The number 11 has been associated with transition. You know, when you look at your clock, and you see 11:11, whether it’s a.m. or p.m. It’s transition time. Synonyms for transition are change, changeover, evolution, conversion, and shift. We’re always in some sort of transition. Every day is a new day. New mercies, new opportunities, another day to breathe. It’s how we respond in transition, to the things of life that we go through that will determine our future. @donnalhsmith #transition #refreshingstreams #amwriting TWEETABLE
Tag: process
Stepping Out — Of Your Comfort Zone
It’s not too often that something just “comes” to me, like my literary agent recently did. But I’m convinced it was because a year ago, I stepped out of my comfort zone and started the process. Stepping out of our comfort zone can feel like walk off a cliff, doesn’t it? #comfortzone #walkingoffacliff Click to Tweet.
Surprise Post
Sometimes I love surprises. How about you? I was surprised by a birthday party last summer. This blog celebrates it’s first anniversary this week – on Wednesday.
I had a blurry rose picture for my first post last year. I changed it to this group of roses.
I talked about process. There are processes to everything we do. This blog is about my writing process to publication, and about my spiritual growth processes and life processes.
Tomorrow, a short post about what you liked and read the most this past year. Here’s the link to my first post.
Writing Emotional Pain – without bleeding too much on your readers
“Please reject.” The email was from a complete stranger. I almost didn’t open it because I thought it was junk mail.
Then I thought, oh. Oh. A reject letter. I might as well see who this is really from.
I was once told that writing one’s pain makes a compelling read. It’s deep and people can identify. My pain is rejection. I don’t do well with it. I never have. I think I was born with it. It’s called Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD). In other circles, it’s called Root of Rejection. Healing comes in stages with me.
I promise not to bleed all over you, but show you a bit about how my thinking is skewed. Ridiculous thoughts of self-condemnation and diminished self-worth keep running through my mind.
Continue reading “Writing Emotional Pain – without bleeding too much on your readers”
Just When You Think You’re Done – Part II
It seems to me that writing is a never-ending process. Some friends of mine recently moaned about “line edits.” And they’re not published yet. Neither do they have an agent or an editor. So what are they doing? Making their manuscript the best they can to give their story the best chance to get published. They have critique partners and beta readers who are helping them edit their work.
I don’t have a critique partner or beta readers, but I had my manuscript professionally edited twice. And still, I’m revising. I think I mentioned that after my meetings in St. Louis, I could expand my manuscript from the shortened version I’d had to make it in order to enter a contest.
But like these doors and covered walks in Old City Jerusalem, it never seems to end. I’m working with two versions of my manuscript, the shorter and the longer – to make them both longer. The longer needed to reach 100,000 + words. I made it yesterday, but I decided to tweak it again. Add richness.
Continue reading “Just When You Think You’re Done – Part II”
Trust the Peace
There’s just something peaceful about a body of water. This is my background photo – the Sea of Galilee at the dawn of a new day.
I’ve had some tumult this year, both bad and good. You’ve heard about the ‘bad’ – the broken wrist, the l-o-n-g rehab. It’s all part of the process.
Now – life gets busy.
New Look, New Focus, Yet Still the Same
This week’s theme is changing your mind. I’ve been changing mine about several things lately.
Changing My Mind
What have I been changing my mind about? It’s a woman’s prerogative, isn’t it?
Last week, I entered my novel in another contest. To do that, I had to chop 14,000 words. I didn’t think I could do it, but I did. I thought more, then thought some more.
First, I changed my mind about cutting another 10,000 words from my novel, Meghan’s Choice. Soon, I’ll post a scene from my unpublished novel for you all to look at and tell me what you think.
Second, I changed the look of this blog. I love the color blue. It’s always been one of my favorite colors. Because I stepped out and am going to be attending the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) national conference in St. Louis in two weeks (eeek!), I felt I needed to upgrade my web image to a bit more professional, and I got business cards that are blue, too. Continue reading “New Look, New Focus, Yet Still the Same”
Process – How to Handle Criticism
You did it! You wrote your story, your novel, or your article. It’s your baby. It feels like one, because it’s a creative venture. Especially in the area of fiction, we writers become anxious, nervous, and worried about what future editors and readers will think, don’t we? We gather up our courage and send it off to a contest, critique group or partner, like I did this spring.
My scores came back from three judges in my genre. I was nowhere near making any kind of cut. Out of a possible 100 each, only two out of three scores were even above fifty percent. The one score below was the toughest to take. The judge said they had a hard time finding anything positive to say about my entry.
Gee whiz! And I’ve already spent well over a year writing, editing, having it professionally edited by a published author. The first chapter had been changed several times and the first page alone had been edited twice by the best my writing school had to offer. Was it that bad?
In the Middle of Process
Writing a novel is a l-o-n-g process. Life interferes, at least mine did, and I had to stop altogether. My interference was a broken wrist. The bones have healed, but it’s taken weeks and weeks, and I still don’t have full mobility or strength back.
In the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime tour of Israel, I fell and broke my wrist. And already, I’m thinking of going back. I wanna go back to Jerusalem, where I fell, and see what I didn’t get to see the last time.
I’m finally typing two-handed now. It took weeks…and a couple of thick books to elevate the keyboard for awhile. I’ll try to post more often now that I can. I said in an earlier post, I could do all kinds of play-on words for the word “broken,” but I wasn’t going to. Maybe in future posts I will, one at a time.
Suggestions for changes in my novel, Meghan’s Choice, from a mentor have to percolate like coffee brewing. To tell you the truth, in the last month or so, I wasn’t sure I could make necessary changes to improve the story and the writing. But I think I can get started.
Because you have to start at the beginning, I’m thinking of changing my first sentence.
What’s on your heart? Write it down. Somewhere. Share it. Enrich someone else’s life with what you write. That’s my goal for this blog. Show process, bring encouragement, hopefully, enrich your life.
Let me know if you like it. Share it, comment. I’d love to hear of YOUR process!
Chocolate – Breaking is hard
Wow. It’s been a month since I posted. I’ve been my broken wrist to heal and get some use back. This is my first day back at typing two-handed. It may not seem like a big deal, but it is. I lost total use of my left hand. It is my assist hand, and it couldn’t assist me in any way, shape or form for many weeks. I’m in my ninth week of physical therapy, and have regained some use, but not all – but ENOUGH to type two-handed again. Feels good.
Where are you in the process? The first part of any process is brokenness. My wrist was broken in three places. I broke this block up into many pieces – so I could melt it, temper it, then use it however I wanted. Continue reading “Chocolate – Breaking is hard”
