Life Lessons

WOW! It has been forever since I’ve written anything. My summer has been hectic to say the least! One of my boys was diagnosed with scoliosis. I had horrible guilt thinking that if we had found out about this sooner, he might not have lost a kidney; he might have been spared multiple surgeries. But alas, this is how life works sometimes. Since his diagnosis, we have been traveling to Salt Lake City at least twice a week. Thankfully, my angel mother has been there every step of the way. I don’t know what I’d do without her!

Then there was the incident with my new TV – it’s now broken, probably well beyond repair.

Then Kirk Shaw with Covenant Communications sent me an extremely polite email telling me that my book was not what they’re looking for at the moment.

Then, I started having some really awesome contractions and HAD to take it easy for several days.

Three of the things listed above happened on the same day. It was NOT cool. Fortunately, I think I can find the warranty information for the tv. My manuscript is being reviewed by several other authors. When it’s done and the changes have been made, I’ll send it to a couple of different publishers.

As far as the pregnancy, I had a doctor’s appointment the next day and everything still looks good. My baby angel is still growing well and nothing is happening that shouldn’t be at this point. I’m excited to welcome my baby, but apprehensive as far as the timeline. I NEED to get through 2 more Thursdays before she can make her appearance. We would love for her to wait until at least the end of July.

With my first three pregnancies, I was leaning to the “Get this kid out of me” timeline. With my fourth, it was more like “Please just give me one more week”, week after week for six weeks. It seems with this pregnancy, I have been given the gift of seeing things on God’s timetable. Mack will join us when she’s ready. I’m not ready or willing to push her. I haven’t had a lot of the issues I’ve had with the previous pregnancies. It’s almost like God knows I can’t handle the debilitating back pain. He’s also giving my children the strength and (mostly) willingness to help out where needed.

I have discovered AGAIN that I have been blessed with the most amazing family and friends! With everything that is going on in everyone’s lives, they are still willing to lend an ear, drop what they’re doing or just make me laugh. Laughter truly IS the best medicine and can flip a totally bad day into something completely different and wonderful!

Today’s problems are just that… TODAY’s! Tomorrow, they will be yesterday’s problems. Don’t be a backwards driver. If you are looking forward, you might be able to avoid some of the problems you would definitely run into if you had been focusing in the past.

Life Strikes Again!

This week has been nasty! My dryer went out (sniff) ok… run to my mom’s house and either use her dryer or hang stuff on the line. Then, the water heater we have been babying went out – not even lukewarm water. UMMM totally unacceptable!

After receiving some instruction, I thought, "Ok! I can handle this!" I started to drain the water heater and when I figured it was drained (i.e. no water running from the faucets) I turned off the faucet and tried to find the screwdrivers to take off the bottom piece of the “water heater containment area”. Ummm… is that water dripping, no, running? It can’t be! The water is off! I found a flashlight and looked things over in the dark recesses of the containment area. Sure enough, water is running somewhere. So, I did a quick once over through the house and not finding anything, hustled outside – waddled is probably the more appropriate term. I moved the dog kennel that was covering the crawl space opening and peered inside… RATS! Not really rats… but, that’s the G-rated word for the thoughts that flooded my mind just like the water was flooding my crawlspace! I hurriedly reached through the nasty cobwebs and turned off the water main.

In the middle of this extremely wonderful day, my phone decided to not work! The sound doesn’t work while the phone is in use. They can’t hear me and I can’t hear them. PERFECT! The sound works perfectly with all the other applications, but not the phone. Kind of important, maybe! I spent the day speaking with the kind folks at AT&T and Apple to see if we could get it sorted out. No dice! Of course, the 7-10 dropped calls made from the other cell (home) phone didn’t help matters.

Finally giving up at 4ish, I decided to escape to my mommy’s house and camp out there! Oh! And I forgot to mention the phone call I got from the bill collector that wants their bill paid by the end of the month “or else”. Yeah… Great timing!

Those breathing lessons I learned during childbirth classes are coming in really super handy today! Lamaze is taught during childbirth so that us parents can use the techniques to remain strong, cool and collected during times such as these. Well, it didn’t work for me today! I LOST IT! I swear, I’m gonna go to the nut house! I already live on the funny farm so that avenue is out...

The bright spot during my day was the e-mail I got from Kirk Shaw. He thanked me for pitching to him and informed me that my manuscript was being reviewed and that he looked forward to talking with me in the coming months. Talk about a calming influence amid all the chaos of the day!

As the day closed, my dryer is resting peacefully at the county landfill, my water heater is still dead but another one is being delivered during the night – THANKS HONEY – my Visiting Teacher’s husband is installing the new one tomorrow (technically today), my phone is still not working correctly, the bill still isn’t paid but I have a plan, and the other cell is still dropping calls.

Silver Lining – THOSE ARE YESTERDAY’S PROBLEMS! Today is a new day and I can handle today!

Writers' Conference & the week after...

I survived the LDStoryMaker’s Writers’ Conference! BootCamp was an interesting experience, to say the least. It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but I did get some good things out of it. Liz Adair was our table moderator. She was excellent and gave wonderful comments and suggestions.

I waddled around between classes making new friends and contacts. My pitch session was interesting! Kirk Shaw was very accommodating to say the least. Those of you that know me really well are aware that it is sometimes extremely difficult for me to meet new people-especially if I feel that person will be judging me (or my baby). Needless to say, I was a bundle of nerves. After we got talking about my book, everything just seemed to flow. Kirk requested a full manuscript as well as a New Author’s Questionnaire. I was floating on cloud nine!

I called my husband first and told him the good news. Jay isn’t really good about expressing emotion at most things, but he was really excited for me and told me to hurry home because nothing works right without me there. When I called my sister and my mom, they actually screamed into the phone! I was standing at the back of a class (which hadn’t started yet) and I’m sure everyone could hear my mom’s scream! It was awesome – truly one of those feel-good moments!

I was able to meet one of my all-time favorite authors – Traci Hunter Abramson. She is an amazing person and very down-to-earth. She seemed very interested in me and my writing. I met numerous other authors as well – too many to count! Everyone was amazingly supportive.

When I got home, my kids mobbed me and my husband breathed an audible sigh of relief. I did a minor revision to my manuscript and finished at around three yesterday. It seemed everything ganged up on me to make it so that I wouldn’t be able to send my manuscript. Dog bites (literally), concerts, missing dinner, work and just plain life threatened to get in the way. I was very discouraged. However, after a prayer-or rather several prayers (for strength, help and finally thanks), a phone call to my sister and several deep breaths everything again fell into place and I was finally able to press send just before midnight.

I stayed awake waiting for that freak-out moment that I knew would come, but it hasn’t. Last night was the first night in I don’t know how long that I actually slept soundly, waking only once when Tank decided to adjust his sleeping arrangements in his kennel. Tank is a very small dog, weighing in at over 100 lbs (that’s not a typo) so when he moves, EVERYONE knows it. Amazingly, I feel rested and refreshed which is something that hasn’t happened for several months.

I know the review process can be lengthy-several months in fact, but I’m hoping the review committee finds my book appealing and can’t put it down. A girl can hope! Thanks to everyone who read, cheered, cried, and was THERE for me!

LDS Story Makers Conference & Pitch

I am really excited about this opportunity! I get to go to the LDS Story Makers Writers Conference in Salt Lake City this weekend. It should be tons of fun. I'm really excited to meet a bunch of new people and learn as much as I possibly can to make my writing that much better.

I also get the opportunity to pitch my book, "A Little Push To Happiness" to Kirk Shaw, editor for Covenant Communications. This spectacular and extremely frightening event will occur Friday morning at 10:05. I'm the second pitch of the day and quite possibly the conference. I would much rather get it over with than have to sit and stew about it for hours on end while I'm supposed to be listening and learning.

I've basically decided to treat this as a job interview. I'll do my best, answer Mr. Shaw's questions and hopefully present my book in a way that he won't want to pass on it. However, if he decides to pass, I'll just start plan B which was originally plan A. I'm sure it will go great and I look forward to the opportunities this conference will provide. I only wish my sister, Niki, had been able to attend with me. I know I have my entire extended family's support as well as my friends and 'family' from facebook. Thanks for being there for me! I really need the cheering section!

Writers block

This has been a rough couple of weeks. My pregnancy is going well, but I sometimes feel like I've been run over by a freight train. As a result, I haven't done much writing. To top it off, the kids brought home some kind of sickness (who knows what). There are flu-like symptoms combined with stuffy and runny noses as well as fever and all around weakness. Guess what? I got it all!!! Except for the upset stomach-thankfully. It's a good thing Mack is a good baby. She has reminded me that I'm still alive and that I need to take care of us! Kyler has been my little helper and has brought me cans of soup to make me feel better. I hope there's not an emergency soon because my food storage is scattered all over because of his mindful ministrations.

This illness my kids so lovingly bestowed upon me has opened the creative doors again and has enabled me to write - mostly because I don't feel that I can physically DO much of anything else. I've written several scenes in a couple of the smaller books and keep thinking of exactly how to weave the ending for one of the books that is almost finished. Several good ideas have appeared.

Another idea popped into my head this morning and I've been typing furiously trying to stay on top of the ideas that are flowing like water over the falls at Yellowstone.

The kids decided to play in their room today because mommy's head is about to explode. They have played hide-n-seek, pillow fights and something to do with forts. They also made a human bridge from bunkbed to bunkbed across their room and convinced their brother to cross the bridge. Apparently, he was successful the first couple of times, but the last time they attempted it, the bridge broke and the 2 year old went tumbling to the ground. I thought for sure it would mean another trip to the ER (30 miles away) but they were up and playing again after an amazingly minimal amount of crying - a bag of chips helped too. Kids are amazingly resiliant.

My boy have been amazingly supportive of my writing. They are excited that mom has written a book and that it will have a shiny cover on it with cool pictures (of some sort). AND they are hoping that Covenant Communications decides to pick it up and make it part of their audio library so they can listen to the chimes and hear "Welcome to Covenant Communications Audio Library. We are pleased to present 'A Little Push to Happiness' written by Stephanie Walton Nelson."

I can't wait to meet with the editor to see if we can make their dream a reality!!!

After listening to the review of a fellow student’s query letter, I decided mine was TOTALLY wrong. I quickly pulled up the files for my pitch, synopsis and author bio and re-created the wheel - so to speak. It took about 5 minutes and my revised query letter was done. Although Mary still had me revise it, the revisions were much less intensive. Realistically, I hadn’t really put my voice into the first version-it was more business-like. Since the second version was spur of the moment, I really had to put myself in it to make everything work and come out the way I wanted. Thanks to Mary for helping hash out the sentence to lead into my questions for the agent/editor.

After my query letter, I read not quite two pages of my manuscript. The assignment was to pick a segment that was dialogue rich. This was actually a segment that I have gotten several comments and complaints (for lack of a better word) about. I had carefully analyzed the suggestions and feedback I got from my selected readers and decided to leave the segment the way it was because I am the author and I really like it the way it is. The other students really liked the segment the way it is also. There were some minor fixes that needed to happen, but otherwise, it was good. At this point, I’m really glad I left it the way it was.

I’m amazed at all the insight and feedback I’m receiving at every class! Everyone is awesome & really supportive. I’m very glad I decided to take this class. I’m grateful for my sister who continually pushes me. I’m especially grateful to my mother for taking my kids while I drive there, attend the class and drive home. This process takes a good 4 ½ to 5 hours every night. She is amazing and has been so supportive of my writing.

Another good thing that happened this week… As I was browsing several websites and face book links doing some research, I found that one of the classes at the writer’s conference I’m attending was accepting submissions for the class “Simulating the Slush Pile”. I hurriedly copied, pasted & formatted the first three pages of my manuscript and attached them to an email. I figured that since they had opened up submissions on the first of April, they would have a full house by the time my email was received on the 4th. However, late that afternoon, I received an email stating that they had accepted my submission as one of the “slush pile”. I’m really excited to see what they say about mine in comparison to the others that will be showcased in this class.

I was literally doing the happy dance as seen on those Snoopy cartoons! My sisters and mother have all rejoiced with me. He husband seemed slightly confused, but congratulated me all the same. I think he’s in shock that I’m leaving him with the kids for three days. He’ll do just fine! Everything will be fine!

Another awesome thing, on the 5th of May, my teacher’s book will be released! I’m really excited to see what she’s going through - the trials as well as the successes. Mary has been an amazing example! I am kinda bummed that there are only 2 more classes over the next three weeks. I’m sad to see it come to an end, but I’m excited because of all the tools we are getting handed to us. This experience, so far, has been nothing short of an exciting journey. I can’t wait to see where the next bend in the road takes me.

Contest!

I found a fun contest today! MormonMommyWriters is hosting a cliche contest. We are to write a 3500 short story using commonly used cliches. This should be fun. I'm already having fun with it. I've made my sister, Niki, laugh several times this morning.

Contest details can be found at mormonmommywriters.blogspot.com