Florida Christian Writers Conference After Hours

With less than three weeks before the FCWC,  my writing pals and I are hunched over laptops getting our projects ready for editors and publishers. And that's not all -- we're also getting ready for After Hours presentations.

Conference After Hours, held after the evening general session, are informal workshops. Here's what we're doing:

• On behalf of the Kindred Heart Writers, Clella Camp will present tips on forming an online critique group from our booklet, The Write Team. You'll get ideas for starting a group, finding new members, and critiquing.
• Jeanie Wise and Melinda Means are presenting Blogging Tips from the Trenches: Lessons Learned by Two First-Year Bloggers. These ladies are steadily building their readership and want to share their ideas with you.
• I'm presenting Novice Novelist Novel Notes, the lessons learned about creativity, theme, characters, and plot while finishing a manuscript.

If you're coming to conference, please join us for our After Hour workshops. We hope to see you there.

Quotable Quotes

A child's hand in yours -- what tenderness and power it arouses.

You are instantly the very touchstone of wisdom and strength.

Marjorie Holmes


Line by line, moment by moment,
special times are etched into our memories in the permanent ink
of everlasting love in our relationships.

Gloria Gaither

Among the Chosen

"Becoming a writer is not a 'career decision' like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don't choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accept the fact that you're not fit for anything else, you have to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days."

"I don't know why I do what I do. If I did know, I probably wouldn't feel the need to do it. ... Surely it is an odd way to spend your life — sitting alone in a room with a pen in your hand, hour after hour, day after day, year after year, struggling to put words on pieces of paper in order to give birth to what does not exist — except in your head. Why on earth would anyone want to do such a thing? The only answer I have ever been able to come up with is: because you have to, because you have no choice."

Happy birthday (a day late) to author Paul Auster.

Motivating Weaver or Weaving Motivator? Who am I?

I'm a Motivator and a Weaver.

I'm not sure exactly what that means.

You can find out the role you were born to play by taking the fun and easy Strong Life Test for Women.

Several women I know who took the quiz came up with results that fit them to a tee.

And, in a way, so did I. As a Motivator, I'm naturally optimistic and can step into a leadership vacuum. As a Weaver, I'm genuinely curious and trust my friends.

But the rest of the story is that these are people-oriented roles. And I'm an introspective introvert who spends long hours either reading a book or writing (rewriting) one. How do these roles fit into my mostly stay-at-home-with-only-the-dog-for-company life?

So I did the natural thing -- I got on my local library's website and requested Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham. Still waiting for the call to go pick it up.

Special thanks to social media expert Laura Christianson, Blogging Bistro, for showcasing the quiz.

Late Bloomers

My priority project with the most priority? One more revision of what I hope will be my debut novel. I also hope, as a mom old enough to have three adult children, it isn't too late to begin a fiction-writing career.

Though I make no claims to latent genius, I'm encouraged by Malcolm Gladwell's essay, “Late Bloomers: Why Do We Equate Genius with Precocity?” We may think that creative genius “requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth,” but that's not necessarily true.

Prodigies are conceptual, says economist David Galenson, “in the sense that they start with a clear idea of where they want to go, and then they execute it.” Late bloomers take more of an experimental approach, “revising and despairing and changing course” on the long journey to recognition and acclaim.

I'm not sure that the reasons are always as complex as Twain's and Cezanne's experiences indicate. I probably could have written that debut novel in an earlier season of my life. But at what cost to my family? After all, I was already juggling a full-time job and, for several years, working toward a graduate degree.

Just another reason the empty nest days are dazzlin' days -- late bloomers we may be, but our blossoms can be just as lovely!

Help! The Year Has Started Without Me!

Like a lot of my other ambitious, motivated, and introspective fellow sojourners, I spent the days leading into 2010 resolving resolutions, gathering goals, and pondering passions. Before baby new year took it's first toddling steps, I had pretty much prioritized my projects and pursuits.

But our home-from-college son was still hanging out, or at least sleeping (sometimes till noon), at home so I couldn't get too serious about getting back on track.

Then the day after Nate flew back to his Oklahoma campus, I packed up my laptop, books, novel manuscript, cross-stitch project, and clothes and drove to Tampa. The next morning, our daughter had surgery. Somebody (me!) had to give her and her husband a helping hand with their two energetic boys.

I'm still here, a week after her surgery, changing diapers, giving kisses before naps, reading bedtime stories. (And, yes, I'm also unloading and loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, and sweeping the floor.)

I may not have jumped into 2010 with zeal and purpose. But a couple of nights I stayed up way past my bedtime and listened to Nate talk about college classes and friends. And now I'm spending quantity time (a healthy mix of chaos and peace) with my grandboys and their parents.

January speeds by while even my priority projects languish. So be it.

Next week I'll be home, back to a routine, back to my beloved grindstone.

And missing Nate coming in late.

And missing Jeremy's ceaseless questions.

And missing Jedidiah's impish baby grin.