Inspiration

  • Inspiration,  Just for Fun

    What’s on Your Bucket List? (Why You Shouldn’t Wait to Start on It)

    This month is NaNoWriMo month. I know, it sounds like a foreign exchange students’ reunion. Most people have no idea what it is. I didn’t either until 3 weeks ago. NaNoWriMo is the acronym for National Novel Writing Month and the event takes place during the month of November. It can best be explained as a phenomenon of temporary insanity that strikes a writer when they decide to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge of writing the first draft of an entire novel (minimal 50,000 words) during November. (Want to join the craziness next year? Visit the NaNoWriMo website here.) Yes, you read that right – 30 days, an entire novel.…

  • Holidays,  Inspiration,  Relationships

    Surviving Thanksgiving: What I’ve Learned to Value Most This Time of Year

    Thanksgiving never meant a whole lot to me growing up. Coming from a fractured home life and a broken family, holidays just weren’t a big deal. As a result, I entered my adult years lacking a treasure trove of memories to draw on to make them special for my own little family.My boys would bring little paper turkeys home from school that they had traced from their tiny hands and cardboard pilgrim puppets that had either lost a glued-on eye or been smashed when they shoved them in their backpacks. To me, every bent and crinkled offering was a priceless work of art that I proudly displayed around the house. I…

  • Career,  Inspiration

    Not All Dreams Come True… (and that’s OK)

     “All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” (Walt Disney) I disagree with this quote. Several years back, I decided that I wanted to tap into my more artistic side. I bought a set of high-end drawing pencils and some inspiring-looking watercolor paints on a whim. A sketchbook and artist brushes were thrown in to make it more official. I should point out that I can’t even draw stick figures without someone mistaking them for a poor rendition of hieroglyphics. Who was I kidding? In the end, I had filled up half of my sketchbook. I had managed to sketch a few interesting…

  • Inspiration,  Relationships

    The Devastation of Isolation

    In the 1980s, the state of many Romanian orphanages–housing over 170,000 children–was exposed to the world with heartbreaking details of the horrors of neglect and isolation. Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, encouraged Romanians to increase the population in order to boost the economy. But the plan backfired as food and supplies needed for this increasing population were used, instead, to pay off the national debt. Desolate families turned their children over to state-run institutions where they were caged in cribs, locked in dark rooms, and cut off from nurturing or social interaction. Ceausescu was deposed and executed in 1989. But the damage had been done. The world got its first real…

  • Career,  Inspiration

    You Want to be a Writer? (Can You Take the Heat?)

    I received my first rejection letter as a writer when I was ten years old. My mother–my biggest fan–had submitted a poem I had written to a publishing company. They responded with the obligatory “no thanks” message on their company letterhead (I still have that letter). Undeterred, I continued to fill journals with my poems, quirky fiction stories, and diary entries about all my current crushes. In high school, I wrote articles for our newspaper, Tiger Rag, and was on the yearbook staff. To me, it was the equivalent of attaining the status of a world-renowned journalist. (Dream big, my friend, dream big…) The paper has yellowed with age but…