Something About YOU
Let’s have a little fun today, shall we? And by fun I mean word fun, of course. A little writing exercise to start the weekend right.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Write about yourself in the third person. Tell us something we wouldn’t guess simply from the fact that you read this blog. And do it in a maximun of 100 words.
I love learning new things about you! Go for it.
Rachelle Gardner, Christian literary agent, WordServe Literary Group, Colorado.
Skyzz…
Wonderful blog post, saw on…
>Prof. Archibald pulled her flash drive slowly from the computer then turned, startled to see Megan and Steph lingering.
“So you aren’t teaching next semester?” asked Megan.
“No,” said Prof. Archibald, “I can hardly see the computer anymore, especially when I’m trying to read over your shoulders and help you with your writing. But now I’ll have time to do my own writing.”
“I’m happy for you!” trilled Steph. “Well, not about your eyes . . . But, you know, because you really want to write.”
“I do! So it’s actually good.” Prof. Archibald smiled. “Hey, e-mail me sometime!”
>Lenore sang solos in church every chance she got. With a pastor father and an organist mother, that sounds predictable. Yet listeners pronounced her soprano and interpretation surprising in a teenager.
A romantic, Lenore favored singing at weddings. This time it was her friend’s sister. The September evening promised a reception table groaning with food and fun with friends.
She didn’t expect to lose her heart for life, however.
Most guests looked familiar, except for a handsome, dark-eyed stranger. The visiting cousin? Her heart thumped as he approached, took her hand and smiled. “Hello, My name is Bob. What’s yours?”
>She was a nerd as long as anyone could remember. Never the pretty one, or the funny one, or even the charming one. She made peace with it, though, and now she stood, ready at a moment’s notice to answer questions on anything- anything, that it, except the Runic alphabet. The most difficult question she ever faced was ‘tell me about yourself in a hundred words’. “I write fiction so I don’t have to talk about myself,” she sighed. So she stalled until Sunday night, when she could safely stuff her bio in at the end.
>Better late than never, right?
****
Krista shivered and pulled the blanket tight around her body. God must have blinked when he created the weather for Northern Minnesota. She’d only lived there a few days and already she yearned to be back home, where the April temperature was at least above freezing.
Shifting her body, she adjusted the flashlight beam to shine on the page again. She was getting to a good part! Good thing about reading, one could do it anywhere. Even sleeping on the floor in the hallway of a tiny one bedroom cabin.
Her parents will never hear the end of this.
>By a quirky twist of fate, H. L. Dyer ended up happily in a scientific job. While her you-go-girl powerhouse side delights that she can combine her work as a pediatrician with teaching future doctors, her beat-poet storyteller side demands equal attention. Luckily, pediatrics is one field where it’s acceptable to burst into song or juggle juiceboxes.
She can write mirror image like Leonardo da Vinci, whip up raisin bread like her Polish great-grandmother, and compose parodies like Weird Al.
She also has tumbling impulse control issues, which is unfortunate, given her lack of gymnastic training or athletic ability.
>Vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, walking upon sugar-white sand, Marilyn and her husband stop and listen to men offering rides on rainbow-colored parasails. Out on the turquoise water, a boat will supply the necessary lift. Marilyn signs up. Rising up into the air, she delights in the breeze, the cotton clouds and birds.
Marilyn looks down. Her husband – far away, tiny as an action figure – frantically waves his arms. Other miniscule figures do the same. Marilyn realizes she’s headed for the thatched roof of a beach house. She adjusts a rope, barely misses the structure, lands, signs up for another ride.
>Is it truly a complement when you are referred to as an atypical geek? Well, that is how people often see Ralph. They recognize that he truly does enjoy working with technology, and yet is quite the extrovert. Extrovert and techie are not commonly used for those with a technical bent. As a child Ralph’s favorite words were “some assembly required”. A little odd indeed. No one is certain of the origin of his love everything technical, and also the joy of sharing with others about his completed projects. A good project idea; testing Ralph for his unique personality type.
>Lisha wrote seven picture books in seven days in the NaPiBoWriWee, yielding interesting results, since she is a YA writer. A stanza from Dirty Socks:
“He put them on his fungoid toes
And romped through doggie poo.
Cleaned gutters with them, polished teeth’
And scrubbed a toilet too.”
Lisha’s ugly secret is that her earliest attempts at rhyming folderol came in high school. She and her best friend wrote epic parodies of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals by passing notes back and forth during French I.
What else is a kid like that going to do, but become a writer?
>Hope I’m not too late to play.
Rose just returned from her anniversary trip to Italy, a romantic whirlwind.
Few people know that Rose took violin lessons in elementary school or that she was valedictorian in high school and salutatorian in college–both small private church schools.
Rose’s mom was the only child of deaf parents and had a very quiet childhood so she wanted a dozen kids, but had to settle for seven. Rose is the oldest of the bunch.
>Thankfully the pizza didn’t slip from her hands when she saw the antique convertible drive by. The cab driver she’d dated the summer before at the island resort was back but wait!. . .There were two of them! Who knew he was a twin?
Now after 40 years of seeing double, Karen is glad to have chosen the twin brother. Together they’ve become avid scuba divers and travel addicts having visited six of seven continents (including Antarctica). And the first twin? He married the lady who’s become her best friend. She’s been seeing double for 40 years too.
>Jamie’s reached 45 years and hasn’t managed to pull herself together. Thankfully, somewhere along the way, she realized sewing her act slam together isn’t the point of life. Well, at least not her life.
She loves eating fried oysters laced with tartar sauce while sifting sand between her toes. All the while feeling the effects of too much sun and too little SPF.
She’s blessed with the revelation that God doesn’t expect perfection. And that He created oysters and called them good.
Each moment is ordinary and extraordinary. She’s terribly human and terribly blessed. (And terribly fond of fried mollusks.)
>1. Mommy
2. Boston, MA
3. http://www.10minutewriter.com
4.Successful homeschooler, aspiriing novelist
5. I discovered this blog yesterday.
6. My husband, Marc, has no hair.
7. My children: Ariel, Miranda, Corbin, Perrin, Veronica
8. I am a native of Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA.
9. We ate chicken parmesan and shell pasta for lunch.
10. Fascinated by the use of humor to convey truth everywhere.
11. Wonders about the quantity and quality of Christian humor in books.
12. Will probably eat pecan muffins for dessert later with my kids. Yum!
13. Youngest child runs around in various stages of undress, vexing me and husband.
And that is ninety-one. Plus five is hundred!
>He gazed at the people seated around him. They clapped and cheered. Pride swelled from deep within him, he’d succeeded.
But it wasn’t him. The applause, the excitement, it was aimed at the beast standing beside him. The beast snorted and looked for an escape.
Over the past few months, they’d grown close. Worked as a team. Could he do what was necessary? Could he sign the death warrant? The beast looked to him through questioning eyes.
“I have reached a decision,” the judge announced.
“The winner of this year’s Grand Champion, is Rob Roush with his 240 pound Duroc.”
>Julie Weathers grew up in Montana and lived in North Dakota for four years. The last year she was there the temperatures were -40, without windchill, for two weeks and they had to feed cows for with a team of horses and hay sled. She told God if he would keep her from freezing to death that winter she would move. He did and she did.
Julie now lives in Texas with her miniature rose and borrowed dragon eel.
Julie was the first woman to ride a bucking horse at the Miles City and Rapid City bucking horse sales.
>Suzanne lives in a house by the sea with her husband and her three lovely daughters who she cuddles every chance she gets. She is a Catholic and a very young yet proud member of the Ladies Guild. Suzanne’s mother is mentally ill and unable to sustain a relationship. Her quest for publication has less to do with fortune and fame and more to do with the dedication at the start of her novel: “To my mother, who made a home for herself on the moon, directing my aim towards the stars so that I might reach her.”
>Eight-year-old Suzy Parish folded her speech into a smaller and smaller square of paper. “Next!” The moderator gave her a little nod and she walked hesitantly onto the elementary school platform. A silver microphone stared back at her, eye level. “Wild horses out west are being used for dog food by canning companies…” Words passionately flowed from her lips like lava. So shocked was she by the feelings, she thought for a moment it was another who spoke. It was then she knew words were her calling. Years later, the feeling is still there.
>Eight-year-old Suzy Parish folded her speech into a smaller and smaller square of paper. “Next!” The moderator gave her a little nod and she walked hesitantly onto the elementary school platform. A silver microphone stared back at her, eye level. “Wild horses out west are being used for dog food by canning companies…” Words passionately flowed from her lips like lava. So shocked was she by the feelings, she thought for a moment it was another who spoke. It was then she knew words were her calling. Years later, the feeling is still there.
>I meant to say, “When her family goes off in different directions…”
>Everyone suspects Lucille of being an extrovert. She walks up to strangers and engages them like she’s known them for years. People would be surprised to know that Lucille really treasures being alone. In fact, when her goes off in different directions (leaving her alone), she makes sure her friends don’t know, so that she can read, write, hot tub, and watch endless episodes of “House.”
>Christine always knew she would achieve something great. At first she thought her destiny was wrapped in the modeling career she wanted to have. When that fizzled out, she thought her path into psychology was the answer – the thing that would lead to greatness. But, the harder she worked, and the more she helped people, the more elusive her quest became.
Until her colleague retired. And left her a special note:
“You are not just smart, and not just good at your job. You are the most distinctively human person I have ever known – willing to express your humanity at all times. Thanks for reminding me what a gift that it.”
On that day Christine understood that she had already achieved greatness. Be being human.
>The dive boat was headed for Catalina Island. Rachelle fought her usual nausea as she tried to pay attention to her date for the day, a scuba instructor from Hawaii. Finally the boat dropped anchor and it was time to yank on the wetsuit and strap into the scuba gear.
The divemaster was checking off each diver before they jumped into the ocean. Finally it was Rachelle’s turn. “Name and number?” the divemaster asked. “Rachelle. Thirteen.” She peered through her dive mask into the eyes of the guy with the list.
“Brian Gardner,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”
>Ray has always been a dreamer. I cannot remember a time when he was anything other than a dreamer. He sees things as he wish them to be. Not always the way reality has presented them to him. I chase one rainbow after another. I have been known to challenge windmills to a fight to the death.
His wife, the pragmatist, tells him time after time, not all dreams come true. She reminds him that chasing rainbows will only get him wet. And picking fights with windmills should be left for the young, not the young at heart.
>Jessica finds all these tidbits about people’s lives fascinating. She’s an introvert with a horrible case of curiosity. Confession: she used to sneak and read her sisters’ diaries. Very, very bad.
She’s also a romantic who married her hubby two days after graduating high school. And she wasn’t pregnant. LOL
>Ginger first became a mom a few months after her 16th birthday under the cloud of abuse. Years later she married a wonderful man and had two more children. All boys. Now 23, her oldest, unable to shake that cloud, is a drug addict and has served time. An unfortunate example to his younger brothers. She prays for him everyday. Through those dark times, Ginger is going on her 13th year of marriage to her husband Fran. Her youngest boys are tremendous kids and a true blessing. You have to find light in everyday.
>Laura sat down at her computer to compose a thoughtful self-description as chaos erupted behind her. Her fifty-three-year-old husband, and his seven-yea-old nephew had migrated their game of tug-of-war with the little white dog. The dog was winning. Growls and yipes and barks and hollers and laughter flowed as a dog-boy-man symphony in its own strange rhythm.
Their peculiar music energized her.
Planting seeds, cutting grass, and breathing brusque spring air had demanded a toll as Mistress Sunshine had commandeered her day. The writer’s body ached, but, as happiness filled the house, her mind finally felt centered.
Contented, she wrote.
>Jil, wanting to be a horse, ate grass for a week when she was in Grade three ,much to the consternation of her teachers at boarding school. She even built a steeplechase course around the playing field so she could train for the Grand National. Since then she has been Mowgli, Bagheera the black panther, Huck Finn, and for a short time changed her name to Sandy Mactavish. Now she weeps when she listens to Puff the Magic Dragon.
>Matilda grew up in her mother’s bookstore, like the one in YOU’VE GOT MAIL. Her first job out of college was with a famous, but notorious, literary agency. Marlene Dietrich once chewed her out on the phone. But she met her husband-to-be there. She worked in children’s book publishing when her sons were young and got zillions of free books. Then she wrote a nonfiction series for Scholastic, and is probably the only person she knows who wrote a book about seaweed (and guess what? The book is kind of interesting…okay, maybe not that interesting…). Matilda is not writing about seaweed now.
>Cathey P began her career in 1967 as a hairstylist in Texas. She learned how to make hair stay (teasing & glueing)in the humid climate of Port Arthur, Texas. After 42 years of progressing her art she wants something different. She told me she writes to let out her other personalities. I met two of them…they are really cool.
>Rachel doesn’t mean to come across flippant or aloof, but she’s heard that she does.
Maybe because in her early career days, a mean and nasty fight with fear and anxiety smacked her heart out of nowhere, many times in mid-conversation with co-workers. Very distracting.
Or, maybe because she’s an extrovert and doesn’t like to be pinned down to one person, talking for hours. Introverts, you do that you know? Find someone and talking them into a corner. 😉
Either way, she’s overcoming. God delivered her from anxiety and fear. She’s defeated her enemy.
But she’s still an extrovert who’d rather talk to 15 people for a minute each than talk to one person for fifteen minutes. Well, not always, but at the beginning of a party or social function, yes.
Let her flit and she’ll come back and talk to you for hours.
Well, anyway, that’s what she’s heard about herself.
>Her big sister claims Janet was “born wise.” She loves classics of all kinds: music, books, drama, furniture, and her husband. She has gracefully executed several memorable practical jokes, has written her own obituary, and is a wuss about her pets. Sometimes, understanding Far Side cartoons can be a challenge. Her favorite Shakespeare quote:
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
>The Retarded Fowl: There was a time in Timothy’s life when he got into a fight over a retarded chicken. Despite his valiant efforts, the poor, backwards walking chicken died. And though this fowl is nothing more than a small patch of dirt, a few feet below the ground, Timothy still wonders what might have happened if that bird had survived long enough to lose its yellow feathers and take its place among the older feathered friends. Would it have continued to run backwards? Would it have ever learned that forward is the way to go? Perhaps it would have flown from place to place, overcoming its handicap. Timothy fears that he will never know.
>In high school, Mark once walked through the drive-thru lane at McDonald’s with some friends in a shopping cart. He believes Philly cheese steaks are served in heaven’s restaurant, and is angered that Lost will not be back on the air for 8 long months.
>Christa is the once divorced, twice married, wife of a Jewish husband, mother of five-including twins, one of whom has Down’s Syndrome, grammy of three, sister of a gay brother, and mother-in-law of an amazing African-American man.
After retiring from teaching high school, she hopes to travel to Greece, the birthplace of her grandparents. In the meantime, she writes lesson plans and novels.
>Carol loves doing word-search puzzles, browsing the dictionary, and playing Scrabble. She has 4 cats and a dog, and used to raise pheasants and peacocks. Her favorite possession is the Bible her mother gave her for Christmas the year she had cancer. Spring is her favorite season because the subtle variations of green creeping into the vegetation make the world appear fresh and full of hope. She is never bored, but sometimes boring.
>He doesn't like to talk about himself. Which makes all the "look at me, look at me, please look at me" branding and breast-thumping that is necessary (& even mandatory) to promote his novels such a miserable experience.
>“What kind of tree is that?” Gwen’s son asked.
“A weeping willow. We had one in our backyard. The branches hung to the ground.”
Her husband chuckled. “I bet you sat under that tree, thinking.”
Memory brought a smile. As a girl, Gwen listened for secrets beneath the whispering boughs.
She grew, and left the sanctuary of branches. Now Gwen finds meaning in song, and voice in writing. She speaks through keyboards–piano, and letters. The letters spin into words, chapters and stories.
Secrets live in the stories. The stories sing like the rustle of willows.
>Doug is the oldest of twelve kids raised in a cult. His last three siblings were adopted from different parts of India and Brazil.
He is the ultimate renaissance man who loves to fly airplanes, ride motorcycles, restore cars, has the mechanical ability to fix anything, yet still able to write action packed thrillers with plots sure to keep you guessing until the end.
He never went to Kindergarten because the tiny South Dakota town only had a one room schoolhouse with grades one to four.
His one redeeming trait is that he likes chocolate.
>One of Dawn’s favorite childhood places was Terrace Lake where she learned to swim and enjoy the thrill of the 25 foot high slide later as a teen. She was a fan of the extensive playground, her favorites being the swings and the monkey bars where she could hang half vertical, half horizontal. Dawn remembers how hot the macadam would get there, burning the soles of her feet as she tiptoed to the snack bar, not bothering with her flip flops. Dawn was disappointed to find out years later that her beloved Terrace Lake was now a series of condos.
>An entire batch of cookies, the candy bars, and the chocolate chips couldn’t be gone. Amber rummaged through the left over Easter candy hoping that somehow a small morsel of chocolate had hidden itself among the rejected morsels. Dejected without chocolate to console her, she returned to her computer. Staring through the monitor, she started to laugh hopelessly as she recalled the lesson from her high school French class.
The drunken man drank to forget he was ashamed of drinking.
Amber realized she was just as hopeless if she continued to eat to forget she was tired of being overweight.
>Eva is a little old lady that neither acts or looks her age, living near Venice. Being the Church Photographer, the parishioners allow Eva to photograph them in any position; while they yawn, pick their noses or scratch their rear knowing she will only post edifying views of their activities.
Most know that Eva was a member of a Religious Order once, but what they don’t know is that the Novice Mistress advised her to leave the Order since writing love stories as a spiritual exercise was not quite the right interpretation of what a “Vocation” was meant to be.
>Alicha Marie likes big hair, long nails and gaudy clothes. Sadly (or fortunately ~ depending on who you ask) the only time she ever got to express her inner, northern, transplanted southern self was when she landed a part in Steel Magnolias as ‘Truvy’, in high school.
Fifteen years pass and though she has shelved those ‘shameful’ impulses to get in touch with her ‘Jersey side’, Alicha Marie sometimes teases her southern-born, southern-bred husband, when eyeing something particularly kitschy. She ogles it with delight until her husband’s deer-in-the-headlights look becomes too comical to continue the farce.
Or is it?
>All through school Linda was pegged the social butterfuly. She loves life, love, and laughing. You’ll find her enthusiasim is over stimulating at times, and her need of diet cola is her one huge hangup. She’s a Christ follower, married to her high school sweetie, and Nana to eight. Writing is her thing. She’s working on getting her thing popular.
>Kristen graduated from college and twelve days later woke up in the Amazon jungle, living in wall-less huts and bathing in the wild river. After several months, she could predict the weather by cloud patterns and river conditions alone. She went to Africa for almost a year, where she learned to tribal yell and drive on the left side of the road. Most recently, she has returned from many months in dusty, colorful India, where spice is king and the concrete mass is a different sort of jungle.
While she is away, she deeply misses her dragon… er, poodle.
>Kristen graduated from college and twelve days later woke up in the Amazon jungle, living in wall-less huts and bathing in the wild river. After several months, she could predict the weather by cloud patterns and river conditions alone. She went to Africa for almost a year, where she learned to tribal yell and drive on the left side of the road. Most recently, she has returned from many months in dusty, colorful India, where spice is king and the concrete mass is a different sort of jungle.
While she is away, she deeply misses her dragon… er, poodle.
>Chris’s Mom lovingly treasured the cardboard bound, 500-word story covering three planets and three spacemen, written by her little eight year old author. Little did he know that her prayers for him would be answered in a newfound faith in Christ, living in a madhouse with four ADHD kids.
Twenty years working with boy scouts and children’s ministries didn’t bring that author out of the closet, but his midlife crisis exploded in a creative burst of energy, consuming him in a conflagration of songs, poems, plays, and stories written for the glory of the only One worthy of praise.
>The period of frenetic change washed with waves of painfully intoxicating self-discovery had continued for over two years. It was getting tougher for Liz to keep the physical and emotional fatigue at bay, yet she didn’t regret any of her journey.
Three years ago, there seemed no end to her 27-year ‘good enough’ marriage that had sucked the last scrap of joy from her. Then, in one day, it simply ended. A month to move out, a few months to divorce, and in an embarrassingly short time she watched, stunned, as a forgotten friendship from years past blossomed into love.
>T was supposed to die at 25 but God said no and cured her of the incurable and made the doctors scratch their heads at the impossibility of it all. She was married at eighteen, had a baby at nineteen, graduated from USC, worked as a therapist on a locked psychiatric unit for seven years before God let her home-school her four children. She is enjoying the wild ride that is life. The boundary lines have fallen for her in pleasant places.
>Frances’ older sister always told her she was a non-conformist and Frances hated it. She agreed with her, but she hated admitting her sister was right.
Being told she could never be successful in journalism she instead became a nurse, a very good nurse. She has delivered more babies than she can count, even one in a closet. She loves birthing babies.
Although shy, she is a manager and a public speaker. She loves to kayak and to make greeting cards. She adores her husband, her children, and her grandchildren.
She loves to write about all the things she loves.
>Authoress Anonymous, who has become adept at living two distinctly separate lives, thrives on organic chocolate and words of affirmation. Having taught herself to read at age four, she nevertheless grew up in a literary cesspool, in which she believed that The Hobbit was a badly animated cartoon special. Her early achievements include a high school Altruism Reward (which made her laugh), the lead role in Carnival (which made her haughty), and a job as a daycare teacher (which made her an expert at sudden and voluminous nosebleeds during naptime). She enjoys Renaissance music and photographs of Johnny Depp.
>Bill Greer kills trees. You wouldn’t suspect that, given his easygoing manner. As he stood over his Titleist, he considered the odds of not damaging the tree that blocked his way. In the 25 years he’s played this course, he’s smacked his golf balls directly many trees which now stand no more. “I can clear this tree!” Bill repeated to himself. He reared back hard and crushed the ball—whack!—into the center of the tree and then watched it ricochet out of sight. “A bad day at golf is better than another day editing my novel,” he thought.
>For weeks Sammy questioned his decision. At first, he didn’t know if he was doing the right thing.
He’d lost almost everything to reposession. He was a confused 20 something year-old man.
So, he packed everything he owned into his sister’s car. He kissed his mother goodbye.
“You can always come back if you need to,” she told him.
“Only to visit. I can fail anywhere. I’m not failing here with everyone watching and waiting for more.”
>Valerie has always loved to cook with fresh, natural ingredients, most recently romance, fantasy, and faith. She lives on a small farm in Canada with her husband, an energetic puppy, and a herd of Herefords. When not stirring up plans for clients’ dream flooring at her day job, she blends plots, characters, and settings into novel concoctions.
>Through the rivulet-streaked window I saw Scott reclining in his chair, feet propped on a matching footstool, computer in his lap. His fingers were curled, hovering over the keys, waiting for their next command.
He sat still for an unacceptable amount of time as I watched, chilled by the rain, hoping for some sign that he was who I thought he would be.
I heard a muffled call as he folded the computer and prepared to catch a leaping daughter lugging a bedtime book. He nuzzled her into the crook of his arm and began to animate the story before them.
I smiled and thought, Yes, it is he who will be my mentor.
>When he was forty-five years old, David Todd learned he was multi-racial. The secret had been kept hidden from him and his siblings, as no pictures of their grandmother’s half-sisters were in the house. Great-grandmother, a light-skinned mulato, lived with her black family in New York and visited her white family in Rhode Island from time to time; yet, her skin color gave nothing away.
Only years later, with his grandmother’s address book that contained an unexpected name, did David’s genealogy research reveal the family secret.
>Sara’s decided that life is an adventure worth living, even when it’s hard and often scary. She encourages triathletes on her blog & loves helping women change their perceptions of what is possible.
Sara’s distant step-relative (Kristanna Loken) played the female terminator in Terminator 3. With an appropriate “Arnold accent” Sara says, “come with me if you want to live.” She hopes future triathletes of any age and ability will say yes!
>Dan’s wife likes to tease him about all his running and jumping whenever he leaves the house. She’s no couch potato, but thinks that his need for physical activity is above the norm. He claims to have cut back from his younger days when he was a serious student of long distance running. Not knowing any better, he tried to run as far, if not as fast as the leading runners of the era. His knees never did wear out but now he owns an Achilles tendon that barks when it’s beaten.
>Alicia once got beat up by her whole second grade class. It was inevitable since the class hated her, as well as her own teacher. She was too quiet, too thoughtful and they thought she thought she was better than all of them. It wasn’t true of course. Alicia just preferred books and stories instead of real people. Sometimes, she still does. But books made her brave eventually. She wanted to travel all over the world and experience the world, so when she graduated high school…she did and she hasn’t looked back since.
>”Multi-tasking writer-mama, my eye.” Her husband washed a bowl to serve himself breakfast. He frowned at cheerio-dust. Again.
His wife’s sole weekday ritual—as far as he could see—feed and dress the kids, then hurry them to school, and return to her darned computer.
“I’m back!” Ashley kissed his scruffy cheek. “Gotta do some promo.”
He watched her sit, pull her hair into a long tail, and set to typing.
How to get her attention? Standing behind, he squeezed her shoulders. “I thought we’d celebrate your book release. You know. On a date?”
“Date?” her blue eyes glimmered.
>If you find Wendy running out into a rainstorm, mesmerized by the dramatic flashes bold and brilliant in the sky, speeding in a boat, having a lively pillow fight with her girls, engaged in an intimate conversation with her husband, hiking to the peak of a mountain, dining at an outdoor restaurant as she mentally takes note of every passing person or swaying to a beautiful worship song, you’ll see something. It may not be obvious at first, but if you look long enough, if you focus your attention on her face, you’ll see freedom and you’ll see peace.
>He checked the inbox on his professional email, first thing after lunch, as always…and it was a big, fat 0. Well, California hasn’t started their business day yet…maybe later. He had already heard from that wonderful agent at WordServe. She took the time to answer him, saying it wasn’t right for her. He still likes her though. He checked the inbox again…still 0. One minute until California offices open. Maybe later.
>Susan loves rosemary. The scent, the taste, the touch of those tender needles- everything about rosemary, in her view, is beautiful. Sadly . rosemary does not return the affection.Every rosemary plant Sue has ever bought has been dead within a week. Watering, not-watering, full sun, partial sun, it makes no difference. They go from green and fragrant to brown and crispy overnight. It’s like they see her coming and they swallow a cyanide capsule.
Now that’s rejection.
>Dara loves to talk. Family members often said that as a child, she’d give them ear fatigue from talking so much.
Of course, she talks so much that her brain often can’t keep up with her mouth. That’s probably why she likes writing so much: if she stumbles over a word or sentence, she can just hit the backspace key.
Unfortunately there’s no backspace key with talking.
>Annie, stood among the pews in Grace Church, tried to determine if she found the only single guy near her age in the crowd, attractive. She wondered if this act leaned on desperate. At that moment he glanced over, caught her stare. She altered her eyes. Yes, desperate and she found something attractive in his glance. She attempted several times to sneak a look at him again but he caught her each time. She finally opted to stare at Father Rick as he said the gospel lesson.
>College student, homeschooling mom, dog lover, and a professed lilapsophobiac, Renee has always fantasized about grand adventures and exotic places. Even as a child, she hoarded maps and pictures of foreign lands. Not quite an only child, yet not a sibling either it’s no wonder she never found her niche in the world outside of pen and paper. When she’s not chasing kids or helping her husband you can often find her unlocking history through romance at her laptop.
>Steena is a chocoholic.
While most would admit to a secret crush while devouring the delectable treat, it’s a passion for Steena that won’t be denied.
With three daughters who profess to love chocolate as much as their mother, let it be known that there is one thing about Steena that would shock you. She does not share – with anyone – her chocolate.
When asked if she would atleast share with Jesus, with a huge smile on her face, Steena replied – “Jesus knows how much I love chocolate – He would never ask me to share mine, He’d bring his own”.
>Wow, Jaime. That’s all I can say, other than somehow, I see beauty in you.
>Twelve-year-old Katie quaked in her saddle shoes when they asked her to sing in the school’s Christmas musical. She continuously avoided the attention that came after those performances.
But then, in a remarkable encounter with God in her teens, she found freedom in worship. As the years went by, she discovered how very few Christians experience the infinite wonder of entering God’s presence through worship.
Two decades later, she loves to lead others into God’s throne room. Whether her physical body is in front with a mic or hiding behind a keyboard doesn’t matter. It’s all about God.
>It was an odd sort of hobby to latch onto–especially for someone who’s photography instructor had told her that an f wasn’t the end of the world and maybe she’d better just stop coming to class.
Still, three days ago, she started a photo blog. When she looked trough the lens of her ancient digital camera, her worried brain became quiet and calm. It didn’t matter that the photos themselves might be lacking.
>Julie is an avid lover of chocolate, Kilwin’s Traverse City Cherry ice-cream, and dramatic, cloud infused sunsets. A weather geek at heart, she adores rushing outside to drink in the spectacular, refreshing atmosphere of an approaching thunderstorm.
Her favorite way to spend a weekend is in a rented log cabin home in the Smokey Mountains with her entire family. Pasta, board games and long walks are always included.
Julie is related to someone who occupied the FBI’s Most Wanted List as Public Enemy Number One in the 1930’s. She promises she has never robbed a bank, or even wanted to.
>Mark read the blog entry in Google Reader and smiled. Fun project, he thought as he Apple-tabbed over to Microsoft Word and then clicked Apple-N to create a new document. He punched the keys with the drive of William Forrester drafting a scene that acts as a hinge on which most of his life swings. After 50 words, he realized that he only had time to type a sarcastic comment for the blog. His deadlines cast cold shadows across his keyboard while his to-do list glares over his shoulder like the sadistic Child Catcher of Vulgaria.
>Deprived of the stability an alarm clock brings, Jimmy always slept with his watch on. Every night at the Jacobson’s, a family of snoring sleepwalkers, was like playing a game of cannibal and missionaries or musical sleeping surfaces. The digital watch on his wrist would beep at 5:45 each morning and Jimmy would look for his cell phone, thinking it needed to be answered. Then he would try to figure out what room he was in, through squinting eyes, and the route to take to find his glasses on the nightstand next to the alarm clock, snooze button gathering dust.
>When Lisa spied a fat lady staring back at her in the mirror, she finally agreed to have a sit-down conversation – over a Grande Cafe Mocha and blueberry scone, of course. After several years in denial and a rather grudging co-existence, she let the fat lady know it was time to move out. Lisa, an award-winning columnist and freelance writer, currently blogs about the ongoing battle with her nemesis on The Diet Diaries and is currently shopping a book proposal about her often humorous attempt to evict the Fat Lady in the MIrror.
>The city smelled of sweat and burnt sugar. Jessica walked to work imagining a different city, a thousand miles away, which smelled the same. Nairobi had been her home for a week, but it seeped into her bones.
The air conditioning sterilized any scent. Jessica turned on her computer and waited for the desktop. The picture she had taken of Mount Kenya at dawn appeared and her worlds synthesized. Her first email was not to her boss, but her travel agent.
Outside the city hummed with traffic, but Jessica heard only wind through high grass and cows along dirt ruts.
>Christy is a hamster forever running in her little wheel with absolutely nothing tangible to show for her efforts. If you watch Christy long enough, you will notice her eyes nervously darting from side to side in search of Responsibility the cat who diligently awaits for the opportunity to swallow her whole.
>She didn’t enjoy staring death in the face. It was a haunted stare and empty. Tears were non-existent, for tears accomplished nothing but washing pain down her face like volacanic lava. It burned. It hurt. It was agony.
After two miscarriages, Jaime was certain baby number three would breathe life. The doctors had used science to solve all the problems and fix her like a plumber fixed a rusty pipe. But baby number three was now racing through heaven’s fields with its siblings while their mama lived in the grip of earthly sin and the darkness that surrounds it.
Battling with the Lord was a losing battle, Jaime discovered and her prayers shifted from whys to please, and then finally … Help me receive the life You’ve planned for me with hope and grace and joy.
Jaime sips her ginger tea and sighs. Sometimes the Lord did things to her heart she didn’t think was possible. Like a surgical removal of all that doubted, all that whispered agony, and all that controlled.
Now, science means little to her, neither does her own futile grasps at control. She simply prays that baby number four will have a heart that beats wildly, and if not, that the Lord will bless it with all heavenly joys and instill that same blessing within her heart.
>Scott isn’t famous. That’s okay. He doesn’t need to be famous. He just wanted to do something with his life. He wanted to be a writer.
Scott spent much of his life dreaming, and not enough of his life doing. He was surrounded by other people’s accomplishments, other people’s books. Scott thought to himself, If I had been more motivated, that could be my book on the shelf.
When he turned 30, Scott realized he needed to stop wasting time on other people’s accomplishments and focus on making his own dreams come true. At age 36, he did.
>Jon teaches middle school although it was the worst time of his life as a kid.
Jon was told not to go to college by his high school counselor.
So Jon got married had a kid and got divorced before he was of legal drinking age.
Then Jon went to college and did well.
Jon decided to write YA.
Jon feels like that creepy guy from Seinfeld who only talks in third person.
>With pen and ruler in hand, Jack knew what drawing the line would reveal.
The edge of the ruler on Seattle and Orlando, he bisected the nation diagonally. It was as he’d feared, and the line cut through his soul just as it did his small town.
The significance was mystical, or maybe just coincidental, Jack hoped. But of late he’d become a believer in signs.
He connected their locations as Sharon had done twenty years earlier. The elongated triangle had been flattened; reversed. A straight line, the country cut from northwest to southeast, and Jack sat in the center.
(Word Count: 100)
>Marybeth sat silently, pathetically staring at her inbox with memories of previous accomplishments flooding her memory. She pondered the triumphs of success where success was unexpected. When a young woman has a child at 19 she is expected to be a mediocre mother at best. Marybeth was an excellent mother. Marrying the man who fathered her children was an expected disaster, but 8 years of marriage disagreed. And a flourishing career without a college education was a rare commodity, but she managed it. Marybeth confidently smiled to herself, assured that she could accomplish anything. This new endeavor was no different.
>”Now why am I doing this?” PW found herself asking this question, as she guided a raft filled with “tween” girls down a river in the Appalachian mountains.”
“Because, even though I’m a non-swimmer, I’m a camp counselor. When the camp goes white water rafting, I go too!”, she answered to herself as she plunged the oar in the murky water.
Recently she asked this question when she started two blogs…
“Why am I doing this?”, she asked herself. The answer: “It’s fun, and I enjoy meeting new people and discussing my loves: Jesus, books, and gardening.”
>She comes to the park everyday with her laptop or a half read book. Her children call out to her while running past, she looks up from her keyboard and smiles. Today she writes, feverously her fingers fly over keys and I wonder what is going through her mind. It must be something good because her eyes are alive as the words stream out across the screen. I want to approach her, but just like every other day I can not bring myself to disturb the barrier of solitude she encases herself with. I often wonder what her response would be to the question burning in my every thought. Excuse me Miss, do you have any nuts?
-as observed by a squirrell
Thanks Rachelle, I caught your link on Twitter 🙂
Kristin aka @KCBOOKS
>Sally thinks Rachelle is a glutton for punishment.
Sally’s Irish, but her accent is almost gone.
She dropped the Anne off her name (Sally-Anne) because it was far too prissy, and she is absolutely not a Little House on the Prairie kind of girl.
Her hair is #056.
She’s just uploaded her first book to Smashwords.
Badaboom!
>Oh no, Meghna is not a book worm but a student, hard working (or is it hardly working!!), a real prankster, you know, like all other kids out there! She likes to play chess, taekwondo, draw and paint, watch T.V (at all times!), listen to music and at times, day-dream!! And one of her favorite past-times is writing. She is fond of having a paper and pen and writing whatever comes to her mind…..
>Gina would like you to think that she comes from a grand tradition of writing, even though it isn’t true. Her grandfather, who died before she was born, was indeed a writer, and coined many a fine phrase during his career in advertising. But he never finished a book. This fact made Gina wonder–during the long arduous ten years it took her to write her first book–whether she would ever finish a book either.
But she did. And now she’s done it again.
>”What? I can’t believe it!” Beatriz thought.
She was moderating comments from her memoir blog, but this one was from an editor. She had hoped this would happen, but it certainly didn’t seem possible.
“Could it be? Could I possibly become a productive member of society again?”
It’s been two years since her nervous breakdown, leading to complete disability. It wasn’t in her nature to be dependent. She felt like a failure. Finally, this was a glimmer of hope, an editor believed she was a good writer. It was exhilarating, but also frightening! Will she be able to live up to the praise?
>A walking contradiction.
“Versatile,” her mother used to call it. Lea Ann loves all that glitters: stiletto heels, shiny clothes, big hair, the red carpet—or her version of it. But the minute she’s home, off it comes and she’s powering up the mower, the weed eater, grabbing the shovel. She builds things, lays tile and concrete—without breaking a nail!
“You homeschool?” acquaintances squeak as they try to reconcile Lea Ann with their image of toothless inbreeding in the backwoods.
She shrugs one sequined shoulder and relishes the stunned looks. Wait until they hear she’s also a conservative Christian! Versatile can be fun.
>hehehe cool!
>Marla is loving all these bio sketches. Y’all are intriguing. Fabulous. Great writers. (Marla is not actually Southern; she just pretends.)
Marla likes to start each day facedown on the floor before God, asking Him to take her overwhelming life and give it back to her in increments she can actually handle.
When she abides in Him and lets Him work, it’s a beautiful thing. When she gets impatient or starts to falter in her faith, bad things happen.
Marla has probably used more than her allotted 100 words. Figures.
>The roar of a motorcycle mixes nicely with the stain of tattoos, but this rough external façade Eric maintains isn’t as accurate as he’d like everyone to believe. Underneath, he’s pretty much a softy (but don’t let him know I said so). He’s been known to drop everything to help grandparents out, get into tickle wars with his sons, and even buy his wife a rose or two. He hesitates uncomfortably when asked to describe a romantic night out, but he’d do just about anything to get it right on Valentine’s day.
>Luke had a brief stint (six seasons) as a professional hockey player. He never played an NHL regular season game, but Luke’s claim-to-fame is scoring the game winning goal against the Ottawa Senators in an NHL exhibition game. He recounts the story every time he’s with his buddies, and the goal changes very time the story is told. Luke’s wife often tells her husband that he needs to accomplish something else, so he has a new story to share. So now, Luke talks about his thirteen month old daughter.
>Richard played semi-pro baseball in college, was minister of music to a small congregation in the Azores while in the Air Force, and can ask for the check and find the restroom in five languages.
He’s practiced medicine and is currently writing, but doesn’t know what he wants to be when/if he grows up.
>Andrea is a woman, claimed by me before her mother knew she was there.
I have given her a husband so she could glimpse a small portion of my love for her, and children to show her my promises and joy.
I have been with her through pain, abuse, trials, and healing. I have shown her others who don’t have me, going through the same, which has given her my heart for the hurt.
I have placed words in her mind and a drive to arrange them in a compelling story that will show my love and promise to all.
>Casey Pitts recently performed the “Chicken Dance” in Rocky Mountain National Park. The elk were amazed.
>’EM
(L)ego Maniac
(just in case you were wondering)
Zack, Zack he’s a Lego Maniac – that was a long time ago too.
🙂
>They say you’re either a dog person or a cat person. Carrie is a bird person. Since getting her first bird at age 14, Carrie has been the parent or co-parent to three parakeets (Hitchcock, Hobbes, & Cirrus), two New Zealand kakarikis (Adso & Oscar), and three parrotlets (4-inch miniature Amazons who have no idea how small they are and would happily take on a macaw: Cavi, Ipsa, & Zel). Carrie recently bought a pair of supposedly “low-maintenance” finches for her daughter… and now they have two parents (Emory and Gladys) and 4 babies (Darwin, Atticus, Jem, & Jean Louise).
>If you thought you had him pegged at first glance, then boy, are you in for a surprise. Often described by friends and family as “hard to figure out,” Jason is a bundle of apparent contradictions, as his iTunes playlist will confirm.
A reserved guy, he can’t help but speak his mind when the mood strikes him. He loves dancing, but his wife (and co-workers) would testify under oath that he’s no good at it. He’s black and Republican, all at the same time!
Basically, Jason’s the kind of guy you don’t want to know if you need to keep your acquaintances in a box.
>Rachel was born wall-eyed, and mercifully received corrective surgery at age five. She also had desperately jacked-up teeth which required her to spend her entire teenage years in braces. Sometimes, when she is tempted to complain, she snaps herself out of it by musing about what her life would’ve been like had she been born in Bible times with that crazy eye and those messed up teeth…
>Pam is a foodie. She loves puttering around the kitchen, dining out and enjoying wine with friends. She also loves reading stories with food-themes and is working on a novel set in the restaurant world. She lives near the ocean and her favorite time of day is early morning, watching the fishing boats head out for the day while she savors several cups of dark roast coffee and reads a bit of the bible. Her biggest challenge is procrastination. But, she is going to finish the book she’s working on, even though she’s tempted every other day to abandon it.
>Scott is content by himself. Give him a good book, a glass of wine, and a light to read by and he is happy. He enjoys sitting outside in the early morning hours (on nice days) with a cup of coffee in hand as he watches the wildlife frolic in the backyard. He loves the sound of thunder and has been known to walk barefoot after a storm, splashing in the muddles, without caring what people might think. He knows that happiness is a journey and not a destination.
>Ashley lacks self-discipline. If she would discipline herself, she could accomplish SOO much, but since she gets side-tracked too easily, she ends up with a bunch of good ideas but few results. Ashley’s family – a husband and two kids under three years old – keeps her busy, but somehow she finds too much time to waste online. Ashley could be a great writer if she sat down and wrote. Maybe one day she’ll find the motivation and lack of interruptions to finish a writing project.
>Kelly loves coffee, clothes & Christ…not necessarily in that order. A recovering control freak, she occasionally lapses into fits of “I can do it myself!” She enjoys sly humor; puns and anything that makes her think and laugh at the same time. Although she claims not to watch TV, she is a closet watcher of CSI, House MD and American Idol. Kelly enjoys music and can frequently be found singing at the top of her lungs in her minivan…much to the embarrassment of her 2 daughters. Kelly and her husband are the frequent targets of speculation regarding their age difference.
*****
The last line was going to say how many years the age difference is…but alas, that was 100 words. Leave 'em wanting more, right?
>Janna really, really needs to brush her teeth, and wake the kids for breakfast and then ferry the oldest to school, and then get to work on house chores before company comes (again)… but it’s just so hard to pull herself away from the brilliance and entertainment of the ‘nets.
She’s… going… now…
Honest…
>I heard that Marianne is one of those do-gooders. You know the type, always going on about saving the planet and feeding the world. But then I saw her in town buying a fancy take-away coffee. I’m sure you could feed a child in Africa for a week for the cost of one of those coffees and they say the cups never break down, they’ll be here long after the ice caps have melted. So it turns out she’s just like the rest of us. I’m not sure whether I’m disappointed or relieved.
>*She’s SO fried, in fact, she left the “e” off of “she.”*
>Angie, aka Gumbo Writer, doesn’t like talking about herself so much, but loves yapping in general, being a member of GRITS (Girls Raised in the South) and all. This love of people and connecting eventually led her to blogging.
Since sh’s kinda fried from wrangling three teenagers and being a care giver to her mom, Angie finds escape and enjoyment through reading and writing…sometimes even dabbling in poetry. But those things aren’t nearly as delicious as the guilty pleasure of a stolen nap.
And how’re you?
>Lisa finished altering the graduation gown for the kids’ dress-up box. She wouldn’t need it anymore. The Dean of Education’s deep voice echoed through her thoughts. “Lisa Jordan, summa cum laude.”
She smiled. After three years of juggling school, family, work, and writing, she could dedicate previous homework time to writing.
“Help me to stay motivated, Lord.”
The phone rang. Lisa tip-toed around six napping children’s mats to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Lisa, this is Jim Rupart, one of the Genesis coordinators. I’m calling to let you know your entry finaled in the contest.”
She blinked back tears. “Thank you, Lord.”
>Helena is a complete fashion junkie. If she had her way right now she’d be sitting in the front row at the Milan fashion show wearing her unbearably high-heeled shoes, giggling with Anna Wintour and Kate Moss. (Only she can make Anna laugh.)
Instead she spends too much time in little expensive boutiques, reading the Vogue and drooling over the latest arrivals at net-a-porter.com. Luckily, when she was younger, she trained as an accountant, a profession which has saved her from financial ruin.
>A tractor sat in the schoolyard when Peter was a child; long past its working life, painted in garish colors of red and yellow, spider webs fluttering amongst the rusted pipes. Peter would climb, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t reach the top. The day Peter finally managed to sit in that cold, hard seat; he was so excited he ran to tell his teacher. Miss. Smith was teaching painting, but seeing the excitement on Peter’s face, she excused herself and stood patiently while he demonstrated once again. Peter will never forget that tractor, or Miss. Smith
>What’s not to like about a minivan? Decent mileage. Room for kids plus cargo. Cup-holders everywhere to prevent spills.
But snow always reawakened Anne’s nostalgia for a stick. Her 5-speed pick-up with a bed full of snow seemed the only way to navigate white stuff. It took years to break the habit of searching for a clutch when the wheels started to slip. Anne never thought the day would come when she quit missing that pick-up in a snowstorm.
It came. It arrived the same day she figured out that only a front-wheel-drive can do reverse donuts.
>Leigh is often thought to be terribly (painfully) shy and aloof, but she is actually a hard rocker at heart. To demonstrate this, she got an eyebrow piercing that was way less painful than she thought and a tattoo of a dragonfly on her wrist that hurt as much as she figured. It should be noted, Leigh is now a painfully shy wallflower with an eyebrow piercing and tattoo.
>Two in One:
LEGOS . . . ?
Kim’s husband, Lars, was one of the original Lego test kids. Lars helped determine that Legos might be a marketable toy. Lars’ uncle was one of the designers of Legos.
KIDS
Kim is the 7th of 9 children. She’s gone cliff jumping . . . with her kids.
LOVE
Kim taught tennis to help pay her way through college.
‘EM
K’em was the second runner-up in a beauty pageant, a long, long time ago-obviously.