The Writer who succumbed to writers block, The Reader who went back to being just a mom.

 I know when I started this blog my excitement was evident. I had accomplished a long time goal. Writer me was anxious to get everything done as fast as possible. Reader me, was researching everything. Yet, I work full time,the holidays, and my children, and trying to be a wife who has energy for her husband is completely exhausting and debilitating sometimes. Even in exhaustion I always find time to be a wife and mom.  However, ask me how to manage time for myself and I usually laugh. Time for myself is a foreign country?

 A friend of mine pointed out something today I hadn't really thought of.

 My friend said: Your frame of mind is to be a mother and a wife. Your mind will be used for them first.  That statement was so true. The "me" in the scenario left after I got married and had kids. I will always put there needs about my own. I can always find the kids stuff, my hubby's stuff. Ask me where mine is, I have no idea most of the time. I laugh about it, joke that even at 38 I am senile. In actuality I am amazed if I get an hour to myself, and honestly I am not usually thinking about writing. Even though it is such a huge part of who I am, I still chose it last? I wonder if this it the reason for my writers block these past two months. I never intended to not write for two months. Everything I have read about blogs, says you are supposed to write every week to get a following? My goodness, I don't even get a day off some weeks.

 So my natural reaction when I cannot write is "mom mode." Which is okay because its also me. It is not a motivator to write though. So I have felt recently like this maybe isn't what I am supposed to do. I have been second guessing myself and making excuses not to write..This procrastination is not me. I am usually an all or nothing gal. So I have been cleaning, cooking, and doing all these other things instead of write. I wonder if anyone else experiences this? I also had a birthday in January and as you age, I think you spend time thinking about what you haven't done. So the above picture is accurate for how I have been feeling lately about my writing. I also started editing and took out good stuff because I was over analyzing things like always. The below picture is also accurate lol..

 Then a co-worker encouraged me, an another demanded more pages, and then a dream I had about the story actually made sense. Here I am; excited about writing again and motivated to share this story with you. I was stuck in this scene and didn't know how to write my girl out of it. Then it just came to me and I stared writing at my lunch that day.

 So my self-doubt just about overwhelmed me, and it almost succeeded. Yet, I am here again and trying anew. Cross your fingers and kick writers block on its a@%..That is what I am going to do.

~Until next time readers, and hopeful writers. Jess =)

The writer who reads to escape bullies!

I saw this quote and thought about how this writing journey of mine began. I was in the fifth grade and I was going to a snobby Christian school, my family was the one of the most poor families in the school, we were allowed to go at a discount because my dad did maintenance on the building, and drove the church van. The constant bullies were the rich girls who had dimaond earrings and frosted hairdos at ages 10 and 13? It was crazy to me. They would bully me on field trips because I didn't have trendy clothes, I didn't have diamonds. I looked at them like they were aliens and continued to read my books. Series books were my favorite because I knew the character  I loved would be back. Little house on the praire, Nancy Drew of course. In high school the Sweet Valley High series, and Christopher Pike.

My absolute favorite was a series called Mandie; by Lois Gladys Leppard. It is a little known fact that she wrote her first Mandie; book the Secret tunnel, when she was just eleven years old. Her character was the same age as me and I felt like Mandie and I were best friends. So in response to the bullies whom I ignored. I retreated from people, and social interactions Instead of being negative I turned it into a positive. I volunteered in my English teachers class after school, and the library during school. I sat with little kids in the library and helped them pronounce words. I even sometime recommended stuff to moms. It was here in these two rooms that I discovered my love of reading and the want to write a story that meant something. My English teacher used to give us a word of the day then we would have to define it and write a paragraph about this word. I thrived in this environment I yearned for it. I was the most amazing experience I can remember. Knowledge defiantly has power. So even though I was picked on, I found something that I loved. Reading, and learning.

I have put this dream off for many years, but I have always written stories. I have never shown them to anyone outside family. So this next step will be a huge one for me. I am going to a critique class next week. We shall see what the group thinks of my first baby. I am including a link to the Mandie website if you have any girls looking for a great young girl series. Also Lois's biography. I will try an highlight a different author with each posting, and explain how they inspired me to my completed novel.
~Moral to this is sometimes when bad things happen, in my case bullies. You can chose to make it a positive and it will propel you forward into another direction entirely and it may become what you have always been looking for. =)

Thanks for stopping by! Jess

~Lois Gladys Leppard is the ever-popular and prolific writer of Mandie Books. She has also been a professional singer, actress, and playwright. Lois studied at the New York School of Music and the Voice Beautiful Institute in New York under Glenn Morris Starkie. Additionally, she and her two sisters, Sibyl and Louise, sang professionally as the Larke Sisters and appeared in the operetta Bohemian Girl and were presented at Carnegie Hall. As a drama student, she was in the group that organized The Little Theater in her home town. She has written several plays and was employed with Columbia Pictures.

She wrote the first Mandie book, Mandie and The Secret Tunnel, when she was eleven years old. However, the book was not published until many years later.
http://www.mandie.com