Thursday 13 #7 — Thankful for God’s Comforts

 

Happy Thanksgiving To All!!!

Thank you for coming back to Thursday Thirteen. On this day of giving thanks I let you know about 13 things I am thankful God gave us and which comfort my spirit and soul. You’ll notice a major theme with water.  All photos from Flickr’s public files.

1. Lakes
2. Beaches
3. The smell of a redwood forest
4. Rain taping on a window or on my face
5. Birds singing
6. Cuddling up in a comfy chair with a warm blanket and a great book next to a fire while the rain taps its music on the window pane
7. Hot tea
8. The sun creating rainbows through a church’s stained glass windows
9. Early morning fresh air
10. Being perfectly still and quiet, watching nature unnoticed
11. A brook or small cascade gurgling
12. The cool softness of moss
13. Morning dew

 

Don’t miss my posts about Black Friday and Holiday Shopping.
Thanks to the Internet we can have our cake and eat it too:
Let’s shop all the Black Friday sales WHILE we stay home in our pajamas!!
Now that’s a good reason to TGIF!!

• Don’t know what NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are? Read all about it here and here.

• Want to know why I’m participating in both? Click here.

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Blogging Inspires Three More Blogs and a Novel

My blogging adventures have inspired three people I know in the real world to start a blog of their own, another is thinking about it and one of the three is also participating in NaNoWriMo.

I didn’t even bring up the topic.  Just seeing what I was doing, these three people were inspired to do the same.  One of them is also a writer, so it may not be too surprising, but the other two were never particularly interested in writing.

It feels great to know that my actions are someone’s inspiration; that I have somehow empowered someone.

It’s important to realize the ramifications of our actions, all our actions.  Regardless of what we do and even what we don’t do, these actions affect others.  We must be conscious of that and lead our lives  as examples to others. Too often we forget that.

It’s not just the major things we do in our lives that can affect, inspire, or crush or destroy someone.  It’s also small things, like my new blog.  I never gave a thought to it.  It was just another WordPress blog as the slogan goes around here.

It’s a reminder to think of others and of consequences.  Our actions are never too insignificant to be a blessing or a curse to someone, so choose wisely.

• Don’t know what NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are? Read all about it here and here.

• Want to know why I’m participating in both? Click here.

I Descended Into the Depths of Insanity

UPDATE: I WON BOTH NANOWRIMO AND NABLOPOMO!!

I descended into the depths of insanity. I actually signed up for BOTH NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo!

That means I have to write the rough draft of a 50,000 word novel in 30 days and at the same time I have to write a blog post for every single one of these 30 days during November.

I don’t have the chance of going to a luxurious writer’s retreat where I can be waited on hand and foot while I focus on writing all day. No, that would just be much too easy and enjoyable. You see I much prefer the torture of writing 1,800-2,000+ words a day while cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, teaching, and all the other pleasures that come with the job description of a mother, wife, homemaker.

What, me sleep? I’m a mother. I have been trained from pregnancy to thrive on insomnia and the Chinese torture of being woken each time I attempt to close my eyes.

If I were sane, I would have rolled on the floor laughing when I read about NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo. Instead I was intrigued at the novel idea. (Yes, pun intended. My self-editor has purposely been turned off through Dec. 1.)

So if you’re interested in finding out how a journalist turned 24/7 mom will fare for the next 30 days, I invite you to subscribe to my RSS feed, favorite me, bookmark me or whatever is your preferred mode of quick blogosphere transportation.

Until tomorrow, as they say in Monte Carlo, “Faites vos jeux, mesdames et messieurs. Faites vos jeux. … Rien ne vas plus!”

Pardon my French: “Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets.”

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• Don’t know what NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are? Read all about it here and here.

NaNoWriMo — Ready, Set, Write a Novel in 30 Days

As I was hopping from one blog to another yesterday, I discovered an 8-year-old phenomenon which has been sweeping the WWW community of writers and bloggers.

National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November. The point is not to write the greatest novel ever written or the next best-seller, but rather to find the dedication to write 50, 000 words in 30 days and to refrain our dreadful inner editors which cripple so many, even professional writers.

If you succeed in writing that novel, or should we really say that first draft, you get bragging rights. Winners receive a web icon and a certificate, but more importantly, they get the empowerment that comes with the accomplishment of such a challenge and the knowledge that they succeeded.

What started with 21 friends challenging themselves in 1999, with six of them finishing their 50,000-word novels, grew to 42, 000 participants in 2004 and 79, 813 participants last November. The number of winners was 12, 948 or about 16 percent of participants.

To help you succeed in your endeavor, Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, has written No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days (also available as The No Plot? No Problem! Novel-Writing Kit), and has grown his website into a nonprofit corporation, The Office of Letters and Light, with forums, FAQs, and 500 affiliated chapters around the world.

Baty is also reaching out to students with the Young Writers Program, where more than 300 schools participated last year. Students set their own goals, but the same principle of refraining their inner editor applies.

I’m considering joining this NaNoWriMo phenomenon. It would be an interesting experiment. Can a wife and mother with a blog and an on-line Amazon-affiliate store, write about 1,700 words a day when there’s also homeschooling and life playing interference?

I’ve written that many words a day, a lot more actually when I was a full-time journalist, but I didn’t have a child to babysit and homeschool in those days. And I’ve never attempted a novel before. What do you think? Is it even remotely possible without creating a novel orphan?

Maybe I should sign up our son, too. After all, he has been working on a novel since the age of 8. It’s about time he took the time to finish it, isn’t it?

Stumble It!