July 27th

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! I have the perfect day to write. My hubby is asleep, my girls spent the night at friends’ houses, all is quiet, and I feel blah. It figures, right?

I figure I have between 20 – 25K words to go in order to finish FTQ. It ain’t gunna happen before the end of the month. I realize the past three NaNos have been dedicated to FTQ, but the numbers are a combination of my blog and the novel. Unfortunately for me it has been a 2:1 blog:novel ratio. Seems I’ve had more to chat about than my characters.

This simply won’t do. I need to buckle down and get this finished. As much as I hate to do it, I think for the next several days, my blog posts are going to be short and sweet with no writing challenges. I am also going to have to restrain myself from getting lost on line. I need to firmly secure my blinders.

There’s really no excuse. The story is progressing nicely. I haven’t really hit any walls, other than the little trip-up in chapter 42 which I told you about the other day, but it was easily resolved.

This book has been really strange. I get engrossed in a scene. Type it until completion. Then I go back and look, thinking I wrote all these words, only to find I was able to relay the entire series of events in less than a thousand words. 

I guess, now with this being my fourth book, I am subconsciously streamlining, something which does not usually occur until the editing/rewriting phase. (That’s where you pull out all the unnecessary fluff and fillers – silly stuff like changing ‘he went down the stairs’ to ‘he went downstairs’; or using a one word action verb to show instead of several words to tell.)

This is a good thing, I guess. I’m just used to writing more than needed and then witling it down. Which, if you think about it, is a really stupid, and time consuming, way to do it. I equate it to the way I cook – I’d rather make too much and have left overs than make what I think will be just enough, and someone goes away hungry.

Perhaps I have grown enough in my writing that the 80K goal I have in my head will only get trimmed to 75K instead of 70K, which is still an acceptable word count for a contemporary romance. I can always hope, right?

Okay, I still haven’t had any responses of suggested prompts, and my request for assistance has gone unanswered as well. I can muddle through the prompts, but I REALLY could use your help with finding someone from Northern Ireland to read Faerie Tale Queen.

I will not feel comfortable releasing FTQ without the dialogue being authenticated. There’s slang you would hear in Cork or Limerick which you would never hear in Dublin, and there are expressions a street thug would say which would never come out of a respected businessman’s mouth. Please, ask around. Thanks!!

I hope you have an amazing day, and happy writing!

July 12th 2014

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! At least today I woke up at 4:30 instead of 3:30 like I’ve been for the past several days. Since I was planning on getting up at 5:00 anyway, I just got out of bed instead of trying to fall back to sleep.

I’ve been semi-productive so far. The dog’s been emptied. Bacon is slowly frying for the beans I need to make for the party later today. I’ve read and replied to our Camp NaNo cabin chat room, and I’m about to go and make my second cup of coffee.

I wanted to get the beans and the broccoli salad done, so I would be out of the kitchen before Lys got up and started futzing with the cake, but I was also hoping to hit 20K for my word count today, and I can’t write if someone else is up. I decided to compromise. I’m going to get the beans done, because they require me being at the stove as well as the oven, then I’ll write until Lys gets up. I can make the broccoli salad at one corner of the kitchen table, so I won’t be in her way.

I had a very strange experience while writing yesterday. I was writing this one scene, there was a lot of information and a lot of drama, and it felt like it was long, time wise, but when I was finished, it was only 500 words, Ugh, that doesn’t make sense, does it? I can’t figure out how to relay what I mean. Perhaps a whole lot happened in only 500 words?

I can easily write 500 words in ten minutes. I do it all the time at my writing group. If I’m really into a scene, my word count could be double in those same ten minutes. I was into the scene, I thought I had typed for twenty minutes straight without stopping, I got all the information down that needed to be, yet my word count was roughly a third of what I thought it was going to be, and that threw me. If it wasn’t for writing during NaNo, I wouldn’t have even paid attention to the word count. I would have just kept trucking along.

Something similar happened when I was writing Taking Chances, but in the reverse. I was writing this intense scene, for all of ten minutes. I was cognizant of only writing for a short time period. When I finished, I was white as a sheet, and even got physically sick. (It was a nasty scene – many people dead – it was gruesome, really not my style of writing.) When I went back to look at it, I was stunned to see I had written an entire chapter. 

I know, I’m weird, you don’t need to tell me. I guess writers’ brains are truly wired just a little differently. I can live with that. What I am having a little difficulty living with, is these little Twilight Zone episodes which occur while I’m writing.

DANG IT! I got up to make myself a second cup of coffee and I noticed my door was opened. The latch is getting old and sometimes it doesn’t close properly. Sure enough, the cats escaped. I found Mikey and was able to get him back in the house, but Sebastian is MIA. Now, I have to go and find my kitty. They are indoor cats, and are not allowed to go outside. I hope I can find him soon, because we live on a busy road. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if something were to happen to him. The challenge is going to have to wait until tomorrow.

I hope you have a great day, and happy writing!

(Crisis was averted. I found Sebastian)

July 2nd Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a great day yesterday. Mine was pretty good even though it was ungodly hot. It hit 96 here late in the afternoon, but with the humidity, even when it was only 82 in the morning, it felt like it was in the 90s. I AM NOT COMPLAINING! I’d still take the heat over the cold.

By now you know my brain does not function like a normal human being, and I find things comical that most probably wouldn’t even notice, but I choose to share them with you in hopes they make you chuckle as well. At last night’s critique group, among the ladies, the “A”s had it. In attendance were: Anna, Christina, Frieda, Gloria, Loretta & Nina. I thought this was hysterical…no one else seemed to get it. I’m a kook, what can I say?

Gloria was new to the group, and I don’t think we scared her away, which is a good thing. She’s just begun to write and asked us for tips. She wanted to know all these things about what she should do after the books was finished. For once, our group actually agreed on something, and we ALL gave her the same advice. Don’t worry about the “after” stuff, the only thing you have to worry about is putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys), because if you don’t do that, the rest will be irrelevant anyway.

I think she was a little surprised by this, because the advice came after she sat in on our meeting and heard conflicting opinions on just about every piece we read. It’s true though, the most important thing to do as a writer is to write – EVERY SINGLE DAY. Some days it’s not easy, but you’ve got to muscle through it.

I wish I had taken down Gloria’s contact information, because I would have sent her the link to Keith’s “Magic Spreadsheet”. There’s no magic really, it’s just a daily sheet which tracks how many words you’ve written each day, and how many “chunks of time” you’ve spent on other writing related items. Example, it usually takes me twenty minutes every day to get this blog posted in its three locations, to find and download all the accompanying photos, and to hook up any links. Twenty minutes is one “chunk” of time.

Since February of this year, I have recorded over 184K words, and since June I’ve recorded 239 chunks of time (it was a new feature on the spreadsheet). Yes, you did the math right, that’s 80 hours of time spent on writing related things other than writing itself. But the most important number is the 149 consecutive days I have written.

Remember the other day I said I got out of bed at 11:30 at night, because I needed to do something before midnight? Well, that’s what I needed to do – get 400 words down on paper so my chain wouldn’t be broken. Even though you are only accountable to yourself, the spreadsheet is a great motivator.

As is our usual practice, after our meeting broke up at 9:00, we all got ice cream (or coffee), and then sat at the tables in the square and chatted. It was a beautiful night, and it gave us time to get to know the new people better and to catch up with the regulars. Todd, our Grand Pooba, spent a portion of the time speaking with a gentleman we did not know. After half an hour or so, he brought the man over to meet us.

It turns out, he’s a rather important person at the Huffington Post, and is quite a character. I believe he will be joining our critique group when he returns from his trip to France. He seems like an interesting and funny guy, and I look forward to getting to know him. He was so sweet; he offered to read and review all of my books for HP. I’m not holding my breath, because I can’t see him having the time to be able to do it, but it would be nice if it happened.

Okay, I only have a little over and hour to write today before I have to go to work, so I’d better leave. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

_____ is the most important thing, because without _____ you can’t…

Garlic is the most important thing, because without it, you can’t make truly authentic tasting Italian dishes. The pungent yet sweet flavor that is garlic adds a certain something to many dishes, not just Italian. Without it, the meal comes off as bland.

In my home, garlic is practically a food group. I add it to virtually every sauce I make; rule of thumb, if olive oil goes in, so does garlic. The seafood dish I made last week, with the cream and brandy reduction sauce was loaded with garlic. The cold green bean and mushroom salad we all love, in part, because of the great big chunks of garlic.

You would think with all the garlic we eat, it would be dripping out of our pores, but it’s not. Purely by accident I discovered if I pair garlic with the consumption of either lemonade or pineapple, the garlic scent is virtually eliminated. However, back when I could still drink wine, if I had paired my garlic infused meal with either red or white wine, I could smell the garlic on my skin the next day. I’m a writer, not a scientist, so I have no idea why this happens, but I thought it was interesting.

Your Next Challenge is:

If I had a nickel for every time I…

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

April 29th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina -

Good Morning! Yeah, my daughter finally turned down her radio so I can concentrate enough to write. She HAS TO have the radio on when she’s in the shower, and in order to hear the music while in the shower, it has to be a quite loud.

I don’t know about you, but at 5:00 am, I kinda like it quiet. I require just a little bit of time in the mornings, before everyone else is up, to sit, have my first cup of coffee, and wake up. I don’t need much time, fifteen – twenty minutes or so. Now, with the weather getting warm, unless I plan on waking up at 4:30 every morning, I won’t get that time. Warm weather means shorts weather, and shorts weather means extra time in the shower to shave weather. Which means Dani wants to be woken up at five, so she has time to get ready for school.

So, Monday through Friday for the next seven weeks until school gets out, my writing is going to be done in fits and starts – a couple of minutes before she wakes up, a little bit more while she gets dressed (the music is on low then and it’s in her bedroom, so it doesn’t disturb me), and then I’ll have to wait until she leaves at 6:45. Then I’ll have until 8:15, when I have to stop to get my hubby up and out of the house. Then, depending on the day, I may have from 8:45 – 10:15 before I have to get ready for work. Basically, if all things go smoothly, I get four hours to write every day.

Not sure how things work around your house, but around here, they rarely go smoothly. It’s going to take a whole lot of days to finish FTQ and Simply by Chance, only being able to work for four hours a day. I was hoping for a July release date for FTQ (before the next camp starts), and then a November release for Simply by Chance (before real NaNoWriMo starts), but I’m a little concerned now if I will be able to make those deadlines.

My first two weeks in May are going to be spent editing a book for a friend and also reading and reviewing another book. These were promises I made before Camp NaNo, which I had to put on hold until camp was over. After I finish these two, I am going to hang up my editing and reviewing hats for a while, so I can focus all of my energy on my own work. It’s hard to be creative when I’m stressed, and even though the deadlines are self-imposed, I’m still stressing.

My readers have waited a long time for the next installment in the Bradford Series; and I really don’t want them to wait too much longer, they may lose interest. Although I will be sad when my character dies, I do think I am ready now to proceed with the story. I still have a ton of research to do, but I think I’ll just write and then highlight areas I think need more fact checking, then go back and add it in during the editing / rewriting phase.

Okay, let me get going, because I have holy mess to clean up. I left a double load of clean laundry, in a basket, in front of the dryer, for my hubby to bring upstairs for me. He didn’t get to it last night, and Lys went to take a bath. I realize that statement doesn’t make any sense to you. You see, for some reason, whenever we use the jets on the tub, water leaks into the basement; and, you guessed it, the water drips right over the spot in front of the dryer. Now, if I want to have clothes to wear to work today, I need to go rewash and redry my clothes.

Oh yeah, and the second part of the double load, was all my husband’s work shirts, which were laid out on top of the basket. UGH! Laundry is one of my least favorite chores, so having to do it twice really fries my cookies. I don’t blame Lys though, she forgot about the leak, and it took me about fifteen minutes to register she was taking a bath, before I ran downstairs and moved the basket.

I hope you have a great day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

This is going to be a tough one, for ten minutes straight – WITHOUT STOPPING – do a stream of consciousness writing. If you get stuck and don’t know what to write, write “I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to write…” The most important thing is you DO NOT stop writing until your timer goes off. Your subject is OUTDOORS.

Outside? Why did I pick outside? Was I thinking I would write about the beach or a walk in the forest? I have no idea. I know, outside is something I get to look at through the window and wish I could spend more time out there, but I’m inside on my computer instead. If the screen was better on my computer, I could sit outside and write, but the battery would die too quickly so that would be annoying. I guess I could drag an extension cord out there. Boy wouldn’t that look ridiculous. If I was outside I would get distracted by the noise or a squirrel or something. You know me, shiny objects. I don’t know what to write. These things are such a pain. By the time I get done with what I call a brain puke – ten minutes of non stop writing, my head hurts and my fingers are all cramped up. I don’t know what to write. I hate it when Kieth does these in our writing group. So why the heck did I suggest one here. My head is starting to hurt already and my pinky is getting cramped. My right pinky. I hold it up in the air while I type. My left pinky I actually use while I type, but that right one is poised like I’m at high tea. I’m glad no one watches me while I write. I have some really quirky traits. What does this have to do with outdoors? Man, another shiny object. I’m hopeless. Three more mintues and I don’t know what to right. I don’t know what to write, I don’t know what to write Outdoors. Outdoors. I want to be outdoors. I want to be at the beach. Watching the waves, listening to the surf, smelling the salty air. I love the beach, but I love the beach when I’m the only one on the beach, and that never happens. It’s always so dang crowded. Even if I go in the off season, and a not so nice day, I still run into someone. It makes me a little annoyed. No that is not accurate it makes me mad. I selfishly want the beach to myself. My quiet time, my time to think or not thing.

Time is up. Yeah!!! Thank God. Ugh, those are tiring. Don’t worry, you won’t get another for a long time.

Your Next Challenge is:

I wonder what’s in the box…

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

April 14th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Happy Monday Morning! Even though it’s Monday, you can’t be too bummed when it’s such a glorious day. It’s over sixty degrees already, and the sun is shining. We are supposed to reach a high of seventy-seven today. {{{Clapping my hands.}}} *\0/* Doing a happy dance. *\0/*

It’s going to be tough to sit inside and writing all day, but I gotta do it. It was a busy weekend, and I didn’t get as much writing done as I should have. So today, I need to buckle down and crank out a few chapters. After I do, then I’ll take a little break and run to the grocery store – something else I never got to this weekend.

At least all I have to get is cold cuts, bread and milk. I don’t need to get any dinner items at all. Wanna know why? Because, somehow, at some point after I had gone downstairs to retrieve a Digorino’s pizza on Friday for dinner, the freezer door opened. I don’t know if I didn’t close it all the way, or if I had dislodged something, and after I closed the door, it hit it and opened the door. Several items thawed out completely, but were still cold, so I’m hoping they are still good. UGH! I hate when that happens!

I forgot to tell you yesterday about one other person I met at the Princeton Author’s Day. His name is Ravi, and he is a marketing guru. He has such fabulous ideas about how I should be marketing my books, and he is also looking to write his own book. He spent about twenty minutes chatting with Keith and me. This will be great, we can give Ravi tips and help with his writing, and he can give us tips and help us with our marketing. Man, I love networking and bartering.

After church yesterday, I went with Rebecca to the mall. Yeah, I know your saying, “Christina went to the mall?” because you all know how much I hate and try to avoid the mall at all costs. There’s a true glimpse into how much I love Bec, if I was willing to deal with a mall for her. Anyway, she is starting a new job, one which requires true business attire as opposed to business casual, so she needed to shop.

Since she hates the mall almost as much as I do, we decided to slay the beast together. Thanks to Macy’s, we had a productive day. We did find two tops in Lord & Taylor. Then we hit a couple of other stores with no success. We were about to give up, but I said, that since we were there, let’s just go to Macy’s. At that point we were both tired, and a little discouraged, but we trudged to the petite department.

After about five minutes of looking around, we gave up, partly because the foul odor in the department. I swear it smelled like someone had peed on the floor, it was disgusting. We were walking out, when something caught my eye. I pulled out a few tops, Bec tried them on, found one she liked and purchased it.

So now we were done, and headed home. We walked a little further, and something else caught my eye. I pulled down two more tops for Bec to try, and that’s when she remembered the brand name of some tops she liked. We asked the sales lady where those tops were located, and she sent us to another department. Pay dirt! Not only did Bec find several more tops she liked, I found a top for Easter, and for only $22. 

Oh, by the way, the one I got at Kohl’s did not look right, and it’s going back, so I ended up wearing an oldie but goodie to the PPL Author’s Day. (I still haven’t received any pictures from the day, as soon as someone sends some, I’ll post them for you to see.)

I also splurged a little. Vera Bradley sent me a 40% off coupon in the mail, for my birthday, and since my current pocketbook has seen better days, and I had some money from my mother in law for my birthday, so I indulged. I got the “Mandy” bag in “Petal Paisley” and a wallet to match, since my wallet’s pretty shot as well. It’s been a while since I have treated myself to something frivolous and pretty, so I’m a happy girl.

Okay, enough of my “warm-up”, time to do some “real” writing. I hope y’all have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

A reunion they’ll never forget…

‘Twenty-five years, where had the time gone?’ was a common phrase heard from the 1989 Culver High School graduates, as they reminisced with old friends, or gave fake smiles and platitudes to their old nemeses. The former “nerds” and “unpopulars” gloated and berated the former “jocks” and “populars”; the guys were all fat and bald, and the gals were funding either Miss Clarol, a plastic surgeon, or both, while they had all become one of the “pretty people” or incredibly wealthy.

As nostalgic music began to play, the dance floor filled, and only a few grimaced or commented on how terrible music from the eighties had been. The houselights dimmed, the mirrored ball began to rotate, laser lights began to bounce around the room, and the fog machine’s mist blanketed the dance floor. The conversation was loud, the music was louder. Then, above the cacophony, a scream silenced the room.

The crowd parted. Someone brought up the houselights. There, lying in the middle of the dance floor, blood trickling out of his nose, ears and mouth, was Jeff, the Raging Rooster’s star quarterback, the kid who had lead Culver High to back to back state championships in ’88 and ’89. He was motionless and most assuredly dead, but how? He was drinking, laughing and dancing just moments before.

Your Next Challenge is:

Does this taste funny to you?

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

April 7th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Happy Monday!!

I want to start this blog with a small tribute to an American legend who passed away yesterday, Mickey Rooney. He was not a perfect man. He gambled too much, he drank too much, he had a notorious temper, and he collected wives the way some folks collect comic books, but he was a heck of an actor. So Mr. Rooney, thank you for the memories, and may you rest in peace.

Yesterday’s party went well. The final count was twenty-three, which is a whole lot of people in my little house. Added to that, my sister in law brought her new little puppy Hershey. The thing’s the size of a sneeze. I’m talking, our cats are over twice as big as her. She’s a Chihuahua, miniature pinscher mix, and cute as can be, but seeing her interact with Colby and the cats was hysterical. I think the term “Napoléon Complex” was coined just for her.

At one point, she picked up one of Colby’s chew bones, and took off with it. Picture if you will, a two pound dog carrying off a one pound bone, twice her length. We were all laughing so hard, none of us could get out a camera quick enough to snap her picture.

Okay, I should run, because my time is limited today, and I really want to get some writing done. I’m picking up RV at eleven, and we are going to Toy R Us for some chunky block, peg type things so we can work on getting her left hand back to working well. Then we are going to Michael’s for supplies. I’m having her make a vision chart of all the things we are going to work on her being able to do again. Then we are going to BBB for some light weight cooking/baking supplies. All the things she has in her kitchen are heavy items she can’t work with, so cooking and baking have been a chore instead of a pleasure. After that we are headed to Target for some Easter stuff, and finally, we are headed to Costco so we can load up on ingredients to make a week’s worth of meals.

We have a busy day planned, and the poor dear is going to be exhausted when we’re finished, but that’s a good thing. This way, she’ll go to bed early, because tomorrow will be starting extra early for her, with a doctor’s appointment at ten (the doctor’s forty-five minutes away), then PT at one.

Let me run so I can get some writing done. I hope y’all have a great day, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Write a story containing the following three: Onion, Dastardly, Anthony Hopkins

Jollybark Studios just announced the release of their new feature film, Crying Shame, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins and Suzanne Summers, will be in theaters Thanksgiving weekend. Mr. Hopkins will be playing Alistair Strumpft, a CIA operative who uncovers a dastardly plan to poison the world’s onion supplies. Claudia Hasselbeck, aka Suzanne Summers, is the inside informant, who aides Alistair in foiling the plan. Together they race around the globe and against time

Good grief… I’ve got nothing. That was very sad. Who comes up with these challenges? Oh yeah, me. What was I thinking??? LOL.

Your Next Challenge is:

You’re voicing your frustrations while you’re driving, and your GPS starts to answer you back.

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

December 7th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

First I want to take a moment to remember all those lives lost over seventy years ago today. Most of you are not old enough to remember Pearl Harbor, but you are, I’m pretty sure, old enough to remember 9-11. Remember the horror you felt when our country came under attack? Well, I’m sure, our country was feeling the same way back in 1941. Over 2,400 people lost their lives that infamous day in Hawaii, and they should be remembered.

So, yesterday was kind of exciting. I realized some of you are not on Facebook, so I will share what I posted there yesterday afternoon:

 

“So I just got off the phone with the publisher from NYC, and I am doing my happy dance. 

He told me he was "proud" to have presented Corporate Blues to his team this morning. He thought it was a published book already, because not only did I send him the fully formatted, ebook ready, manuscript, I sent him the artwork for the cover. He immediately wanted to know who did the cover and if those beautiful blues were mine, and I told him no, they were a friend of mine's daughter's and Riverbench Publishing made the cover. (He raved about the cover, so, Linda Rawlins, there very well may be a phone call in Matt's future as well.) 

I reminded him what I sent was an unedited first draft, and he told me to "Stop it! You should see some of the s**t that comes across my desk." He also said he was having his secretary print out a copy so he could take it home this weekend to read it, and his team would have an answer back to him by the end of next week, because he was "pushing hard for this one".

I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, and I know I shouldn't take a chance in jinxing it by telling you, but he was so excited on the phone, it was contagious. Please keep your fingers crossed for me!”

I also posted this on my personal Facebook page as well. I usually try to keep my personal and my professional identities separate, but I was really excited, so I wanted to share the news in both places. I don’t want to get my hopes up too high because of my last experience with a traditional publisher, but I will admit, it was a big ego boost to have a publisher truly excited about my work.

Now, all I have to do is wait a week to see if his team is just as excited as he was about the book. Piece of cake…NOT. I’m nervous about sending them an unedited version, but that’s what he asked for, so that’s what I sent. I’m also wondering if they will approve of how I ended the story or if they will want more. That is, if they even like what I sent to start with, or if Corporate Blues simply ends up in the circular file.

If it does, I’ll simply polish it myself and release it through CreateSpace as I did the others. I don’t need a mainstream publisher to pick me up, but it would sure be nice. If I did, that would mean someone else was dealing with the business end and I could concentrate on writing instead of having to split my time. Which at the moment is roughly 65% marketing and 35% writing, and that does not sit well with me.

I still have to finish Faerie Tale Queen and Simply by Chance, and I have two more stories rattling around in my brain that are getting impatient and want to be told. Plus, I think a publishing contract would validate my career choice in my husband’s eyes and I’d get a little more support on the home front. But again, I’m putting the horse before the cart. There are no guarantees, and until there are, I just have to sit patiently and wait.

I think I will take a break from writing today and start decorating my house for Christmas, because other than the tree being up, I really haven’t done anything yet. I also have to make a batch of potato pancakes (requested by the hostess) to bring to our first holiday party of the season.

So, I am off to start all of that. I hope you have a fabulous day, and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

 

With Nelson Mandela’s passing yesterday, it made me think, what is it that makes someone great, makes someone stand out over the rest? Write about who you think should be remembered as “great” and why.

 

I honestly cannot think of one person to single out, because of what I consider “great”, can be achieved by anyone who truly wants it. You do not need to be Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa, to be great. You do not need to have won the Nobel Prize or have found a cure for some horrible disease to be great. You do not need to be featured on the cover of Time to be great.

In my eyes, greatness is a gift within each and every one of us, for I believe if you have the ability to change just one person’s life for the better, then you are a great person. Let’s face it, the Nelson Mandela’s of the world are few and far between. Not many of us are called to fight for justice the way he was, and our small acts of kindness will probably never get worldwide acclaim, but notoriety shouldn’t be a driving factor anyway.

If you start by just trying to make the immediate circle around you a better place, then before you know it, the circle will grow. You do not need to be rich or powerful to make someone else’s life better, something as simple as a friendly smile or a kind word could mean the world to someone.

 

The ten minutes are up, but I think you can figure out where I was going with this.

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

Write a story containing: an animal, a magical being, and snow

 

You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.