This Moment: Can't Put My Guitar Down, Mama!

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. ~ Amanda

If you're inspired to do the same, come share your moment with me in the comment section!

Linking up with Soule Mama on this music-filled Friday!

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Thoughtful Thursday: Why Should I Write a Novel in One Month?

"There are three reasons.

1) If you don’t do it now, you probably never will. Novel writing is mostly a “one day” event. As in “One day, I’d like to write a novel.” Here’s the truth: 99% of us, if left to our own devices, would never make the time to write a novel. It’s just so far outside our normal lives that it constantly slips down to the bottom of our to-do lists. The structure of NaNoWriMo forces you to put away all those self-defeating worries and START. Once you have the first five chapters under your belt, the rest will come easily. Or painfully. But it will come. And you’ll have friends to help you see it through to 50k.

2) Aiming low is the best way to succeed. With entry-level novel writing, shooting for the moon is the surest way to get nowhere. With high expectations, everything you write will sound cheesy and awkward. Once you start evaluating your story in terms of word count, you take that pressure off yourself. And you’ll start surprising yourself with a great bit of dialogue here and a ingenious plot twist there. Characters will start doing things you never expected, taking the story places you’d never imagined. There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst it, there will be beauty. A lot of it.

3) Art for art’s sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and “must-dos” of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives."

~ Frequently Asked Questions #4, from the website National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo

~ A weekly post sharing a selection from a book website I am currently reading ~

 ~ Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comment section ~

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Wednesday Wanderings

Today's links are up at my other blog, Life is the Teacher. Want to read about the real answers to six myths about home-schooling, a school designed and implemented by the students themselves, a family's choice to not send their children to kindergarten, five important life-skill subjects that schools NEED to teach, and more? Come check them out!

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This Moment: Explorations in Music with Strange Folk

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor, and remember. ~ Amanda

If you're inspired to do the same, come share your moment with me in the comment section!

Linking up with Soule Mama on this musical Friday!

Pictures of a music-making wall set up for children at the Strange Folk Festival last weekend!

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Thoughtful Thursday: The Easiest Religion in the World

"We must realize that Christianity is the easiest religion in the world, because it is the only religion in which God the Father and Christ and the Holy Spirit do everything. God is the Creator; we have nothing to do with our existence or the existence of other things. We can shape other things, but we cannot change the fact of existence. We do nothing for our salvation because Christ did it all. We do not have to do anything. In every other religion we have to do something- everything from burning a joss stick to sacrificing our firstborn child to dropping a coin in the collection plate- the whole spectrum.  But with Christianity we do not do anything; God has done it all. He has created us and he has sent his Son; his Son died and because the Son is infinite, therefore he bears our total guilt. We do not need to bear our guilt, nor do we even have to merit the merit of Christ. He does it all. So in one way it is the easiest religion in the world.

But now we can turn that over because it is the hardest religion in the world for the same reason. The heart of the rebellion... was the desire to be autonomous; and accepting the Christian faith robs us not of our existence, not of our worth (it gives us our worth), but it robs us completely of being autonomous. We did not make ourselves, we are not a product of chance, we are none of these things; we stand there before a Creator plus nothing, we stand before the Savior plus nothing- it is a complete denial of being autonomous."

~ Francis A. Schaeffer, excerpt from The God Who is There

~ A weekly post sharing a selection from a book I am currently reading ~

 ~ Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comment section ~

A thoughtful quote can be the bridge that leads us farther
along the path of understanding ourselves and the world.

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Wednesday Wanderings: the NaNoWriMo Edition (late)

Whether you want to be a "pantser" or a "planner" this year, the web is full of online links that can be helpful for the aspiring novelist. Yes, that's right: National Novel Writing Month is a few weeks away! October is officially known as the planning stage for those who are interested in getting 50,000 words of a 1st-draft novel down onto paper or screen during the month of November. While you're not supposed to actually begin writing the story itself before November 1st, there is plenty you can do beforehand to help prepare yourself to leap into your novel. Here is a collection of links I am finding helpful!

Want to create a story that will keep readers reading?

Got thirty minutes? Outline the plot of your book!

Got sixty minutes? Outline the plot of your book!

Ask yourself these five questions when figuring out the plot of your story.

How about creating some characters for your story?

How about going completely crazy in-depth developing characters? (Warning: this way can make you a little bonkers, but it's very thorough!)

Ask your characters these forty-six questions to understand and develop who they are.

Ask your characters even MORE questions!

What are fifteen things a writer should never do?

Here's how to create external and internal conflict in your characters.

Want to write a story that will keep your readers completely captivated?

How will you start your novel when November 1st arrives? Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Here are some helpful ideas about writing real dialogue, not stuff that sounds like a robot is talking to Miss Manners.

We all want to write the next Les Miserables. Here are some ways you can make that happen!

Got writer's block? Follow this road map to get out of it and dive back in to your story!

Here is a bunch of reassuring, encouraging advice/tips from famous authors about writing a first draft of a story. Totally awesome.

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Learning to Love Her Even When

Today I'm over at one of my other blogs, Unwrapping Love, where I've started writing on Tuesdays about cultivating gratitude. This post is about learning how to love Harmony even when I don't feel like it.

Come join me?

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