“We must do that which we think we cannot…” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Who also tells us, “With the new day comes new strength…”
So let’s lean in and kick some ass today ;o)
Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’
We must…
Tuesday, June 24th, 2014Be brave enough…
Monday, June 23rd, 2014
Family is EVERYTHING.
Sunday, June 22nd, 2014
Love Eternally…
Sunday, June 22nd, 2014
Readers and Writers…
Sunday, June 22nd, 2014Reading today? Escaping, passing time, relaxing, recharging?
What’s tops on your TBR pile?
I’ll take a bite of them all–as a writer, it’s all the same. Inspiration and research and understanding and filling the well. I’m more creative with my mind relaxed and loose, the way reading recharges me.
Just finished Nora Robert’s Bride Quartet series. Fun and flirty with touches of deeper tones. I write with a bit more angst, and I like her characters better when they have more conflict and struggle to deal with. These friends are just a bit to cutsie to be ideal cup of tea. But Nora’s amazing, the way she unfolds story and people and relationship. So much to enjoy and admire.
What’s your poison?
Valentines Treasures… WIN an absolute gem!
Friday, December 6th, 2013Now that the holidays are behind us, love is in the air!
I couldn’t be more excited about my Valentines release,
the third book my my Mimosa Lane trilogy, coming January 21st: Love on Mimosa Lane.
Library Journal is already raving about, “this affecting, sweet story.” You’re going to fall in love with Law Beaumont and Kristen Hemming’s romance, as well as how determined they are to help two amazing kids.
You’ve met Kristen in Three Days on Mimosa Lane, and prepare to meet the foster family that will become the backdrop for future Chandlerville novels–including this November’s Where the Heart Is!
To celebrate, check out this month’s Writerspace prize:
It’s a much sought-after, vintange Crown Trifari heart pin.
The first letters of its pave stones spell out “dearest”–stones the color of Diamond, Emerald, Amethyst,
Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire and Topaz.
How amazing is that?
So link over and sign up for your chance to win it or a signed copy of the novel!
And don’t forget to pre-order your Valentine’s copy of Love on Mimosa Lane…
Here’s a bit more to tease you ;o)
Law Beaumont and Kristen Hemmings have watched each other from a distance for years. But Law, a bartender with a bad-boy past, and Kristen, an assistant principal devoted to helping her community, couldn’t seem more different. When they unite to mentor a young foster child and to help Law’s troubled daughter through the aftermath of her parents’ ugly divorce, their attraction deepens. They face the undeniable connection between them, and a whirlwind of challenges they can only conquer together.
A stirring love story and a candid look at the complexities of divorce, substance abuse, and our country’s foster care system, Love on Mimosa Lane is a love song to an entire community, and a novel about the power of family—the family you’ve been given, the one you’ve chosen, and the one that can lift you up, even when the world is tearing you down.
What opens your heart?
Wednesday, December 4th, 2013Holiday cheer? Holiday giving? Holiday spirit? I want those things mean to me the same as they would any other time of the year. I listed my “heart happy” goals yesterday, for the holiday and beyond, and rereading them now makes me smile. I’m actually thinking I should be reading them every morning. Every new day I don’t feel up for or ready to face or willing to tackle. Because it’s not about me, not entirely. Each day is about living and giving and sharing and belonging.
Opening your heart to the world around you…what better goal to have? There’s an entire philosophy behind our need to belong and how it drives the majority of conscience and subconscious behavior. Why do we do the things we do, why do we give up on the things we do, and why do we avoid those very things we know we need to face most? Fear and doubt, I say. We worry, and feel insignificant or powerless, and are too often on a self-fulfilling path of “I can’t make that work so why bother.”
“Don’t do that,” my daily list says. The list at the bottom of yesterday’s post that I’ll shake myself awake with each new morning now, because I want this holiday and this life and this chance I have to write and live well to mean something more than what I want (and am maybe a little afraid I can’t have) for myself.
What about other people? How can I be useful and meaningful to them?
That’s what I hope my writing’s about– (more…)
What’s a heart made of?
Tuesday, December 3rd, 2013Holidays are for hearts. Whatever we celebrate this time of year, images of families and loved ones and friends and memories surround us. The season lifts us up, makes us homesick, sometimes brings unwanted sadness. Our hearts are in play. Done deal. We’re feeling something more, something deeper, something real.
I often wonder why–you know, besides the obvious manipulation by the media and advertisers, wanting us to spend, Spend, SPEND so we can feel even better (or worse) as we long for more of whatever we want (or have lost) most. What’s behind those heart strings tugging at our thoughts and memories and imaginations?
We’re more open around the holidays, even the jaded among us. We engage with the world and people around us, because it’s all closer, it’s all bigger. How can we not be affected?
Our minds are on the every day of work and kids and obligations and worries. We plod onward with all we think we are. But we’re also conditioned to feel certain ways in November and December and early January. Whether we want to or not, we’re trained from infancy to fit into the holiday mold our families before us have spent generations crafting. But what do we truly want our hearts to feel and believe and desire this time of year?
In matters of the heart, what’s habit and what’s intention? What makes us happy, and what are we doing because we’re told it should make us happy? If only we could tune in and find the magic of our own individual experience (as the world and the holidays experience and evolve and march onward around us), the hustle and bustle that distracts from more than this season would fade a bit…and we’d discover the holiday of oyr dreams.
That’s my plan this year, anyway. To be, in this moment, what my heart’s always wanted this time of year to be. To understand my hearts desire and see it come to life around me. To inspire, through my stories and my blogs and the other fun things coming soon that my publicist would smack me for talking about before its time (waving at Nancy Berland and her fabulous team while keeping mum’s the word for just a little longer), everyone I reach to long for the same.
Let’s say them out loud… (more…)
‘Tis The Season… To feel alone?
Tuesday, November 19th, 2013“For unloved daughters and sons, the stress of the holidays sweeps in much more than the nuisance of crowded stores, piped-in joys, worries about money or pleasing everyone with the right gift…”
Currently writing about (and studying) grown foster kids who’ve aged out of the system. You know, in the midst of my charming, warm family novels. It might not come as a shock to you that holidays can be difficult for many in our country. But would it surprise you to know that they’re difficult for me? Maybe even for you sometimes, just a little more than you’ve let yourself think about?
If so
“For unloved daughters and sons, the stress of the holidays sweeps in much more than the nuisance of crowded stores, piped-in joys, worries about money or pleasing everyone with the right gift…”
I’m writing into a new story about (and studying) grown foster kids who’ve aged out of the system. You know, in the midst of my charming, warm family novels. I stumbled across this article from Psychology Today, among many others, in my research.
It might not come as a shock to you that holidays can be difficult for many in our country. But would it surprise you to know that they’re difficult for me? And maybe even for you sometimes, just a little more than you’ve let yourself deal with?
Yeah, it’s a cute baby. And we fight so hard to keep the holidays full of cheer, despite disappointments or unhappiness from our pasts. And that’s a good thing. We move forward, we heal, we become who’re we’re meant to be. There’s no one I know who thinks it’s a good idea to stagnate in the hurt of the past and let it define all that will ever come. But as cute as all the holiday hype is, and as much as we might want to dive into the celebration along with everyone else, sometimes there’s just too much bubbling up from deep inside to laugh or hug or work or jingle away.
“For many, it [holidays] will conjure up–almost as if fresh and hew–the pain, exclusion, and loss they felt in their families of origin,” the article says.
Yeah. That’s real stuff. Holiday stuff we don’t want to see but too often can’t dismiss. I’m determined to write an inspirational, hopeful, loving and celebratory Christmas novella for next November/December’s readers. But in it (because I’m me and I’m made up of all my experiences of family origin, and because I’m writing about characters with disconnection and abandonment and insecurity and fear as their own earliest memories), I’m also going to be tackling the reality that many of us face each year– that, “the holidays sometimes evoke a renewed sense of self-doubt about the decision made, along with a feeling of isolation. The weight of cultural disapproval may feel heavier at this time of year…” (more…)
Inspire yourself! WIN Vintage Trifari…
Friday, November 15th, 2013“Passion is energy.
Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
The holiday season every year, I’m reminded how lucky I am, how blessed I am, and how many inspirational things wait for me around every corner. That might sound corny. But the leaves are changing, my wind chimes are singing, families and friends are making reconnecting… There’s passion in the air. Passion for loving and living and being more aware of how inspired we can be by the amazing world around us.
“Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”
~Martha Graham
Our lives are challenging, to say the least. Many of us (myself included) can struggle through the holidays with difficult memories or difficult twists and turns in our lives and families. But this time of the year, EVERY year, I’m determined not to let myself forget that how I react to my life defines my life. And I’m determined to be passionate. I’m determined to love and live and be excited about today and tomorrow–and to hopefully inspire people around me to want the same.
That’s why butterflies are my totem, and a major part of my brand…and my challenge to you ;o) If you feel down or stressed or overwhelmed this year, think of butterflies hovering freely on every breeze, around every flower, in every garden of your imagination. And even when it’s cold outside, they’re waiting, growing inside their cocoons, biding their time until they’ve transformed into something even more beautiful.
Like this!
My November contest prize!
It’s a vintage Alfred Philippi Trifari pin, like the special treasures little Polly cherishes in Christmas on Mimosa Lane.
Be inspired.
Pay it forward.
Share your passion this season.
Share your excitement with those you love!
