Divine Humanity

For as long as I can remember, my mother put this reproduction antique post card on the table next to our nativity set each Christmas season. The nativity set was passed on to me a few years ago. In the box was the post card with a sentiment written by Phillips Brooks, a man known as the greatest American preacher of the 19th century and writer of the Christmas hymn, O Little Town of Bethlehem.

Each year when I read the post card, a thrill of joy bubbles up from my heart. At this beautiful time of year, I wish you a similar thrill of joy. . .

“Lift up your eyes to the great meaning of the day, and dare to think of your humanity as something so divinely precious that it is worthy of being made an offering to God.

Count it as a privilege to make that offering as complete as possible, keeping nothing back; and then go out to the pleasures and duties of your life, having been truly born anew into His divinity, as he was born into our humanity on Christmas Day.”

Since I was a very young woman, I have given myself, heart and soul, to my Lord. I offer each of my days to Him. And in a most humble way, I think of my writing as something so divinely precious that it is worthy of being made an offering to God as well.

Writer Montage Thoughts

Some of those lines from the previous post were great. Weren’t they?

I liked the one about the unpublished guy who says, “I’m a playwright. I write unproduced plays.” I had a line similar to that for many years.

And then there was the one about the genre that was all over the place: “It’s an action, suspense, romantic melodrama with lots of comedy, of course.” Now that one hit close to home because nobody is 100% sure what my genre is. If you take out the suspense in the above quote, you may very well have a description on my genre. But what would that be called?

And what writer hasn’t heard something like this: “It’s not that it’s bad. It’s just not good enough.”

Can You Relate?

This writer montage is so on the mark. It encompasses the ups and downs of the writing life.

Enjoy the chuckle.

Thanks to my wonderful agent Beth Jusino for sharing it.

Never in My Wildest Dreams

I never imagined that I would be the kind of person to go out and buy doggie steps. Oh, to what depths have I fallen? Am I one of those? You know—the people who go ga-ga over their pets and start to accessorize their homes in doggie décor.

Our house has looked like an obstacle course since my dog Belle tore her ACL. As soon as you walk in the door you’re greeted with those round sunblocking thingies blocking the stairs to the second floor. You know what I mean, those things covered with fabric that go on a car’s windshield to keep the car cool while it’s parked in the sun.

If you gaze into the living room, there’s a dining room chair laying on the loveseat. Walk toward the family room, and a chair is turned on its side blocking the entry. We know she can jump up to get on a couch, it’s the jumping down that may do her more damage.

Anyway we’re getting tired of stepping over a chair to get to our family room. So the solution? Doggie steps. Little Belle has her own corner of the couch, complete with a handmade afghan. You wouldn’t believe the variety of doggie steps available on the market.

Of course you know what this mean—now we have to teach our old girl how to use doggie steps.

Oh, the adventure continues! Isn’t life grand?

(I'll let you know how it goes.)

Please Pray

Kristy Dykes is a fellow ACFW member and author. About a week ago she received the news that she has a brain tumor. I believe she’s been told she may have one to three years left to live—and boy is she living. I’ve been following her journey on her blog. What a beautiful example of a Jesus lover (and Milton lover!).

Kristy’s blog is Christian Love Stories, and her favorite is the love story between herself and her dear husband Milton. Grab a tissue if you go, and do go, to her blog. The past week she has blogged on her thoughts and the pleasure she’s had spending time with loved ones. What a sweet, sweet story she’s penning.

Bless her, she knows how important love between a husband and wife is, and she doesn’t mind telling you about it. I can only imagine Milton blushing as she is so frank about their private lives.

Today Milton authored the blog and it started out this way:
I held her hand in the night and sang sweet songs of praise to our Lord. I quoted scripture, kissed her forehead and then held her hands. We are strong in the Lord for we are one in Him.

Kristy wanted me to blog last night on my portable mobile phone these words: private room in ICU. Kristy--frisky. But I can't blog that!

So, please pray for Kristy and follow her incredible journey as she walks with the Lord through this trial.

Dreams Come True!

Warning: this story requires a tissue nearby.

It’s difficult to nurture a dream year after year. Rejections come. Friends and family may doubt your talent. Oftentimes you doubt your talent and your calling. Boy, I’ve been down that road. It took me 12 years of learning the craft and learning the business before I was invited to the party. You can’t imagine how many times in that 12-year period I gave up.

But the moral of the story is, don’t give up. Hold on to your dreams. Press on. Trust God. Someone once told me writers don’t fail, they quit. And I decided to believe it.

The story of Paul Potts, a man who wouldn’t let go of his dream, is an inspiration. Paul appeared on the British TV show Britain’s Got Talent as a man filled with insecurities but also as a man filled with a dream. And guess who one of the judges on the show was? None other than Simon Cowell. Take a look at this video and be inspired.


To learn more about Paul Potts visit http://www.paulpottsopera.org/index.html.

Language Fun

This post serves no purpose other than to allow people a moment to say, "Hmm." And sometimes that's a good thing.

Enjoy!

'Stewardesses' is the longest word typed with only the left hand.

And 'lollipop' is the longest word typed with your right hand.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.

'Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.

The sentence: 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog' uses every letter of the alphabet. (Do you remember typing that in typing class?)

There are only four words in the English language which end in 'dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: 'abstemious' and 'facetious.' (Yes, admit it, you are saying, a e i o u)

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

Well, that was fun!

I never thought I would say that about getting my annual mammogram. But this year we formed the Breast Friend’s Club and partied through the experience.

Pictured is myself, Jan and Karen. Jan gave out pink Hershey Kisses to EVERYONE in the suite. Jan also made us beautiful pink scarves, Karen’s modeling hers.
After our exams, we went out to lunch—and sat on the patio. Can you believe that? It was in the low 70s in Denver today.

What a beautiful day with some wonderful friends.

Breast Friends

Yeah, that’s not a typo. I said breast friends, not best friends. My friends Jan and Sharen and I were joking around a few months ago, talking about having to make appointments for our annual mammogram when the idea that we’d be breast friends came up.

Taking care of your health is so important, we vowed to be breast friends and make a day of it every year when we each have to go for our annual mammography. Jan and Sharon went for their exams last month, and tomorrow’s my appointment. The three of us are going to the Sally Jobe Breast Center, and no, I’ll be going into the exam room alone. LOL.

Part of the fun is that we’ll each wear something pink, hand out pink M&Ms to the other women in the office and make the day a celebration of friends and health.

After my appointment we’ll go out to lunch, and then we’ll probably go out for coffee. I’ve cleared my calendar for the afternoon—with these girls, a celebration can last for hours.

FYI--these two friends are the stinkers from my November 6th post.

The Stinkers

Aren't your friends supposed to support your writing efforts? Pictured are Sharen and Tonya trying to make me feel guilty for not joining them. They look slightly evil, don't they?

This morning was my weekly Words For The Journey meeting. I wasn’t going to go, and last night I sent an email to Sharen, telling her that I need to stay home and write. Her reply to me was so convincing (read: she’s a master at pouring on the guilt), that I ended up going to this morning’s meeting.

“I’ll go on one condition.” I told her. “That no one will try to force me to go out to lunch or coffee after the meeting.” She promised that she would run interference for me. And she needed to.

Jan tried to guilt me into going to lunch with the girls, but I was strong and came home to write thousands of words.


Oh, and Jan and Danica? Candy? Really? You think you can get me to give up my principles for a little chocolate kiss?

So I’m the big party pooper—again. Everyone else went out to lunch. They’re sending me emails via BlackBerry with photos of themselves having fun and trying to make me feel guilty for blowing them off BECAUSE I NEED TO FINISH WRITING the book that Tyndale’s contracted.

But, being the good writer I am, I’m home pounding the keys. (Except for this little blog post).

My friends are so naughty. But I still love them.

NILMDTS Gala

Tomorrow night’s the big fundraising gala for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, a non-profit organization for whom I’ve donated my time by writing some of their documents, press releases and marketing materials. I hope it turns out well and NILMDTS makes a ton of $$$.

As part of the silent auction, I’ve donated an autographed copy of Searching for Spice, two tickets to my book launch party, and naming rights to a character in my October 2008 release. The above image is that of the tickets that will be displayed at the auction. Don’t they look great? My graphic artist friend, Tash, created them.

NILMDTS is an organization of professional photographers who donate their time and talents and travel to hospitals to take portraits of babies who will never go home with their parents. They provide achingly beautiful portraits for the parents who will go home with empty arms. I know, it’s very sad. But the truth is that these parents will have amazing, professional portraits of their precious children. Count your blessings that you have a lifetime to make memories with your children. Some parents only have days or hours.

Unhappy Halloween

I hope yours was better than mine, or at least somewhat saner. See that Jack-o-lantern? That's pretty much the way I looked by the end of the evening.

During my drive home from work my darling husband and I did the “who’s going to make dinner negotiations,” on our cell phones and decided (without her knowledge) the 21-year-old daughter would cook. He won, ahem--I mean lost, the coin toss and ended up having to call her to give her that information.

By the time I got home, she was nearly finished making tacos. I would have loved something a bit more substantial, but hey, I requested a meal, and technically tacos is a meal. Of sorts.

I’ve been in the writing groove, so I was eager to get back to my wip—except nobody wanted to answer the doorbell, which rang repeatedly. So, that fell on me. And boy did that baby ring. From the amount of candy we gave out, we figured we had more than 120 kids come to the door.

Let me tell you, 99% of our trick or treaters were cute, lovely, polite kids. Our neighbors came by with their little boy dressed as a construction worker. Aww, he was so cute. They happened to mention that they left a bowl of candy on their porch with a sign that said, “Take One.” I smiled and thought, how naïve.

I was in the kitchen once when the bell rang. It takes me about 8 seconds to walk to the door. Before I arrived, the kids were pounding on the door and windows, screaming for someone to give them candy. Boy was I steamed. I opened the door fully intending to give them a short lesson in manners. Before I could speak they started screaming the Trick or Treat song at me. The whole thing took my breath away, especially since this was a group of about a half dozen junior high-age girls. Talk about pack mentality. I bet each one of those girls individually is charming, but as a group they were nearly frightening. And then my neighbors walked by again and told me that they were across the street and saw that group of girls take the entire bowl of candy. Nice girls.

Between answering the door and trying to calm the whining dog, I somehow managed to write 900+ words. Yeah!! But as we began to run out of candy, I panicked. My solution—to send my husband to the store for more candy. Good plan. He returned with sushi. That made me laugh. Oh, he also had some candy.

The neighbors rang the bell again. It seems someone took the bowl that had held their candy—their glass bowl—and broke it at the end of my driveway! As a writer, I had an eerie sense of premonition when they told me their candy distribution was on the honor system. Talk about foreshadowing.

Toward the end of the night I answered to the door again. I looked at the person standing on my doorstep and said, “Wow. You’ve got the best costume of the night. Would you like to come in?”

Hearing that, my husband ventured to the foyer out of curiosity. (I’m not the type of girl to invite random people into my home.) It was a police officer. No, a real police officer.

Talk about a crazy night! It seems my husband witness a federal crime, and the officer came to get a statement. Before you start imagining all kinds of crazy things, my husband spotted someone drilling through the keyholes at our community mailboxes.

So, that was my Halloween. Crazy. Busy. Bizarre. How was yours?