Sharing in November

Our posts this month are themed “Sharing” on the Write...Edit...Publish Blogfest   which is hosted monthly by Denise Covey. Our list is growing, so if you’d like to participate, or just visit and read, click on the link!

This month I’ve noticed that many folks have shared the traditions that they follow with their families on  Thanksgiving. I thought about our traditions and found we don’t have too many. When it comes to food, my mother makes dressing and fights with my brother-in-law about who makes the turkey. (LOL!) My bro-in-law is a great cook, so is my mother and my “other” dad and so we always eat well during the holidays. But we don’t have traditions in that we do the same thing every year. Take this year, my husband and I will stay home and celebrate “the” day with very dear friends who are adopted family. And so, we will discover new things to do, new things to eat and it will be a new way of celebrating what we are thankful for.

Mary Burton and me

I’m looking forward to it because I’ve spent the vast majority of this month right here, in front of this computer, spewing words in a daily feast of creation, producing, as Mary Burton calls it, my “sloppy draft” of a new novel. The last few years I’ve spent revising two novels. This is the first sloppy draft I’ve done in way too long. I thank the month of November and those who help put together NaNoWriMo, so that I could profit from it this year. I was afraid of it. Thought it would be too difficult to put 50,000 words down in one month.  I am proud to share with you that I was very, very wrong. I’m now at 75,666 words and today is the 30^th day of the month. This story flowed from me with an ease that makes me know it was meant to be told. I put the speed of the writing down in part to the conference I went to in October (battery recharge), to the workshop giving by Mary Burton and the fact that I actually wrote an outline of what I thought I could do with the month of November before I started the actual writing.

Mary Burton, Author

In this month of sharing, I am aware of being thankful, truly grateful, for the chance to write as I love to write, to have a family I cherish, friends whom I love and who love me, and that even when I find something to worry about (I’m a serial worrier), I am deeply blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you each be encircled with happiness and love... and, if you need some lovin’ and happiness, I don’t mind sharing. You’re welcome to some of mine!

Images from: 

maryinhb.blogspot.com

gblibraries.org

IWSG November 2013

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

In October I went to a writer’s conference I really enjoy attending. My first time at this particular conference was last year and since then I have become assistant secretary to the Florida Writer’s Association, #FWA13, the group that hosts the conference every year. One of the main reasons I went this year was to recharge my writing batteries. I get very tired sometimes of trying to motivate myself to put words on paper in a meaningful way, by which I mean, specifically on a novel. I went to the conference hoping to come away with a new energy and vitality to give to my chosen career.

http://www.floridawriters.net/

Did I? Did the recharge work? Yes and no. I came away enthused and ready to go. I have a plan I didn’t before. I have information and contacts I didn’t before. I basked in the chance to talk to other writers and have them not look at me like I’m crazy for talking about writing. So in that way I am charged and ready to go. On the other side of that though, is the fact that I still have to make myself sit down and put the words on paper, well, on the screen and in a file, then on paper.

That part has not changed and neither has the effort it takes to do it. But having met the folks I did, getting the input I did has done one thing to help in this challenge I am presented with daily, and that is, yes, I am alone in my pursuit of happiness (and a living) but I am not alone in how people  view me and support my efforts. I am not alone in my dream, and there are folks out there willing to be there for me and cheer me on while I do the work, as I am for them. Made me think of you guys, my IWSG buddies and how we support one another and pay attention to what matters. People.

http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/

So, thanks for being there for me. I hope you feel the same about me and my efforts to support you.

Happy Thanksgiving All! 

Image from:

http://www.floridawriters.net/