The Gratitude Dance

It's a bit of a steal from Where the Hell is Matt, but it's also cute:

Feeling Blessed

I'm off to feed the hungry and hand out hampers at St. Mary's today. I am feeling especially blessed in my life. Even though God knows my shortcomings and sins, he still loves me. Today the pastor spoke about three things to remember this Christmas...

1) BE a Christian (don't just go to church but live a joyful, fulfilled, blessed Christian life),
2) Be extraordinary (don't hide your light),
3) Forgive (even yourself).

It may sound silly to say that I'm looking forward to feeding the hungry today, but I am, I'm hoping that I receive as much blessing as I can and I give as much blessing as I can.

Feel the Fear and Write it Anyway...

Just found this post from the Word Strumpet and I found it very relevant. Especially this part:

I'm so used to the feeling of being nervous that I rarely even notice it anymore. Ratchet it up to terrified (say, book deal) and you'll get my attention, maybe. Meanwhile I go about my business being happily scared half out of my mind, doing it anyway: boarding the plane and hoping some kind gentleman will volunteer to lift my heavy laptop bag to the overhead compartment, meeting the new client, and opening up a new page to write on the computer or the spiral journal.

I'm finally beginning to realize that if you're not scared, you're not living. If you're not putting your nerves on the line on a regular basis, it is time to dial it up a notch. This is true in garden variety living life, and its true in writing.

Fear is the flip side of creativity. But you can--and must--harness it. Maybe there's a creative person somewhere on the planet who doesn't experience fear, but I don't know where that someone is.

Go on, read the rest...

Twitter - Great Resource for Writers

I've run across some writers that don't know what Twitter is, or look down on it as a crazy time-wasting energy-suck. And surely it can be... you can even track how many hours you've spent on Twitter with Tweetwasters.

But for writers looking for sources, subjects or media/PR, there are very few other sites out there that can beat the instantaneous nature of Twitter.

Here are some Twitter people, aka Tweeps to follow, other than ME of course:

http://twitter.com/BreakingNewsOn
http://twitter.com/skydiver
http://twitter.com/prnewswire
http://twitter.com/CopyrightLaw
http://twitter.com/InternetLaw
http://twitter.com/BlogSquad
http://twitter.com/readersdigest
http://twitter.com/Reuters
http://twitter.com/ckrewson
http://twitter.com/msnbc
http://twitter.com/cnn
http://twitter.com/foxnews

I use an application called Twhirl that pops up the “tweets” every few seconds. Because I follow a lot of other writers and media types I tend to know where the great blog posts are and if something is relevant to my current writing, I can include it… plus I try to never forget to tweet my own blog posts and I get more comments and my site hits go up. I’ve noticed my ad revenue go up as well.

There are some netiquette rules to follow of course, just like any other online tool. You don't want to break them, but it's ok if you make a few mistakes... just get out there and try it!

Freelance Writer's National Anthem

Ok, Off topic, but....

I laughed my stinkin' butt off at this video... George W. Bush can MOVE QUICK!

Life is Good

Sorry peeps, didn't mean to make it sound all doom and gloom the other night. 1 am will do that to you. In the morning light, everything looks a bit brighter I think.

We had a snow storm yesterday, not the big horrible one they were predicting, but a good hefty dump of snow. Everyone acted shocked. Snow? What? And yet it's mid-December here in Canada and we'd been headed straight for a brown Christmas yet again. It might be kind of nice to have a Christmas with snow once again.

So remember we adopted two cats? Yeah, they are awesome. Every morning they are happy to see me, that's more than I can say for my kids who want to sleep in! ;0) But these two wind their way around my ankles, purring and meowing (or m-ow-ing as E would say). On mornings like this when I get to sit, ensconced on my couch, the big one tries to lay across my laptop. He succeeds in pinning down at least one arm and I almost don't want to make him move because he's warm and sweet.

The best thing at the moment is.... drumroll please.... my book is up on Amazon! (And Chapters in Canada!)

What do you think of the cover? I love it, love, love, love it! From what I understand, the cover illustrator entered in into the annual for the Society of Illustrators and was accepted.... now I don't know much about that but my publisher seemed really excited!

Unfortunately it won't be out in time for Christmas as it has a Spring release date, but I'm thoroughly excited to see it OUT THERE.

Late Nights

If there is one thing that defines me as a writing mother, it's the night. I don't mean anything ethereal about the night and the magic of it or anything, I mean, pfft... I mean most nights I sit here until far past midnight. Writing or editing or trying very hard not to procrastinate on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever else I can go to forget that Oh My Gosh Am Worst Writer Ever Why Do I Try.

(See, that never goes away.)

But here I sit, almost every night with the laptop and heavy socks and my feet up and a coffee or tea at my side. I usually make a list of what I need to get done and I keep working at it until my neck hurts or my eyes start to feel like they've been poked with hot coals.

And then when the alarm goes off at 0600, I try not to ignore it. Except today, apparently, I did. I'm supposed to be at work at 0730 and I looked over at the clock and it was 0708. Whoops. With Major Man working nights, he doesn't get off work until 0700 so I'm the one responsible for getting both kids up, ready and out the door. That's an hour minimum.

I admit that I wonder why I do this. I wonder if I can do this. But then I just put one foot in front of the other and one word next to another . . . and just one night after another.

Things That Are Old

When we moved into our house we snickered a bit at the old things that were in it. I mean, not the people, but the things. The wallpaper from the 70's, the original 1960's stove, oven and fridge. The minty green decoration in the bathroom.

They left us a few things: dressers, a bed, some artwork, wine glasses.

My most favourite leftover has been a radio that is quite likely older than I am. They left it on top of the fridge. At night when I am doing the evening dishes I turn it on and listen to the local Christian station. They have good sermons on. I know, I'm turning into my grandmother.

But that's the thing . . . it sounds *exactly* like grandma's radio. Which sat on the top of her fridge. And this radio works great! It's a heavy one, not like the cheap plastic ones you get now with the wimpy little antenna that never works. There isn't even a smidgen of static, just a strong signal.

It makes me think of the cliche, "they don't make things like they used to", which, of course, is only a cliche because of the truth of it. But that's the thing with this house - it is full of older appliances and fixtures that all work beautifully because someone has cared for them. When the stove broke after 20 years they didn't buy a new one - they fixed the old one! Imagine it! When something breaks I'm jumping up and down because wheeeee, I get to buy something new.

I'm turning over a new leaf - looking at my furniture, even the rag-tag, mix-match things I have, I am ok with keeping them around for a while longer.

Okie dokie, need to take a bit of a break from the typing tonight - the kitty is climbing all over my laptop, chasing my fingers. But he's so cute I might keep him around, too.