Nuggets

I am at the library. I sit on a tall retro stool at a tall stainless-steel table. My notebooks are open, laptop fired up and ready to serve...

Read about my experience at the library, over on the Rose & Thorn Journal blog.

Next, the warm and wise Ana Gonçalves shares how each moment is an opportunity at Pursuing Life, the new blog I recently started with my dear friend and best cohort. Please go read Ana's insightful words, and say hello.

Also, to leave you with a resounding quote:

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Have a wonderful weekend!

FIVE

See that word, in the picture's middle? I have it on display, just skinny wooden letters, in my living room.

FIVE

The reason is simple.

Those four letters stir thought and intention. They make me consider what I want to have accomplished in FIVE. In the next

FIVE MINUTES? To have read to my daughter(s), or cheered a friend, paid a bill, or nourished myself with a favorite snack. You get the idea.

FIVE MONTHS? I want to have grown in my writing, to be querying agents with one novel, writing on the next. No wasted time.

FIVE YEARS? Movement down the path of novel publication. I want to see it happening. No wasted time, no wasted effort, no wasted talent.

Tell me... If you sat in my brown wingback, saw that word, what would you think?

What are your FIVE?

Inspire

You can run from your dreams in fear, or run to your dreams with faith.

author unknown

Can you offer an inspirational nugget today?

A Two-Fold Blessing

Terri Tiffany posted about Living Your Miracle today, and asked her readers if, in essence, they're following their dream and living their blessings to their fullest potential. Her words, which are always profound and inspirational, got me thinking in depth about just that.

I recognize how blessed I am to be able to stay home with our daughters. From the time we married, I knew that's what I would eventually want - and misterwrites agreed. That he felt the same was a blessing in and of itself, because I don't know how many men take that traditional stance today, but that he continues to support this mutual decision we made so long ago is awesome.

And what's even cooler? That I get to pursue this thing called writing all-the-while.

To my mind, these two aspects of my life fit so well together. Not only am I able to focus on my kids without the stress of a full-time job outside the home, but my care for them creates so much creative opportunity. Our bond, our interactions, all those day-to-day things I get to witness firsthand - it all goes into the files of my mind. But not just my memory banks, where I treasure the things that make up my life as a mother. It also affects my writer's brain, gives me fodder and experience to draw from when it comes to creating on paper. So much of writing is about emotion and inflection, communication and interaction, and all those things are HUGE in my world as a mom.

I love how I can see connections, how it all ties together. I am truly blessed.

How about you? Do you live your blessings and follow your dreams? Are they connected?

In My Dreams

With two kidlets, there are inevitable nights when Mommy is awakened. Getting back to sleep is an uneasy task and sometimes, like last night, I spend an hour or so in a half-asleep, half-awake stupor.

Somehow, those moments are some of my most lucid, most creative. It doesn't always mean anything; often times, minutes later, I find myself forgetting where my mind had even taken me.

But last night, between my youngest's coughing fits and my own, two words came to me. I couldn't tell you what was whirring in my mind just before, or how I got to them, but I decided they would make a great novel title.

I know. Crazy, ain't? Seems silly and presumptuous. A tad premature. But mere words can snowball into something greater.

I don't dare give you the two words, though I've written them down. Someday, after all, will be the time to start another book. And I'll look over my notes of various ideas, just like this one, and decide which way to go.

What about you? How do ideas come to you? And have you ever had a seemingly insignificant thought turn into something grand?