Real Life is Better Than Fiction

I read something interesting the other day. Chinese Bamboo takes 5 years to root before you see a sprout come to the surface. When it does, within 6 six weeks, this bamboo shoots up to 19 feet tall! Nature is amazing. That waiting period is a nourishing period. While it may seem like nothing is going on, in fact, everything is going on. The root system is hard at work building a firm foundation. Writers can apply this to their work as well. I know so many people who want to spend a few weeks, maybe a month, writing a book and then expecting to see amazing financial results overnight. Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. Writing is an art. It takes time. You need to build a foundation of followers who enjoy reading what you write. It takes a lot of effort and time. I spend one day a week concentrating on marketing. I hate it. It’s the worst part of my job. I don’t like to promote or talk about myself, but how am I supposed to get new readers if I don’t? That is part of my foundation. Ano...

Anyone who knows me, knows I enjoy quilting. It's my "thinking time" for writing. I grew up watching my mother sew. In fact, many times she sat me down at the other sewing machine and gave me a project of my own on which to work. Sometimes she gave me work to do that I didn’t like and wished that I were doing something else. Now that I am an adult, I’m glad that my mother taught me to sew. I enjoy making gifts for other people, especially quilts.  My mom did make a few quilts in her lifetime. We all had quilts on our beds to keep us warm on cold winter nights. Quilts are my specialty. While sewing one day I thought about all the quilts that I had made for people over the years. Some I liked, some I didn’t, some I hated to give away when they were all done!  I was making a quilt for someone one day, while the neighbor girls were at our house playing with my daughters. One sat and watched while I cut out all the pieces that I would need. She asked, with a rather disgu...