My goals

Well, I started this blog because I wanted to let people know that I have a goal to be published, but I haven't really talked about that yet, have I? 

Here we go.

I have two publishing goals:  1) To publish a short story that I wrote over ten years ago and have recently polished up. 2) To publish a 5 to 6 book Saga that is fantasy/action/romance based. 

My short story is finished as far as editing goes, but I do need to follow steps that will get me to the self-publishing e-book platform.  We'll see how quickly this process will take so I can calculate when my story will be ready for online digital release. 

I'm excited and anxious for this.  In some ways, this short story highlights some very vulnerable beliefs I have, and in a day and age where everyone is a critic and every word you say or write can be taken to extreme viewpoints, publishing can be scary.

I feel that my voice deserves to be heard, though.  This short story is a religious inspirational story about an angry teenage girl who has shut Christ out of her life, and on Christmas Eve, has a dream so real and vivid that it could only be called a vision.  She visits Christ in the garden of Gethsemene and the two have a very personal conversation that enlightens her to the kind of love and forgiveness that exists inside of not only Christ, but within ourselves.

I have to be honest, I don't really know where this story came from.  It doesn't mirror my teenage years.  It isn't something I drew from personal experience or from someone else's.  Simply put, I feel this story was placed into my hands to be shared with others. 

This world needs more focus that life is about learning, not about learning to be perfect.  Learning involves discovery, trying new things, making mistakes, making mistakes again, getting back up, smiling and laughing and crying, being open minded, changing, choosing (ALWAYS choosing), growing, growing, growing, growing!

So.  My little story focus on just a little bit of that.  This teenage girl learns a very important lesson on Christmas Eve about love - and who better than to learn about love than from someone who embodies it in every fiber of their being? 

I am excited to see this little story work its way into print, and hopefully work its way into your hearts where you can also feel the lesson of love.   

Getting Along

Ah, this picture strikes a chord with me.  I adore it when we as a people are able to look at someone, talk to someone, and find a way to connect, to find things in common, and learn from each other.  We ALL have something to offer the world.  I've known people of different religious beliefs (or no religious beliefs) and I've enjoyed them for who they are.  This is a lesson I have learned to embrace, because I wasn't always like this.  But I have found greater love in my life when I learned to let go of trying to get someone to see my way, and I have just enjoyed them as a friend or passing stranger or neighbor.  I'm not always perfect at this, but I do try.  In fact, I think perfection implies a rather limited perspective, but that's another thought for another time.

So this picture spells out one clear message:  Have an open mind, and an open heart.  There is room in all of us for that.

A Little Bit About my Imagination

Since I was a little girl, I had an imagination.  A rather morbid imagination, actually.  I had a flare for the dramatics, and my barbie stories showed no exceptions.  Most of my stories didn't involve barbie going to the mall and buying new clothes and driving in her new car and worrying about which outfit looked best for the party she was going to. 

No, Barbie was. . . well, she got sick a lot.  She died lots and lots of times.  She had cancer a lot, too.  Barbie, typically, did NOT have a happy life.  And Ken?  He had an even worse time.  He almost always got kidnapped and tortured.  My parents have a picture to prove it, somewhere. . . 

They took a picture of him dangling from the handle of the hallway hamper in orange 'My Pet Monster' chains, gagged at the mouth with toilet paper.  I remember that story, actually.  A witch had kidnapped him and was torturing him. 

By this point you are either laughing for two reasons.  One, because you know me, and you know that I have even more stories to tell about this particular way of story telling I never lost interest in, or you are laughing because you haven't heard these stories, and this is very different and highly amusing to hear about.

OR . . . you may be wondering if I have some kind inner demon or hidden issues or I may be crazy, or, or, or . . . something like that.

Rest assured, I'm fine, I'm a pretty happy person in real life, and my weird stories of drama and death (which, by the way, I actually can't stand my characters dying for GOOD.  They always find a way to die for just a little bit before coming back somehow, some way), these creations of pizazz pretty much just stay in my head. 

So.

Here's just a little snippet of one facet of my personality, one facet of me that you will see in a future saga/series of stories I plan to publish. 

BUT.

That's just one facet of my personality.  We're all multi-faceted people.  We all have different characteristics and attributes that we nurture and grow within ourselves. 

Why do I like dramatic events? 

Because, as I grew older and matured, those stories took on a new meaning:  I found out WHY Ken is so awesome.  I found out the troubles he went through, and WHY he made a choice to continue to be an awesome person, rather than giving in to grief and destruction because of the obstacles he faced.

I like stories that deal with a person's growth toward a better way of seeing and understanding life.

Those are the kind of elements you will find in my stories.  Growth and understanding. 

We all need to learn those values.   

A Fresh New Year

Hello to anyone and everyone!  I have not had a blog since my high school days.  What a blast from the past to be creating one now.  My purpose in doing so?  To reach out to the internet world and let people know I exist, I have dreams, and I want to be heard. 

I've never really done the "New Years Resolution" thing.  Never really had a big enough goal that I wanted to commit myself to.  Now I do. 

This year, I've given myself the goal of getting published.  So be on the look out world, I am going to be in digital print, you wait and see!