A Writer’s Blog

As a writer I feel like I often choose “the road less travelled on”. It certainly is a road with many bumps, risky twists and turns and dead ends. Yet, when you write a wonderful story then sell it, it opens new horizons for you. I love being a writer despite the many pitfalls.

This week, and alas, last week, I have been a very lax writer. I wrote only one day each week. My word counts are low and I didn’t even submit anything this week. I, instead, was a leader at cooking camp and I don’t regret it. I had the same 6 kids each week and had a fun time. I also learned a lot about teamwork. As a writer, I am often very independent. So I enjoyed learning to rely on others this week. Sometimes the kids were more on the ball than I was. Together our group cooked up 10 pounds of hamburg barbeque, about 6 pounds of pork barbeque, 8 oreo cream pies, 3 freezer bags of Hawaiian chicken, and a huge amount of chicken corn soup, and that was just my group. We had two other industrious groups making jelly, lasagna, vegetable soup, muffins, strawberry cream pies and banana bread. Yum! These items were then sold at a bake sale, by the children, and then the kids shopped with the proceeds for groceries for about 3 or 4 needy families. Whew! I’m tired thinking of it all.

I am so excited to say I’ve had another acceptance this week from Spaceports and Spidersilk. Yay me! I also had a rejection from Shine Brightly. Boo me! Still excited, though.

I thought I’d do a quick review of a book I just finished. It is Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. If you’ve never read a book by him, you are missing out. I’ve read Into thin Ice and Into the Wild and they are both exciting reads. Please, please read them if you haven’t already read them. Under the Banner of Heaven is about the murders of Brenda and her baby daughter Erica Lafferty by her husband’s Mormon fundamentalist brothers. The book rips apart the Mormon fundamentalist movement which still clings to old Mormon mores like polygamy and subjection of women as well as more traditional conservative clothing on both men and women. I had no idea there were still so many areas that still cling to these old beliefs. It was very shocking and enlightening. Some parts of the book are a bit bogged down but mostly I found it very interesting. I was itching for it to delve into a few other cultic murdering groups, but it did not.

My thought for the day is: Keep following the path in your writing. Don’t get blindsided by disappointments. They will come but so will the adventure.