Busy and blessed -- all at the same time

I hope y'all never get tired of hearing how blessed I am. God is so good.

This week our baby boy (who is no baby, but will always be my baby) married his beautiful bride. I'm going to try and add a couple of pictures on my blog. We'll see if it works. One will be of the groomsmen: Jay, Chris' cousin and best friend since toddler days; Matt, Chris's really good friend since high school or college days--somewhere around that time; and then his dad, Scott, filling in for a good friend, Ty, who lives in Colorado, but couldn't come because his wife was expecting to deliver their new baby any day. The four men look so good. AND the second picture will be of the bride (sweet, beautiful, Rosie) and groom, Chris, coming down the aisle. Instead of rice we were throwing clean, fresh picked colorful leaves off of the trees.

It worked! The pictures are there. My kids will be proud of me. This feat was accomplished without me having to call one of them. Of course it was easy, but don't tell anyone.   :-)

The BBQ the two had planned in place of their dress rehearsal dinner was almost as beautiful as the wedding. AND of course, I don't want to forget to mention the fancy "outhouse" Mike, Rosie's daddy, got for the whole shindig. Talk about fancy. It was like using a restroom in a fancy hotel--- almost...with music piped in and everything. Not like the one we used when I was a kid and my family visited my Papa's house in the country or even like the ones you see at fairs. (another blessing if I do say so myself.)

With doctor visits and driving the newlyweds to the airport, there were 3 trips made to New Orleans...one at 3 in the morning. But it too, was great.

An added treat this week was an impromptu Thanksgiving dinner we had since Rachael, our oldest, will be back to her home in Dublin, California. Scott's mom and sister joined us. We shared all of Rachael's favorites at Thanksgiving. It was shared over a table full of joy and love. We had a great time.

Well any of you who have been reading my blog also know Scott and I have sold our home of twenty years to down size. Our new home sits on a lake with very little yard to keep up. He's looking forward to fishing in it, I do believe. Anyway, now that the wedding is past and the closing is this Friday (or Thursday, it's still being discussed) we start the packing. Thank goodness when we had the updating done with a touch of remodeling, a lot of the old stuff was thrown out. We are believing God for a smooth transition...even with our precious 3 year old cat, Kali. Keep us in your prayers. :-)

I'll keep this short today because I have to get busy packing. Hopefully the tip I'm sharing will help you in your writing. Read, soak it up, then go write, write, write. Have fun!!

I JUST GOT THE WORD - closings start at 1 PM this Friday...and the new house closing will follow at 3. It should mean we will be at the new house Friday night. We have 4 volunteers to help us move and we are so grateful. 

WRITING TIPS FOR TODAY:

When writing, be sure and develop your characters. The second rejection I received, although a great letter telling me what they liked about my MS, taught me an early lesson in writing. The reason they rejected it was how I learned to improve my writing. My characters were like cardboard dolls. 

We need to make our characters come alive. Give them depth. This can be done through dialogue, through characters' thoughts, and through characters' emotions. A character's past is what make them who they are. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying to go in and dedicate a chapter introducing your character by feeding your readers their history. This is something YOU must know when you write, and then at the right time you'll share it with the reader so they too can understand what makes them tick. But you share it in small important doses. They don't need to know it all. 

Go read your most favorite novel and see how the author made you fall for her/his hero or heroine or both.

I remember a course I took from ACFW on line. I can't recall who taught it, but it was about deepening the POV. I learned so much from that class. If you belong to ACFW go into the archives and find it under one of the classes on character and Deep POV. You'll love it and you'll find it very helpful.

I can also suggest 3 books I have that helped me. There is a 4th one too, but I loaned it out and can't recall the title.

  1.  Creating Character Emotions by Ann Hood

  2.  Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

  3.  Getting Into Character by Brandilyn Collins

The fourth book is by Dwight Swain on Characters, but I can't recall the title. Check your local library for any of these 4 books plus I'm sure they have more.

Characters can be so memorable as long as you make them deeper than paperdolls!! Have fun writing and know that you can come back in your rewrite and make them stronger.