October 7th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

This shows how much of her brain is
effected by the cancer.

Good Morning! My shiny object this morning was the story of Brittany Maynard, a young woman who is diagnosed with an inoperable, terminal, and excruciatingly painful form of brain cancer. Brittany and her husband moved to Washington State where they have a dignity in dying law which allows a terminally ill patient to die on their own terms. I know Oregon and Vermont have the same type of death with dignity laws, and there may be one or two other states which have them, but that’s it.

Brittany loves adventure.

Brittany has decided that November 1^st, 2014 will be the day she dies, and she posted a video, which you can see here. Needless to say, like anything of this nature, it has opened up a firestorm of comments. “Holy rollers” on one end to “right to choosers” on the other. All these supposed “Christians” getting downright nasty with each other. Folks manipulating Bible verses (on both sides) to attempt to bolster their viewpoint. Fanatics on both sides making all “true” Christians – Muslims and Jews, and everyone else for that matter – look bad.

I’m sure I am going to open my own firestorm here as well, and this is why I usually try to avoid any kind of religious or political commentary, but on occasion, my cookies get fried and I have to say something. What I meant by “true” is, true Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc., hold a love of God in their hearts. They try very hard to love all their neighbors regardless of their neighbor’s beliefs. They pray for them, but do not force their own beliefs on them. They do not judge. They may not agree with, but they respect the other’s beliefs. Religion is based on love, understanding, and compassion, not judgment, condemnation, and discrimination.

Brittany's wedding photo

Back to Brittany. I can see both sides to this coin. There are horrible diseases out there like MS & ALS where your body deteriorates and your brain stays whole, and for me that would be a living hell. Alzheimer's and dementia would be hell on my family. I don't know if I would be able to do it or not, and I hope I won't have to make that type of decision, ever.

A beautiful young woman...

Then again, I have actually seen a medical miracle - twice - with my mom. She was diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable cervical cancer. The prognosis was not good to say the least, but they were willing to try. We all started praying and added her to prayer chains all over the country (our family and friends are far flung). After her initial round of chemo and radiation, she went in for radioactive isotope implants. After they did the procedure the doctor came out to talk to me, and asked me to verify everything. I did, then when he started scratching his head, I asked why. He said because there was absolutely no sign of the cancer, not even any scarring of where the tumor supposedly was (miracle one).

... a strong and courageous one
as well. 

Several months later, my mom was having gallbladder issues and they sent her for a CT scan. The tech saw something he didn't like, and told her to go back to her oncologist. After a battery of tests, including two PET scans, they determined that my mom had cancer in every single one of her lymph nodes. No treatment, no options, only a few months to live. My mom called her radiologist to tell him what was going on, and basically to cancel her six month check-up, because she wasn’t going to be around for it. He asked her if it was okay if he made some calls. Obviously she agreed. He called her back the next day and asked her if she would go see a buddy of his from medical school.

She went to see this doctor, and he told her he was willing to try. The surgery was massive. She’d be cut from collarbone to pubic bone, and they would remove every lymph node in her body. She would be in the hospital for at least a month, and then in rehab for up to six months afterwards, that was provided she survived the surgery. She decided to give it a try, and the prayer chain was reactivated.

We celebrated Christmas early that year, because her surgery was scheduled a few days before Christmas. We had friends and family, because honestly, we thought it might be our last Christmas together.

My mom at her birthday last year. As you
can see, she's doing great!

Surgery day arrived. I brought my mom to the hospital. The surgeon came out and talked to me right before he went in. He said the surgery would take hours and I should go home, he’d call when she was done. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere, and plopped myself down in a waiting room chair.

A little over an hour later, he came looking for me. My heart sank when I saw him, but then he gave me the biggest smile I had ever seen. He told me that on a hunch, before he opened her up, he put in a scope and looked at every single one of her lymph nodes. There was one tiny one, just outside her abdominal wall, which looked questionable, so he removed it laproscopically.  All the others looked perfectly fine. He said the only way to describe it was a miracle, because PET scans don’t lie.

My mom walked out of the hospital the next morning and has been cancer free for going on ten years now. So as I said, I can see both sides of this coin. Prayer and believing do work, but I also firmly believe that, like any parent, God does not want to see his children suffer. If the time comes when she feels she can no longer deal with the pain, and decides to take the medication, I have faith that God will welcome her home, because that’s what a loving parent does. We forgive our children’s sins, we overlook their shortcomings, and we love them unconditionally.

You may agree with me, you may disagree with me. Either is fine with me. I only ask that if you feel compelled to comment on this post, or reply to a comment someone else made in response to this post, you do it respectfully. I would prefer to avoid any type of pissing match on my page. You are completely allowed to voice your opinion, but if I feel you are viciously attacking anyone, I will delete your comment (no name calling, behave).

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

Your Next Challenge:

One thing I would definitely like to do before I die is…

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.

September 29th Challenge

Hi it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Yup, as suspected, yesterday was completely unproductive, and as you can probably gather by the lateness of this post, I’m not faring much better today either. I think my frantic pace over the past several weeks has caught up to me.

Today, amongst laundry, dishes, and hopefully some vacuuming, will be spent reading FTQ. I need to get back into the story, bring it to culmination, and put the final touches on it. I need to make sure there are no holes, and, if needed, insert clues so the pinnacle leaves you with an “Oh!” not an “Oh?”.

One saving grace is this is the fifth week in the month, which translates to, I only have one meeting this week. I can spend the entire week decompressing (except for work on T, W & Th). Come Saturday, when I have my next book signing, I should be right as rain again.

I would like your advice. I have dithered to the last possible second, and now the early bird deadline for the Indie Next Generation Book Awards is tomorrow. This past year, Taking Chances was a finalist in the “2^nd Book” category. It is still eligible for entry in the 2015 competition. My question is, should I resubmit Taking Chances, or should I just be happy with the 2014 results and submit Corporate Blues instead?

If I decide to go with Taking Chances, I will be entering it again in the “Romance” category, but this time I will also be entering it in the “Historical Fiction” category. If I enter Corporate Blues, it will go into the “Romance” & “Chick Lit” categories. I’m truly torn, and I seek your counsel. Please weigh in on this. I only have until tomorrow evening to decide. In all honesty, Corporate Blues is a fun, light piece, but I feel Taking Chances holds more literary merit. UGH! HELP! (I don’t want to pay $150 to enter both of them.)

Okay, I have procrastinated long enough today. I really should get something, anything, accomplished. Lord I loathe housework!

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

Your Next Challenge:

An Ode to Your Eyes…

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 23rd Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good morning. It has been a frustrating morning already. Instead of writing for the past two hours like I should have been, I’ve been fighting with my computer. I’m about to pull my hair out, what little is left of it.

Every time I try to do any kind of search or even try to pull up a new page, I get a pop-up saying my Goggle or my flash player or my media player is out of date and it needs to be updated. This has been going on for almost two weeks now. I have tried running the updates. The first time, it loaded all sorts

of other junk onto my computer, and we needed to back everything out. That’s when I realized they now tack on all this other crap you really don’t need during the update process, and you have to hit “decline” until you get to the update you really need.

I thought we uninstalled everything, but now Bing has taken over my internet explorer and Conduit has taken over my Google Chrome. Annoying, but I can deal with it. What I can’t stand is all these stupid ads that keep popping up any time I move my mouse, then, if one inadvertently gets clicked (because the system manages to stick the ad right under my mouse when I try to navigate a page) a second window pops up saying “ad cannot be found”. SO WHAT THE HECK IS THE SENSE??? Not that I want to see the ad anyway, but I’m trying to get work done and I keep getting delayed.

So, the last time these MUST UPDATE things popped up, I said, okay, one last time. I try to run the update and it either tells me I have the most updated file or it puts the run button so far down on my screen I can’t click on it. I ran a virus scan. I ran a malware scan. I ran a download scan. EVERYTHING comes back clean. I am {this} close to throwing my laptop across the room.

The final straw this morning was I needed to give CreateSpace the final approval for the proof on A Second Chance – I added the “Also available” and “Reviews” pages to the book. I can see the proof just fine, but when I try to hit the “approved” button, it won’t register. Until I hit the “approved” button, the book is not available for purchase, so now all these dang computer ads, pop ups, and tag ons have cost me money, because my computer is no longer working the way it should be. I’m pretty sure, if I could locate the person responsible for creating this lovely feature, and could get my hands around his or her neck, it would be deemed a justifiable homicide.

So here it is, one week until the end of the month, seven short days, four of which I will be able to do very little, if any, writing, and I still have 8,400 words to go. I’m starting to twitch, my jaw is hurting from clenching it, and my throat is getting sore from me growling at my computer; a state of mind not exactly conducive to creativity.

I’m leaving for Vermont between five and five thirty tomorrow, so I very seriously doubt there will be a blog post before I leave. However, Lys’ day is pretty full tomorrow, so all I’ll be doing is dropping off her packing stuff, and then heading to my hotel. Hopefully my nephew can find something quiet to occupy himself for an hour or so, so I can get a little writing done. (I’m bringing my 22 year old nephew with me as muscle. There’s no way Lys and I would be able to wrestle a fridge into my van on our own, plus all the other bins and junk from her dorm.) Then, Friday, I don’t think we are leaving until around noon, so I may get some writing done before my nephew wakes up. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Okay, I’m going to take a five minute break, go get another cup of coffee, and try to let some steam out of my ears so I can write. I hope y’all have a much better day then I’ve been having, and happy writing!

Your Last Challenge was:

Once upon a time, in a small town far away, lived a young girl named Tabatha. Tabatha was

a beautiful child, had parents who loved her very much, and provided her with a good life, but she was not happy. Tabatha was incredibly lonely. She prayed every night for a brother or a sister, someone with who she could share her life.

She dreamed of playing tag, building snowmen, late night camping under her covers with a flash light, giggling and trying to keep quiet so their parents wouldn’t hear, and come in and yell at them that it was time to go to sleep. She even imagined the fights they would have, as all siblings do.

She had asked, begged, her parents, time and again, for a little brother or sister. She had even told them it could be her only birthday or Christmas present. Her parents smiled sadly at her, and told her they were sorry. They would love nothing more than to be able to grant Tabatha’s wish, but they were unable. They would buy her fabulous gifts and take her to magnificent places to try to make it up to her, and although she appreciated all they tried to do, she was still sad and lonely.

Then one day, a knock came on her bedroom door. Her dad poked his head inside her room and asked if he could come in. Her dad had that look on his face, the one he got every time he had a surprise present for her. So, not wanting to make her dad sad, Tabatha smiled and welcomed her dad into her room. She was surprised to see her mom follow him in. Her mom also had the same look on her face, and Tabatha started to get excited.

Her mom sat down on her bed, put her arm around Tabatha, and Tabatha’s father said, “There’s someone here we’d like you to meet.” He went back into the hall way, and she could hear him talking with someone. A few seconds later, he walked in. Holding his right hand was a girl Tabatha’s age, and holding his left hand was a boy a few years younger. “Sweetheart, I’d like you to meet, Kirsten and Matthew. They would like it very much if you would be their sister.”

Your Next Challenge is:

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.

November 14th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

Good morning! Well, I’m getting there. I breached the 20K mark yesterday. I’m still behind, but the margin is getting smaller. I am a little worried though, because next Friday starts a string of days where I won’t be able to write. If I have any hope of reaching the goal this time, I need to seriously start cranking out pages, nay, chapters.

A few months back, on my blog, I ran a survey asking what types of writing challenges y’all preferred. Your choices were: photo challenges, three word challenges, broad challenges, specific scenario challenges, and one other I cannot remember right now. I didn’t get a whole lot of responses, but the ones I did said you like the specific scenario challenges best. Of course, these are the hardest ones to come up with, and to be perfectly honest, I did hunt the web for some ideas, then tweaked them a little for you. Yesterday’s challenge came from a teacher. I wanted to give her, or at least her site, credit for the prompt in my blog today, but when I went back this morning to look for the information, I couldn’t find the site again. I feel bad because some of her prompts were really interesting and I thought you would have enjoyed them.

Okay, as fun as this is, I really must skedaddle if I have any hope of reaching my goal. I  hope you have a lovely day, and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge:

 

You are walking down an alley and you come to an unusual dead end. There are several recognizable portals in front of you – Alice’s Rabbit Hole, A Wardrobe, The Entrance to 221B Baker Street, Boo’s Door, Maxwell Smart’s Phone Booth, Dumbledore’s Spiral Staircase, (insert one I didn’t think of). You turn around to go back, but you find your way blocked. Your only option is to choose.

 

Since forward is my only option, I guess I have to choose. I walk over to the rabbit hole and peer down. It’s dark and dirty with rocks and roots protruding from the edges and creepy crawly things scurrying everywhere. Although Wonderland would be an amazing adventure, I think I’ll pass.

 I press my ear to the wardrobe’s door and close my eyes. I hear music and laughter and then Aslan’s roar and I smile, but I step back to survey my other options when I hear the unmistakable clash of swords.

 

 

 

 

 

If I choose the next door, I will be transported to London in the late 1800s. I will be given a chance to interact with one of the most brilliant, observant, reasonable minds of all time. Even though I am a respectable woman, I’m not sure I should be walking the streets of London with a serial killer on the loose.

 

 

 

I trace the pretty purple flower on the next door. If I go through, I could personally choke Randall, high-five Mike, and give Sully a hug, but other than that, it really doesn’t hold much appeal to me.

 

Only two options left; the world of spies and espionage or the world of magic and wonder. Both fascinating in their own ways, yet both with inherent dangers.

Which will I choose?

 

 

 

(Photos added after the ten minutes. FBers, if you want to see them, you’ll need to visit my actual blog.)

 

Your Next Challenge is:

 

You decide to take a photography class for fun. For your first assignment, your teacher tells you to go to the park and simply snap photos of anything that catches your eye, then bring the film back to class to be developed. When the pictures start to develop, your teacher teases you about how the assignment was supposed to be a variety of things in the park which caught your eye, not one subject. Having no idea what your teacher is talking about, you look at the pictures and notice, there is a man in every single scene, staring back at the camera.

 

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.

October 23rd Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina – 

There were twelve of us at the writer’s group last night. Well, I should say twelve of us who stayed. One lady left before anyone even said a word to her, one gentleman left when he realized the group was not a workshop and not really what he was looking for, and the third gentleman left when he received a text telling him there was a family emergency. He left part way through the first prompt, but I think we may see him again in the future.

We tried something a little different last night in the writing group. Instead of doing one ten minute prompt and then sharing what we wrote, I had the group do four ten minute prompts in rapid succession and then we discussed them. I figured by putting all the prompts together, and not breaking in between, we could keep the flow going.

I think it went well, but if I do this in the future I will only have three prompts in the beginning and not four. I felt bad for the folks who were actually writing and not typing. Their wrists must have been sore after forty straight minutes of writing.

Finally we ended with one fifteen minute prompt and then another discussion, so it would only be sharing time and not writing time which was interrupted by the “get your junk and get out” announcements kicking everyone out of the library. Turned out the first announcement came really late and we had just finished the last reading.

I did cheat and use yesterday’s writing challenge as one of the prompts last night, and I pulled the others from previous blogs. Some were received more favorably than others. Oh well, I tried. You are not going to be able to please everyone all the time. It gave me a feel for what it will be like to run my own group. It is going to be difficult to come up with multiple prompts on a weekly basis. I only have so many in reserve. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I did receive an email reply from the FBI with a request for more specific information, so I will be working on that today. I was shocked at how quickly I receive a response, so if the next response comes just as quickly, I will be able to finish Corporate Blues by the end of the month.

Okay, I am going to go take some sinus medicine before the pressure makes my head explode, and then I’m going to start the email. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday, and happy writing!

 

Your Last Challenge was:

Write a letter from your future adult self to yourself as a teenager.

Knowing me, and obviously I do, you are not going to believe this when you find it, but it’s real. For reasons I cannot get into, I was given the opportunity to give my teenage self some advice. Advice YOU MUST LISTEN TO.

I know you still are thinking this is a bunch of crap and either Cheri or Lisa are playing a trick on you, so I am going to tell you things you know you haven’t told anyone. Like when Toby snuck back to our house after he walked Lisa home; his excuse was he forgot something, but what he really wanted to do was kiss you.

And then there is the coffee can under your bed that holds all your money and your Marlboro reds, which you should really give up now, because we are still struggling with them in the future. They were a stupid thing to start, and why? To impress Sue? Let me tell you now, she turns into a good for nothing white trailer trash, piece of dung, who ends up O.D.ing before she’s thirty. She’s not someone you should associate with. And while we’re at it, when she asks you for $50, don’t give it to her. She is not getting her sister a graduation gift; she uses the money to go from pot to the harder stuff.

Do you believe me yet? I hope so because here is the reason for the letter. I know you love Paul, and he does turn out to be a wonderful husband and father, but don’t give up the Air Force Academy for him. You are intelligent and gifted and talented, so you do turn out fine, but not going to the Air Force is the one regret you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Paul loves you, really loves you, and although he will be sad while you are away, he will wait for you, and you will get married, have three beautiful children, and have a wonderful life together.  

Your Next Challenge is:

 

 Write a story using the following three words, Lily, Anger, Murder

 

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.