to give these slime balls that kind of power?” I’m so grateful for those times that I can actually hear my quiet voice of reason whispering to me. She was right. That, my friends, is the power of forgiveness – the power to completely dissolve any power that someone has over you because of some transgression or violation they have perpetrated against you. As long as you haven’t forgiven them, they live rent free in your head all the time, affecting your thoughts, your actions, and how you feel. Did I walk up to them and say “Hey, yeah, uh, I forgive you.” Nope. That’s the cool thing about forgiveness, participation of the heathen violator is not necessary. One more thing that proves that forgiveness is for your own well-being, not that of the meanie that hurt you.
“But I’m still really mad!” you say. That’s okay. This was one of those particularly difficult forgivings for me, but I did it. I did it right then and there. Here’s how I know that it worked. I’m still pissed about what these people did, but it no longer sits in my heart like a cold, lead cannonball, weighing me down. My heart feels open and light like it should. You don’t have to give up your feelings and surrender; you just have to let the darkness out. You can work through the rest afterwards, but oddly enough, you can’t work it out and move on until you’ve done the forgiving part.
Have you ever had a hard time forgiving someone? I’d love to hear how you overcame it or how you’re working through it.
Unedited Original Book Excerpt by Moi
WARNING: Disturbing images and paranormal twistedness ahead. Read on at your own risk. This is an unedited excerpt from one of the novels that I am currently working on.
He approached from the back of the house. Climbing the steep hillside and working his way through the trees as his master had instructed, his muscular body moving like a cat. He strangled the white chicken before ripping its head off. Master wanted the blood localized, not spread all over the back yard and chickens had a tendency to run around with their heads cut off. The muscular chicken killer quietly chuckled to himself. Good thing the backyard was totally isolated from the neighbors’. The master said he wanted it to make an impact, the crimson against the snow white feathers. Hopefully none of the local wildlife would find it before she did. He filled a small paper cup with chicken blood, picked up the head, and proceeded to the house. He scaled the back of the house like a frog and slid open the kitchen window. As he guessed, it wasn’t locked because it was on the second floor with no access, or so most people thought. Most people didn’t think creatures like him really existed. It wasn’t his job to judge, it was his job to do. He made his way to the master bedroom. He carefully constructed what would look like an altar scene. He laid out a solid black silk scarf and arranged the head among some night-blooming jasmine. He added a used white candle to create the illusion that a ritual was performed here along with a dagger. The bowl of blood would also rest here when he was done with it. Now came the fun part, he took off his socks and shoes and began to carefully paint the bottoms of his feet with the blood and proceeded to wander out of the bedroom careful to start out facing the bed then turning and walking out of the room. He reapplied blood as needed until he reached the patio door, unlocked it being sure to leave a bloody handprint, and walked to the railing overlooking the dead chicken in the yard. He was practically giddy, but now he had to make sure he exited without a trace. Master had burned the prints off of his hands and feet years ago so he could use him for things such as this. His small hands and feet lent an eeriness to the scene because they were like a child’s. He carefully washed the blood off of his hand and feet with pre-wetted wipes. He was sad that he couldn’t keep it. He stuffed the wipes in his pack, went back in the house, locked the door, and leapt out of the kitchen window landing in the grass next to the chicken. He could see the blood was coagulating quite nicely in a pool around the stark white of the feathers as he smiled down at his work. Like a puddle of wet paint with a soft, dry skin over it. He was an artist after all and the Master had allowed him to take his talent to immeasurable new heights. He sensed the darkness before he saw it, it was twilight and the master was waiting in the trees. The chicken killer became frightened and terribly excited at the same time as he hurried to the Master.
The man known only as “the Master” to the creatures of this world who served him was known by many other names. He was evil incarnate, hell itself, the fallen angel, Satan, and he had fathered this child. She didn’t seem to be listening to the warning he had sent through Scortch. She didn’t know she was his daughter. It was better that way and it was only a son that most need worry about coming from his loins. Despite the fact that she continually wounded or destroyed his minions, he could not bring himself to destroy his own flesh and blood or try to turn her into something she wasn’t. He would not twist her, he loved her too much. It was a weakness. He was unclean from all his dealings over the millennia and she was pure. So he was resorting to scaring her. He knew if she took the job that the FBI offered, she might not survive and her soul would reside in a kind of purgatory for an eternity. He couldn’t have that, his blessings from God being so few and all since he ejected him from heaven forever and made him into the king of hell. Holy bastard. Regardless, he had to save Lucy from herself, which meant ensuring the job was done right by watching it first-hand.
I hope you enjoyed what you read here. For those of you who have been following me for a little while and decided to go ahead and read this, I realize this may be a vast departure from my usual blog content other than being in my writing wheelhouse. Don’t worry; the shock will wear off soon. 🙂
The One Lovely Blog Award
Holy cows eating muffins in the barn on a Sunday! I am a humble recipient of the “One Lovely Blog Award!” Thanks so much to Amy, writer of Afternoon Popcorn Snack for the nomination! Amy’s blog on life in Oklahoma, simple recipes and photography is awsome! Love it! Being so new to this whole blogging thing I am truly honored, and blown away, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share some great blogs. Thanks to my family, friends and fellow bloggers who comment on my posts. It’s so nice to know I’m not just talking to myself out here! 🙂
Rules of acceptance (as mentioned by other bloggers):
*thank the person who nominated you and link back to them in your post
*share 7 things about yourself
*nominate 15 or so bloggers you admire
*contact your chosen bloggers to let them know (this might take me a few days so please bear with me)
7 new things about myself
- I am a recovering constant doubter and worrier.
- I adore corny movies! Joe Versus the Volcano, Labyrinth, Dodgeball, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Miss Congeniality being among my favorites.
- In addition to mainstream, I read indie/self-published books…lots of them! Shhh!
- I spend at least 5 minutes doing absolutely nothing every day…it’s called meditation.
- I talk to the animals…most of the time they don’t answer.
- In addition to my bachelor degree, I have an honorary doctorate in religious philosophy; I’m an ordained minister, a licensed cosmetologist, and a public notary.
- I’m just now figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. 😉
In all honesty, I’m so new at this I wasn’t sure that I would be following enough blogs to pull off a sufficient list, but I do…barely…and I’m adding to it all the time. So here’s some blogs that I have found to be inspiring, innovative, or just plain fun! Everyone has something to say, few have the courage to say it out loud. Thanks so much to the writers of these blogs (and many more I don’t know yet) for choosing to be courageous!
Barely Poppins Creative Noshing Danny’s Kitchen Living Simply Well
Happiness Stan Lives Here Five Spoons Kate’s Creative Space
Domestic Diva, M.D. eatates sierralei A Modern Christian Woman
The Local Tourist – Colorado Bucket List Publications
Teaspoons and Tinsel catchcarri Travel Monkey – The Adventures of Kongo
K.A. Olgren Stories 'n' More 