Happy New Year!

I hope each of you are closing out the year in your preferred way. I hope that the last year has treated you well, and that this next year will be filled with happiness, along with everything else life puts on your plate.

Here’s to a new year, a good year for attaining your goals.

Reach for the stars. You might just get one.

Happy Holidays

My family and I celebrate Christmas and the birth of our Lord and Savior. We also have a lot of birthdays this week. (lucky us!)  We are currently settling down and spending some good quality time together. 

I wish you all the best of whichever holiday you celebrate. I hope the end of your year is peaceful and beautiful and your next year starts out wonderfully.

Fairest of them all

I’ve struggled with writing this year. Actually, I’ve struggled with everything. It’s been a very busy, stressful time full of lots of changes.

 You know the quote about how writing is opening up a vein and bleeding onto the paper?  Well, I had nothing to bleed. I was tapped out, empty.  I didn’t really want to write, or even read. 

A while ago I had the opportunity to volunteer at my children’s school book fair. Could there be a better place to volunteer? Books, lots and lots of books. Kids who want to choose books to read. It would be a little slice of heaven.

Of course it didn’t turn out quite like planned. I had volunteered for a day The Engineer had off work so he could watch our youngest. Well, things happened.  The Engineer had to go work. So I got to take along a 3 year old who turns very, very destructive when he’s bored. 

Still, amid the chaos, I had one moment where I was able to look around the room, see the tables and shelves filled with books and imagine that one day my book would be sold at book fairs. And in that moment I was happy, and relieved, to know I still want this. That I will not give up. Yes, it’s been a rough year. But now I’m ready to write.

Go....Stop!

I don't know if you've seen this post about the main reasons agents, and editors, often stop reading. It made me look at my manuscript in a whole new way.

Add to that the posts Kristin Nelson is doing  about why she will pass even if the writing is good and  you've got a great little great little checklist for revisions.

Pacing seems to be a big one.  I highly recommend you read these articles in depth. You'll be glad you did.

Wearing two hats

I'm very excited to have Mark Koopmans here for a guest post today. He's talking about something that's near and dear to my heart, how to write while also managing small kids.  Take it away, Mark!

Aloha,

Thanks, Sara, for the invite! (The REVIVAL tour is over, and oh joy, I can return to my regularly scheduled blogging:)

I’d like to share my experience to help other parent-writers stay sane, have fun and still find the time to write with young kids at home—and not suffer through my trials and tribulations

My first son was born in 2007, and at the time I was working for a local newspaper. Over time, however, I cut back on my hours and decided to become a stay-at-home dad (especially after a second son was born in 2010.)

Other parents, who’ve walked the walk, will not and laugh when I say this, but honestly, I thought being a stay-at-home dad with one (and later) two infants/toddlers would be so easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

I mean come on, what do infants do all day? Eat, poop, sleep and repeat. Ok, yes, frequently, but still. Pffff, I got this, I said, slapping a hand against my manly chest.

Oh, how clueless and naive was I, the now former McDaddy and font of all parenting knowledge.

(It’s also around this time that I became hair-follicle-ly challenged…)

See, I tried writing when naptimes came along, (and they were frequent, but shoot… I’d need the limited time to handle normal things-around-the-house that needed to be done. Invariably, and nearly without fail, I would finally sit in my little office chair, exhaling a huge sigh of relief. Yes! Writing Zone time…

…And the baby would start to cry…

I could go on, but here’s the moral of the story:

I now write at night :)

Thanks Mark. For those of us that can't stay up past 8pm, it works just as well to write before they get up in the morning. :)

Mark recently had a book released and I'm putting in his rafflecopter because, hey, free stuff!




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thankful

Here in the US we’re celebrating Thanksgiving this week. I’d be a horrible person if I didn’t recognize how many blessing I have in my life. I can’t list all of them here but I’ll recognize a few.

I’m grateful for my life. Life isn’t easy, and it isn’t always happy, but right now, my family is together, we’re healthy, happy, and we have what we need to take care of ourselves. There’s no greater blessing than that. 

I’m grateful for modern medicine that helps me live a normal life.

I have a wonderful, supportive spouse, who not only cares about me, and takes care of me, but who really seems to get how important writing is to me. 

I have a loving Heavenly Father who comforts and helps me.

You don’t need to be American to celebrate this week. I’d love to hear what each of you are grateful for in the comment section.