Sweeping Miscellaneous!

After coming back from the ACFW conference, I’ve had a wide range of things to keep me busy and catching up to do, and I think I’m finally at the end of the list. It didn’t help that I had a sinus infection bogging me down, but I’m almost over it, so things are looking up again!

Isn’t it amazing how e-mail can get out of hand when you don’t check it for a few days? I’m one who worries about missing something important, so I carefully read through each and every message. After being at the conference from early Thursday morning to Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, that took a while, but I'm finally caught up.

Then there’s the book I left unfinished. I have three February 1 deadlines, which is manageable the way I work. I set minimum daily pages, and I almost always exceed that. However, I don’t normally walk away from any work in progress for four days, so when I got back to it, I had to read several days worth of work to get back into the story. I finally finished the first draft of my third project, so now I can go back to the first one and start revisions.

I’ve been reading some wonderful manuscripts from my Long Ridge writing students lately. Some are highly polished and professional looking, and others are diamonds in the rough. What I find amazing is how people from all walks of life have so many different stories to tell—and there’s probably a market for most of them. It’s my job to recommend points to revise and markets that might consider their work. Nothing would make me happier than to have all of my students get publishing contracts and have the freelance writing careers of their dreams! When I edit their work, I want to give them what they need for success without destroying their hope. After all, I was in their shoes once as an unpublished writer, and it didn’t take much to dampen my spirit. Now when I get my work back from a critique partner, I look at the revisions as helpful suggestions that will make my project better. Hopefully, my students will view my edits the same way.

My younger daughter Lauren and her friend Tina are having a baby shower for my older daughter Alison on Sunday afternoon. Since Alison lives in North Carolina, she’s flying in tonight and will spend the weekend with us. I’m trying to get the house in order so I can concentrate on enjoying Alison’s time here. Her husband Jason is busy working on the nursery and getting their house in order for their little girl who will be here in January. I've been following their blog and enjoying the journey with them.

Speaking of blogs, I’ve been working on a plan to add another element to this blog after the first of the year. Since I enjoy sharing information about my friends’ books and stories, I’ll continue adding their links with news. I’ll also add writing articles—some from friends and others I’ve written—as topics come up.