A Week in the Life {4/22-4/28}

Well a few things of note happened this week. First and foremost, Adam suffered from kidney stones on Friday night. I wrote all the details in my last post. It was pretty traumatic for him, but he is doing well. The medication makes him very tired and he's having trouble sleeping but again, we are extremely blessed to be able to take care of it.

Another thing was the Bubble Run. I love fun 5K runs. Chelsea, Katie, Amy, and I were a team, and we pretty much killed it. Katie and I ran it in about 30 minutes, while Chelsea and Amy destroyed us in about 29 minutes. It was a blast, and I love that I have fun friends.

The girls had a great week. Hannah is working on writing her letters. She already knows all of the letters and letter sounds, and has for a long time. We are just taking the next step. She is not very motivated sometimes but we practice every day and her confidence is growing.

Paige is as adorable as ever. She is such a ray of sunshine in our lives, and brings joy in our home.

Finally, I accomplished a very ambitious goal this week. This goal has been fairly secret from everyone except extremely close friends and family  for a long time. It's one of those unrealistic dreams that feels extremely unattainable and therefore semi humiliating but I have completed my goal and so now I can share it. For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to be an author. I remember attending a story telling club in elementary school to get better. When we "published" stories in second grade it became a project i'd never forget. I never thought I'd be able to actually do it.  In October 2007 I decided that I was going to pursue writing after I graduated from the university. Specifically, I wanted to write novels. I hold story telling as the highest form of art, and I just wanted to create. Well, October 2007 was a long way from April 2013. I've written short stories, I have about ten unfinished manuscripts on my computer. I told myself I HAD do it before I was thirty, or it would never happen. Well, that's two years away, people. One day in January I decided it was now or never. I either had to give it up and ignore the nagging feeling or just do it.

I wrote a YA novel. It's a realistic fiction, 55k words, 260 pages. I'm still about two months out to completion, but the first draft is down. I started editing it, and I'm hoping that by July I'll have it polished enough to start sending it to agents. In the meanwhile, I also started working on a chick lit series of companion novellas which I hope to publish through Amazon Kindle in September. My YA book is a little on the sad side, and the chick lit is just a bunch of fluff for my fun and amusement. I've done a lot of research in the past seven years on novel writing, taken classes, studied the publishing process, and the craft in general. The odds of me actually getting published are slim to none (unless I go the self publishing route which is super easy, hassle free, and just more fun in general) but I have found that the accomplishment of the goal has been fulfilling enough. I have a great writing partner, fantastic editing software, and I've enjoyed taking online writing courses, specifically to story telling. I've picked out about five people to read my manuscript who I KNOW will be brutally honest, pick apart the book and put me through the refiners fire so that I can create the best possible story with crisp prose and an airtight plot. If anything, I've created something that didn't exist before, and I am proud of my efforts.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Sunday! Here is the lesson I am teaching in Relief Society today. It's a good one! Oh, and don't forget to tune in to becominglovely.blogspot.com this week! We are having a fantastic give away!