Today my first online coaching group/book study ended. I am both elated and sad. What a great accomplishment for the three ladies who took the class for the last five weeks – and for me, since it was my first coaching class! We learned from God and each other, we transparently shared our hearts, we looked at the Word of God to see what He’d say!
I was able to get to know each of these precious ladies a little better, and they know me better now, too – my goofy sense of humor, my experimentation still with all things tech (would everyone get knocked off the phone conference line if I push that button?), and that I don’t want them to just be done with me now that the class is over. (Thanks for the reassurance today, ladies!)
Right now I’m taking some time to spend with God to ask Him what is the next thing for me to do. I want to clearly hear His still, small voice for the rest of this year and for 2012.
I can tell you that good things are ahead! I am chomping at the bit now (a hint!) — I’m planning a one-hour workshop in November and another coaching group/book study class in spring 2012, so get ready! I can’t wait to share more about these with you!
If you aren’t on my personal mailing list yet, be sure to sign up today so you’ll be first to hear those dates! Just sign in with your email address at the top of the page on the right hand side. Later I will have the page up for you, telling you all the “yummy details,” as Robin Tramble likes to say. 🙂
I’m also toying with an idea. My anointed author/speaker friend Sherri, my husband Ray, and my youngest daughter Leah now are encouraging me to try my hand at writing fiction. When I was a child and in junior high school, I used to write short stories. My sister Maria used to sneak into my bedroom, find them in the drawer of the round mirrored antique dresser where I’d hidden them, and read them.
When I caught her, we’d argue loudly, I’d throw her Barbie doll and tell her to stay out of my stuff, and she would yell back that she was going to tell me she LIKED my stories, but NOT NOW! Today she lets me know she did love them, and that’s why she kept coming back for more.
I haven’t written any fiction since then, I’ve never studied fiction, and I don’t know how to write it. I know nothing about plots, characters, suspense – other than it is a suspense to me (a mystery) how just 3 people living in our house dirty so many dishes and so much laundry. Do they think I”m a maid? (Please, I don’t want any haters from this remark – I’m sorry if you’re a maid!)
Ray loves reading fiction (sci-fi) and thinks I should just start writing. I think there is more to it than that. And aren’t the only successful fiction books out there about vampires, which I refuse to write about?
I asked him, “What on earth would I write about?” He said dryly, “Maybe about a woman who dislikes cooking or doing laundry and wants to travel all over the world instead.” I just looked at him. What was that supposed to mean? He said I might enjoy writing about fake places and people fiction —- me, the queen of self-help, faith, motivational, and business/success books?!!
Why would I want to write about things that aren’t real?
He said people like to escape what’s real. Not me. I like real. I love chic flics, dramas, anything to do with real-life – the sadder and more real-life-drama it is, the better I like it. Ray said I am unique. I told him it’s because I can relate to it. And movies that make women cry are SOOO good. Ask any woman.
He doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t enjoy crying like women do. He just likes movies where buildings and people explode. He goes on about me possibly writing fiction. He said people like stories. He said I could teach while telling stories in my writing – like Jesus did.
I just can’t picture Jesus sitting down eagerly at his desk to write about 27-year old, red-headed, one-shoe-in-her-hand April, running madly through JFK airport to catch her flight, missing it by one minute, then getting a cup of coffee and sharing her testimony with Nadine, sitting alone in Starbucks, having recently lost her husband of 59 years to liver failure. Really? Really?
Yes, Ray said. Just try it. Well, okay, he didn’t say yes to writing about April running through JFK airport and getting a Starbucks, because I thought of that scene just now as I was typing this. Maybe because I love Starbucks and I wish I was running right now through JKF to catch a plane to travel. But he did say try fiction writing and that I might love it – like I do chic flics and dramas.
You never know…my next thing to do might be my newest released fiction book…
What about you? Have you ever tried your hand at writing fiction? Haiku? Writing a how-to-paint-still-lifes book? Riding in a hot air balloon or going down rapids? Snowboarding? Public speaking? Creating a video and putting it on YouTube and your website?
Are you willing to take a big step and do something new, scary, something you’ve never done before…before this year is up?
What’s holding you back from trying something new? It just might be fun. 😉
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