gratitude day 18: A father's love

I found it funny that when I posted a picture of my mother several posts back, some of you mentioned I look like her. I think I got all of my dad's physical genes, and most of his personality genes, too.

I think of these characteristics as the "german genes". I have his teeth [no cavities, yay!], his hair color, his physical build [no calf muscles], and his chin dimple. I once thought that I was as smart as him, but then we played a game of Trivial Pursuit and he put us all to shame. He knew every single answer but one. Every answer!

Also, I have inherited his trait of interrupting. And his debating skills. Sorry friends who have to communicate with me in real life. I am my father's daughter.

Thank you, Dad for being the hardest working man I know. Thank you for teaching me how to drive—that must have been really scary. Thank you for providing for me and trying your best to protect me. I wish I would have listened to you more. You always warned me and then stepped back to let me make my own choices.

Thank you, Dad for teaching me about the power of a father's love. Because of your example of unconditional love, I gained a greater understanding for the love my Heavenly Father has for me. I love you! Happy Father's Day.

gratitude day 17: WIFYR

Oh man.

How does one sum up the week that I had? Being in Holly Black's fantasy class at WIFYR writing conference was terrifying, enlightening, exhausting, informative, and most importantly...

hysterical.

Holly cracked jokes about herself, about her mistakes as a writer, about the Church of Satan (surprisingly helpful to understanding the villains in my story), and especially about our manuscripts, all while wearing the most fantastic shoes. I wish I'd ignored my inhibitions and snapped pictures of them every day.

I will be a better critique partner because of Holly and the rest of my fantasy class.

And I'm thinking about my manuscript in a whole new way. That's the terrifying part.

I'm so grateful for Olivia, one of my critique partners, for going through this with me, despite being deathly ill. [I hope you don't mind that I posted this adorable picture of you.] Having her with me made the scary bearable. And infinitely more fun!

[And we sorely missed our other partner-in-crime, Meagan. I predict our next writer's group will be an in-depth analysis of the entire week.]

I admit, I had a moment pulling up to my house at the end of the week in which I thought: I never want to look, hear, or think about writing, or books, or agents, or queries, or plots, or EMOTIONAL LOGIC, ever, ever again. It was a hard week, as I had expected it would be, because it put into focus every writing flaw I have.

Overwhelmed. Done with it. That's how I felt by the end of it all.

But guess what I did when I woke up this morning? Pulled out all the critiques and began making plans for another revision. A huge, sweeping, drastic revision.

Because I am crazy. And because I am, in the fleshy tables of my heart, still a writer.