Birthday Hugs and One Wish

Today it's my birthday . . .and I just want to embrace life in the fullest.

My life is full of joy in abundance.

I am so thankful to be alive, to be breathing, to have a wonderful family, to kiss my husband's scratchy half-beard face (his co-workers call him cake face), to watch my sweet girls sleep in, to rub my fingers through my dogs' short fur, to drink my favorite tea, to soak in the green and blue of the morning (green for all the lush plants and blue for the sky).

I'm just loving life.

And I hope you are too.

GIANT BIRTHDAY HUGS FOR EVERYONE!

My one wish for my birthday is this: that each person on this planet would know joy deep down in their hearts - that each person would know that they are fully loved.


"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, Rejoice!" Philippians 4:4

"You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly (that's all of us). Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8 (God really loves us, each of us, no matter where we are or what we've done.)

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:24

Back from Being Unplugged

I meant to unplug for a week, but then it went longer. How did that happen?

It went something like this:

(My oldest daughter and my hubby cliff jump from a 10 ft cliff.)

I unplugged to write, then I jumped deep into a four day family trip to Sun Lakes, Eastern Washington with 14 people (family).

Boating, tubing, water-skiing, swimming, cliff-jumping, putt-putt golfing, reading in the shade, and watching a laser light show on the spillway of Grand Coulee Dam are so different than our regular lives that we felt like we went to a whole different place.

A place so different that I actually remained calm when my youngest daughter did this:

That's my 11 year old fearless girl jumping from a 30 foot cliff.

Well, I remained mostly calm. I'm glad that two of her older cousins were with her. I'm not sure that I'm going to survive her childhood. I might just have a heart attack one of these days. Or I might have to work up my courage and join her . . .umm, heights and water? Deep breath. Maybe next year.

 I've had my horizons expanded by rest and excitement, and now I'm back to work, ready for writing, ready for blogging, and even ready for the school year. But I don't want to say that last part too loud because I'm trying to soak up every last moment of summer while it's here.

Have you unplugged lately? Had a moment to renew your energy for the harvest season coming up?

Revision and Polishing: 100 Days of Revision Update

100 Days of Revision is coming to a close . . .soon. (Friday) (I'll be keeping to myself from today until Friday evening so please feel free to ignore my blog until next week)

And am I going to be finished by the end of my self-imposed goal?

I think so . . .mostly so. Yes.

The reality is . . . I went a little deeper in revision than I originally intended, but I think it's for the benefit of my novel. I changed around some major details again. Yikes. But it's ok. In fact, it's better than ok. I think it's almost finished.

The reality is that at the close of the 100 days . . . I'll still need to rub a polishing cloth over the story.

The awesome news about that is that I found an amazing critique partner who's helping me find the rough stuff and the few "question" areas that remain. I plan to be fully polished (no more "revision" of major parts) by early September (hopefully end of August).

Is this an unfair extension of my 100 Days of Revision?

I don't think so. I gave myself 100 Days to take the gobbledy gook parts of my story and get the plot back into place after questioning myself too many times in previous revisions. This time the plan is good and it's coming together . . . finally.

So, my critique partner is worth her weight in gold, and I hope she knows it.

Do you have a critique partner? Where are you at in your writing? When do you feel finished?

On another positive note: I cleaned my writing nook, stumbled across my sequel to Champion in the Darkness and read it from start to finish with happiness. I think the sequel may be stronger in rough draft form than Champion was . . .and that's awesome, because once I finish Champion, I plan to polish One Wing and get it it out there quickly. BTW: planning on self-pubbing.

Authonomy and Figment

Have you ever heard of Authonomy and Figment?

If so, what do you think?

Authonomy is "An online community of discovery where writers become authors."

Developed by HarperCollins, it's a place you can share your writing with other writers, readers, editors, and supposedly publishers, and find out what they think. You can vote and give feedback, and receive votes and get feedback. As writers, we're supposed to be able to find agents and publishers possibly there . . .the thing is . . .you have to upload 10,000 words of a current project to showcase your work there.


Figment "is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors."

 Figment is another online self-publishing site that has authors of all ages and in varying states of success publishing bits and pieces of stories, novels, poetry, and all kinds of writing. There are ways to get and give feedback. There are writing groups.

Since one of my students' from my Creative Writing class recommended Figment to me last year, and since I had to sign up to leave feedback on her writing there, I threw a few bits of my writing on there . . .things I had previously published on my blog or that were extremely rough and needed feedback.

I've enjoyed using Figment, but I haven't been a regular user. I can't keep up with continual use of that, my blog and facebook (oh, and two e-mail accounts). My twitter use has become almost nil . . .someday I might remedy that.

So, What do you think? Are self-pub sites like Authonomy and Figment worth our time as writers?
Do you use them or sites like them to showcase some of your writing? And do you think I should "upgrade" the quality of my work on figment, since I've thrown some stuff on there haphazardly . . .shudder, what would a professional editor think of my Medusa story? 



And if you're curious and have extra time (who has that?), you can check out my figment page here

IWSG August 2012

August is Awesome! It just is. It's my birthday month and my anniversary month. Plus, it's actual summertime here in the Northwest United States . . .it's just getting into the 80s this week. I know that much of the states are sweltering, but here we are just getting warm.

So what in the world does that have to do with IWSG?

 I'm in an unstoppable, amazing mood so I can't really get into insecurities right now. I have them. They suck. I'm not interested in giving them the time of day. I'm just too happy to let them pull me down right now.

So, my advice and encouragement today is:

Be Happy.

Write and Be Happy. Live and Be Happy. Just Be Happy.
Love every word you write. Love your life. Love yourself.
Know Joy.

Then go by Alex J. Cavanaugh's site and give him a giant virtual hug!
And go hug other writers and their blogs!


"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, Rejoice!" Philippians 4:4