Lara D. Elliott - Inspirations

NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. Write a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days of November. And I won. Sorta. Last year's Nano project was started early too, but I only wrote a few thousand words in November. And then I kept writing for months. Over a year later, I finally had 50,000 words, but I was stumped on how to end it. After a couple critique partners read some chapters, I realized I had spent a year writing 50,000 words worth of crap. There were some good scenes in there. There was some good writing. But the plot lacked cohesion. Lacked motivation. I finally decided to give it up. Work on something else for a while. One project I started working on had actually started as a couple of scenes I jotted down many years ago. Even before I really became a serious "writer." I had an epiphany what direction I could take the story and I started outlining. It felt good to have some structure thought out. Then one day in October, I had a really crushing mom...

How does God speak to you? Are you listening? I’m not one of those people who pray and then hear God’s voice. Like literally. With my ears. Maybe some people do. They did in the Bible. But nowadays, most people receive God’s message through other means. Mine is through music. I’ve posted before about how music has been the vehicle to answer a prayer. This week it happened again. I had been hopeful, but knew that a couple of quasi-rejections were on their way. And I was right.   Wednesday, I learned that I was not a finalist in a contest that critiqued the first five pages of a manuscript. I entered two manuscripts. Neither was accepted. I’d only had a shred of hope left anyway, but the news still hit hard. I’d found out just before leaving work, so getting in the car for the ride home, I was sure the tears were going to come. But on the way home I heard the song that had encouraged me once before. They were the perfect words to express what I was feeling. ...