You've gotta read this and HIGH 8

Wow,

Thursday already. I tell you, I'm living my dream. I love being a writer. The week flies by, truly it does. Right now I'm collaborating on a Non-Fiction book with a woman who has SUCH a sweet spirit. I look forward to each and every day. Truly.

I have something great for you writers out there. Check out this blog:

http://inspirationaleditor.blogspot.com/2008/01/characterization-life-changing-event.html

This is a freelance editor for award winning authors. She has some great tips for you fiction writers on how to make your characters come alive. Some of you will recognize her name; she wrote an endorsement for my Writing Career Coach course on my last website. This woman knows her stuff, and her endorsement was a HUGE honor to me. When I saw this blog posting above I knew I had to share it with you. When Susan Lohrer speaks, I listen. For those of you in fiction she'd be a great blog to check. She only posts about once a week so it won't overwhelm your inbox but the content is worth it [remember our discussion on content yesterday?]

And Ricardo, aka, Primeprojects had some great questions in the comments of yesterday's post. I will address those tomorrow so everyone make sure you come back.

H.I.G.H. 8

When I last left you my little girl was in PICU. It was a very scary time for me. She'd had emergency surgery the night before because her intestines had slid inside each other and created a blockage. It is extremely rare from what I am told and usually occurs in boys when it does happen. The fact that Dr. Scooby caught it...to this DAY Dr. Scooby can do no wrong in my eyes. She saved my little girl [the family calls her Pooky after Garfield the Cat's teddy bear].

But what I remember most about that day was what was happening just before she took a turn for the worst. She'd had emergency surgery just after midnight on Tuesday going in to Wednesday. On Wednesday morning my husband was sleeping on the couch in the hospital room and I was reading a book "Heaven's Wager" by Ted Dekker while Pooky slept. My husband had brought the book to me because we wanted the room quiet while she rested.

I read this book and the power of the story overwhelmed me. I felt myself being changed from the inside out. I finished the book and determined that when I wrote my books they would impact people, not just entertain them. That has been my driving force all along. I sat in amazement that my daughter had a condition the night before which was "Not conducive with life" and today...she was sleeping soundly.

When she began thrashing around a few hours later and was eventually moved to the PICU the message of the book I'd just read kept beating around in my mind. Even now, 5 years later, that book continues to make me THINK as no other novel has before or since.

Isn't that what we want our stories to be? We want to entertain, yes, but all of us want to leave this planet better than when we got here. Suddenly writing for me was more than a dream, it was a mission.

But excellent writing needs conflict, and there was much more conflict brewing ahead before the next ray of sunshine broke through.

I'll see you tomorrow.