Decorating with Friends.

Today was really fun. It was the annual decorating of the Church. Several ladies got together to deck the halls so to speak. We always have a blast. As we all work so well together it makes it a joy. The only draw back is the Church is three stories and we decorate on all levels. Thank goodness we have several children to do most of the running up and down the stairs getting supplies for us.

It’s always so heartwarming to make His house sparkle with the spirit of Christmas. You never know if someone that visits one of the Sundays through the Christmas season knows about the real reason for Christmas. As we decorate the Church we try to fill it with reminders of His birth. Angels, stars, mangers, and love go into the decorating.

As the weekend progresses I hope to decorate my own house. Since my hubby is sick with what we think is the flu, it may have to wait a couple of days.

As always good writing and May God Bless you.

Christmas in the eyes of a child!

I did something yesterday I didn’t really want to do. I let my mom talk me into going to a couple of home improvement stores. At least half of Georgia was not at those stores. We were looking for a new Christmas tree for her.

As we walked through the Christmas decoration a small boy came running up to the counter and grabbed a stuffed Rudolph that was bigger than him. His eyes lit up with joy and he started singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I couldn’t help but smile. Before that I wasn’t in the smiling mood.

The little boy had so much joy in his heart that Christmas was near, you couldn’t help but get the Christmas spirit. He went from one decoration to the other smiling and eyes twinkling. When he got to the section with items for Christmas villages I thought he would literally explode his smile got so large. There was Santa’s toy shop with dancing elves, a pond with moving ice skaters, a Church with ringing bells, a windmill with a spinning mill, and a carnival carousel turning with bright blinking lights.

It was something to watch. I remember when I was that way. It was a wonderful time. I have to admit I still have those feelings in my heart at Christmas time. My son is 13 and he still loves Christmas time. He has mentioned putting up the tree several times in the last two days. My husband is not a fan. If it was left up to him we would put the tree up two days before Christmas. Bah Humbug… That’s what I tell him.

So, get into the spirit of Christmas and think as a child with innocence and wonder. It will make your Christmas a lot more enjoyable.

As always, good writing and May God Bless you.

Just a Christmas reminder, my Christmas novel is coming out this week. Finally!!!

Black Friday! Not Me!

Ok, so I’m not sure if other countries have Black Friday Sales, but in America people go nuts. Why? I don’t like to shop on a regular day, I’m sure not going to go on the day 95% of America is too… People camp out at stores waiting for them to open the doors at or before daylight on Black Friday. That’s if they didn’t go right after filling up with turkey and dressing to the stores that opened on Thanksgiving night.

How on earth can you get your mind wrapped around Christmas shopping when you are miserable from eating so much? It amazes me how many people live for Black Friday. I guess I’m just weird, but I don’t like shopping and especially standing in line.

As for me, I shop online. Cyber Monday I will sitting at my laptop clicking away. All I have to do is find what I want and then click checkout. No lines, no angry people snatching items out of your hands, and no driving anywhere. I can shop in the comfort of my own home, sitting with a cup of coffee, just enjoying the Christmas season.

So, now that I’m done with my Black Friday rant, hope everyone is pleasantly full from their Thanksgiving meal. As always, good luck writing (remember November is almost over) and May God Bless you…

Week of Thanks…

It’s Thanksgiving week if you haven’t looked at your calendar. This year has flown by. I was sitting in Church yesterday which is an oddity for me because normally I’m downstairs with the children. It was a special Thanksgiving service, so I brought the older children upstairs for the sermon.

The band started singing a song called “Thank You”. It really hit me that as a whole we are not thankful enough for what we have. I was humbled at the thought. So many of us, me included, are so busy that we don’t take time to be thankful for what we take for granted. Here is my list of things I’m thankful for.

1: First and foremost I’m thankful for a forgiving Savior, because I need forgiveness.

2: My wonderful family. I am biased, but I have the most special family. I have a great husband who supports me in all I do and a wonderful son who helps me with anything I need and he’s a great kid.

3: My business. I own a accounting business and it is right beside my house. How many can just walk out the door and be at work in 30 seconds.

4: My writing. I am thankful for the fact that I can publish my writing and people will buy it. It has been a wild ride.

5: Definitely my friends. I have some great friends and that includes my blog friends, my twitter friends and as I call them my cyber friends. I treasure the conversations we have.

Take some time this week to be thankful for what you have. As always, good writing and May God bless you.

How authors are portrayed.

Have you ever read a book and you had an idea in your head what the author would look like? Come on, you know you have. Well, since becoming a published author I’ve thought long and hard about the portrayal of authors. If you write a horror story does that make you ugly and mean? If you write a romance does that make you beautiful and romantic? No, the genre you write in doesn’t make you who you are.

I’ve talked to people that know me and they always say, “Yeah, I can see you writing romance novels.” Why do they say that? What makes me more of a romance novelist than someone else? In my opinion nothing. Who says I couldn’t write a gory horror story, well I personally couldn’t but just by looking at me you wouldn’t be able to tell that.

It’s profiling plain and simple. Just like with models, everyone thinks they all have eating disorders, but not all of them do. Some of them are naturally skinny, it’s just in their nature. One of my favorite authors of romance and I’m not mentioning any names, but she was totally different from what I portrayed her as. I could see the younger person and she turned out to be a retired grandmother. This in no way made me stop reading her work because I still love her writing. It actually spurred me on because I hope I can write as well as her when I get to be a grandmother. Wait, I am a grandmother, well a step grandmother.

Oh well, good writing and may God bless you!

Laugh, it’s Friday!

Hello fellow bloggers. It’s Friday. Had you noticed? Did you forget? Well, I woke up and smiled. It’s Friday and the weekend officially starts in a couple of hours.

Have you laughed lately? I’m not talking about that snicker or pretend laugh when someone tells you a stupid joke. I’m talking about a outright, stomach clenching laugh. Well if you haven’t then try it. It helps you feel better. It clears the mind and makes way for positive thinking. Studies show that laughter helps people heal faster. I don’t know much about that, but I do know it helps you feel better.

As a children’s minister I laugh a lot. Children can just bring on laughter just being themselves. Sometimes I get to class on Wednesday or Sunday with a splitting headache and soon I’m feeling better. I contribute it to laughter.

Try to laugh today. Don’t take things so seriously. You only live once and you need to enjoy it. It also helps your writing and during November a lot of people are on a writing marathon. If you don’t have anything to laugh about, go to the internet and find a joke site or youtube video. See if you don’t feel better after you have that healthy side splitting laugh.

Well, as always, good writing, have a good laugh and May God always bless you!

For those in the north that are still having issues from Sandy, try to laugh. I know that you don’t have a lot to laugh about, but it couldn’t hurt to just laugh. It might give you some hope or extra energy. Not to mention it will warm your body against the cold. Praying for all of you!

Cover Mania!

Having a little cover mania. It’s only one more day until the weekend. Working on a Twitter profile page design, my cover designer did this for me. It looked so cool, that I just had to share it.Now we have to get back to designing the covers for my two new novels that are coming out this month. So exciting.

Music that inspires me!

We all have different inspirations for our writing. I’ve written several posts about the inspirations for my writing from leaves to just people watching, even slimy slugs. Well, this post is about the music I use to keep my mind in the mood to write. I call this post the “Music that inspires me” for a reason. Here is my as I call it, “Writing inspiration playlist”.

1: Point of No Return from the Phantom of the Opera (Gerard Butler’s version)

2: I’ll Be There Where the Heart Is – Kim Carnes

3: Before the Dawn – Evanescence

4: Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler

5: Right Here Waiting For You – Richard Marx

6: I Don’t Want This Night to End – Luke Bryan

7: I Cross My Heart – George Strait

8: Haunted – Evanescence

9: My Immortal – Evanescence

10: Open Arms – Journey

This is only 10 of the over 50 songs that rotate on my RealPlayer. I have several Evanescence songs, also Mariana’s Trench, Muse, Paramore and many others. They just inspire me.

Let me know what kind of music inspires you. Everyone has that song that just inspires them to write. What’s yours?

Hope you enjoyed this post. As always enjoy you writing and May God Bless you.

The mind of a writer!

The road we take as a writer is not always beautiful and lyrical. Most of the time it’s frustrating, nail biting, and down right scary. As I sit and watch the light mist fall outside my den window, I ponder what makes a good writer, what makes a bad writer?

The mind of a writer takes on several layers. A writer can swing from one emotion to another rapidly. It’s funny how quickly things change in the mind of a writer. I know personally I have had an idea about how a book would go and suddenly halfway through it takes a different turn. Sometimes I sit back and say “Wow, didn’t see that one coming” then I laugh to myself, why would I say that knowing it came from my own mind. Sometimes I think I have two brains, one the inner writer and two the outer person.

As a writer you usually see a story out of the simplest thing. I picked up a beautiful bright yellow leaf and looked at it. My mind exploding with possibilities. I traced the veins with my brain, suddenly thinking about a story line about the road less taken or maybe even a story line of the winding roads of life. Yep I got all that from a leaf.

Last night I was helping my son feed the dogs and he picked up a bowl outside and grabbed a slug. He immediately said, “Gross!” I immediately thought of a story about a person being a complete slug and how they pulled themselves out. This being thought of as I showed my son what happens to slugs as salt is sprinkled on them. Now that’s scary.

At Christmas time I get nostalgic and that brings on a wave of new writing possibilities in my mind. I can’t seem to stay on the same piece of work, I’m constantly swinging from one to the other. My mind saying you’ve got to do this, not that.

Don’t get me started on how music effects my writing. I have a long writing playlist. I use this while writing. It inspires me. It ranges from classical, country, classic rock, love, and just plain crazy. That might be my next blog post, the playlist of a writer.

Well, I’m through rambling. Aren’t you glad? As always good writing and if it comes through your head, write it down immediately and spread it into a story. You never know. May God bless and keep you.

Top 10 ways to get through Monday.

It’s Monday! Yes, I know, don’t remind you, but the fact is it’s the start of the week. Well as I sit here, the house quiet, my son at school, my husband hunting (He has the week off), I ponder how to get through Mondays. It’s a question I ask every Monday when my alarm goes off. I hate my alarm, I want to slap it.

Well, here goes my top ten ways to get through Monday, hope these help:

1. Coffee, lots and lots of strong coffee. Already had 2 cups, headed for number 3.

2. Going back to bed, I know most of us can’t do that, but wouldn’t it be nice. Have looked at the bed longingly several times.

3. Take a deep breath and just jump into it.

4. Hot shower, stand there until water gets cold.

5. Take a walk in the crisp Fall air. Went to end of driveway and came back shivering.

6. Chocolate, lots of chocolate.

7. Smile, there’s only 5 days until the weekend. You are closer than your were 5 minutes ago. Not close enough.

8. Stop by the local doughnut shop and splurge big time. The sugar high only lasts for a little while, but boy while it’s active you enjoy those moments.

9. Me, I pray for the week ahead. That always makes me feel better.

10. Just accept the fact that it’s Monday and it happens every seven days whether you like it or not, so just go with it and smile.

Maybe these 10 points will help you. Remember, the day goes better when you smile and try to make it better.

As always, good writing and may God bless you on this Monday. ♥