A Post that Matters to Me

Joanna Young at Confident Writing has challenged us with a group writing project: Essential Lines from 2009.

1. Select your essential post

Sift through what you published in 2009 to select the post you’d call ‘essential’.

You can define that in different ways, for example:

• A post that matters: that mattered to you then, that mattered to your readers, that still matters to you now
• A post that captures what your blog’s all about
• A post that reflects what 2009 has been about, for you or for others
• A post that models essential writing

Joanna further instructs us to explain why we chose that post and encourages us to include a few “knock ‘em dead lines” from the post.

I narrowed down the choices in What I Learned from … 2009 for Middle Zone Musings’ groupwrite project. For Joanna’s challenge, I’ve chosen a post that mattered to me when I wrote it and still matters to me now.

Adversity? What Adversity? reminds me—and I hope you—that I—and you—have been blessed beyond belief with salvation through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All we have to do is accept the gift and proclaim Him Lord of Lord and King of Kings.

Nothing I have ever experienced or ever will experience can compare to our Lord and Savior being beaten, mocked, tortured, and murdered in the most vicious way.

And why? For my sins and your sins and the sins of the whole world. If I were the only person who needed redemption, Jesus would have died for me alone. My sin makes me Judas betraying Him, the chief priests and scribes condemning Him, Pilate washing his hands of Him, the crowd calling “Crucify Him!,” and the Roman soldiers killing Him. 

Yet Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34, KJV)

Thanks be to God for the gift of salvation!

Mission Impossible: Book Trailer for Dream or Destiny

This post is an entry in Confident Writing’s Mission Impossible group writing project. Joanna Young challenged us to post something on our blogs that we’ve never done before. I’ve wanted to create a book trailer for Dream or Destiny since the book was published last fall, but I’ve been hesitant to try. I don’t know anything about multimedia except that whatever talent I have is in words, not images and sounds.

Joanna’s challenge motivated me to create this basic video montage. Now I’m motivated to move beyond this to a better and more professional book trailer that I can post on video-sharing and book trailer Web sites.

Guest Post at Confident Writing

Today I have a guest post at Confident Writing on Stick-to-it-iveness.

Joanna Young is conducting a writing seminar in Sardinia–don’t you feel sorry for her? During her absence, she invited other bloggers to guest post on the themes she has covered so far this year. Of course, I chose writing and tenacity.

I hope you’ll stop over at Confident Writing and say hi.

Simply the Best

Joanna Young at Confident Writing has given us a real challenge: pick simply the best post for all of 2008.

First I narrowed down my favorite posts to one per month for Middle Zone Musings’ Blogapaloo0za. That was hard enough to do—one month I had to choose one from among three top favorites. Then I went through the favorite posts from each month to choose simply the best for 2008.

Remembering My Parents is simply the best because it still brings tears to my eyes—tears of sorrow that they are no longer with me and tears of  joy for the memories and the love we shared.

The Results of My Writing Experiment

Joanna Young’s theme this month at Confident Writing is Experimenting, and she is sponsoring a group writing project: The Results of My Writing Experiment.

My first reaction was that I had nothing to contribute to this project because I wasn’t doing any experimenting in my writing. Then I realized that I have recently started doing two new things here at A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye.

I posted my first book review, ironically a review of a book on how to write reviews, The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing. I learned a lot from reading and reviewing the book and consider it a success. The post generated 49 comments and several people said they intended to buy the book as a result of the review. I have a review of Santa’s Angels (Avalon Romance) by Janet Kaderli scheduled next week and have a couple more books lined up to review.

I have also conducted my first author interviews, though the posts haven’t appeared yet. The interview of contemporary romance author Janet Kaderli is scheduled for next week, and an interview of one of the characters in A Village Shattered by Jean Henry Mead is scheduled for the following week. Interviewing a character in the book instead of the author was a fun experiment.

Although it’s a little early to report any results from my experimentation with reviews and interviews, I think I’m going to enjoy doing both!

Have you experimented with your writing?

credit: shimgray

Blog Book Tour Stop at Confident Writing

Everyone’s favorite writing coach, Joanna Young, hosts my blog book tour stop today at Confident Writing. Joanna inspires and educates writers—professionals and people who have to write in their jobs and everyday life—to write with confidence. Joanna asks me about the challenges and joys of writing Dream or Destiny as well advice for other writers who are thinking of writing a novel. Visit Confident Writing to read my answers and ask any questions of your own.