Those of you who have followed me for any length of time, know that I have been toying with the writing of a book for several years now.
I actually started the publishing process a few years back and had a contract signed with a publishing company. Then life got in the way and the dream died.
This year the book came out of its proverbial grave clothes and now it is coming out of the shadows. I finished Pork Chops With the Sentinels Of Azatan just before Christmas!
Yes Ray it is done (Ray is the guy who keeps asking me about it)!!!!
I have contacted my publisher and they have released me from my contract as they are no longer in a position to be able to publish me. This frees me up to take the next steps towards publication of my first novel!
So here I am posting the first steps on this journey to the first completed work by J. Lillie. 2021 is the year folks! Here we go!!!
The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN.JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
Daniella playing in the fresh fallen snow. I think she thought these were balloons.
I was taught the importance of writing and keeping a schedule almost twenty years ago. Since that time I have always kept a day planner and I set aside time weekly to create my schedule, to plan my calendar.
This has been an important aspect of becoming effective in my roles as a human being. I will continue to plan a weekly agenda going forward. I need to do that so I don’t miss meetings because I was busy watching television!
In spite of its importance I have learned that rhythm trumps schedule every time. I have learned I can make and keep a schedule and still lose my effectiveness if I do not consider and surrender to my created rhythm…hmmm. I think that’s a term that will need some explaining….I sense another post coming on this subject.
If I do not plan and practice my life rhythm, schedule takes over. Much of our world has fallen victim to this issue. As a result we have become a culture of racing activity junkies tied to calendars that other people have made for us.
Three years ago I was there. I was living by my schedule, made for me by other people, without my life rhythm. I had lost my individuality, my divine spark and sadly much of my usefulness to the community I served. The sad thing was I was so busy, so tired, I didn’t realize it.
But God….
The last three years have been painful as God stripped away all my schedule (all the things I and others previously thought were important). The last year has been my full acceptance of my life rhythm and its practice.
Today I still keep a planner. It still holds all my meetings (though fewer they be and of a far different nature). But now my day planner intentionally displays my life rhythm. I follow that rhythm now as doggedly as I ever followed the schedule. The schedule serves the rhythm now…and that has made all the difference.
where do you stand in the process between schedule and rhythm?
I am starting off the New Year right by jumping onto SHARE YOUR WORLD early this week…year. I love this challenge and will continue participating in it throughout the year, as it gives me an opportunity to reveal more about myself and life here at The Vicarage…which is one of my goals for the New Year.
So here are Melanie’s questions and my answers. When you have finished reading here please stop on over to Melanie’s blog, Sparks From A Combustible Mind, using the underlined link above, so that you can see what her other contributors have added to the conversation.
QUESTIONS:
What’s a relationship deal breaker for you?
I guess it depends what kind of relationship we are talking about. I tend to let people in as far as they can be trusted; So how close you are allowed to get to me in the first place relies on your trustworthiness. How close I let you stay is also dependent on said trustworthiness. That said, I don’t tend to go from”zero to hero or hero to zero” in one step with people. Relationships with me are slow growing and slow fading.
Do you believe in extra-terrestrials?
Of course! I just call them angels and demons or maybe Nephilim and Anakim.
In the morning, do you hit the snooze button on your alarm (sometimes repeatedly) or do you leap out of bed, ready to face the day?
I am a deeply committed button pusher.
If you came back in the next life as an animal, which animal would you choose to be? (and even if you don’t believe in that, let’s suspend belief for a moment just to have a little fun).
Oh! I played this on Facebook the other day. It said I was a dragon.
My goal this year is two-fold: Community and Stewardship. I intend to build community… and I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.
But as I began to write that my heart knew that something was missing. In reaching inward I found the line.. I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.
So what does it mean to steward my artistry towards kingdom provision?
Posts with a few more words…fewer of what I call one minute wonders…. fewer posts over all. It is intentional and those of you who know me know I am becoming all about intention.
My goal this year is two-fold: Community and Stewardship. I intend to build community… and I intend to steward all my artistry towards kingdom provision.
To do both of these things: I need to deepen the conversational nature of the blog; I need to focus on artistry and I need to be reading more of your blogs.
In order to accomplish this I will be approaching the blog more as an open journal, a chat room and a photography/ sketch book. I will still be joining challenges, just fewer than I use to. I will also be increasing the time I spend reading your material and chatting with you about it. Above all and the goal will always be creating community and creating kingdom provision. That might be part of a new tag line…Creating community and Kingdom provision…Yeah I like that!
The Home Photo Challenge was fun for me last year. Since I do not think much is going to be changing for me in the way of travel this year, I am going to continue the challenge for myself into 2021. This year I am going to add a little twist. I will give a brief description of each photo I take and write a Haiku to go along with it.
IF YOU WANT TO JOIN IN THE FUN..JUST TAKE A PHOTO IN OR AROUND YOUR HOME AND WRITE YOUR OWN BLOG AND POST THE LINK IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW IT.
The root bark of our blue spruce in the back yard. Sadly this tree will have to come down this year as this is the best looking part of the tree.
My granddaughter, ‘Lella, calls me Oz. This is Oz’s house.
I guess to a two-year-old it could look like The Emerald City.
‘Lella has been with us all this week and will be with us into next week while her mother and father await the birth of “Lella’s sister, Yve. We are having a blast!
I come to the end of every day feeling accomplished and entirely ready for bed. I think all of us at The Vicarage would say the same. We are not too tired to go on. We have established a very relaxed and manageable rhythm after all. But we are “two-tired” for sure.
The last time I held the energy of a two-year-old for more than an afternoon, I was in my twenties and I weighed eighty pounds less than I do now. If nothing else being two-tired has reaffirmed that I will be losing this weight, because soon I will have two granddaughters to be chasing after!
Lillie-Put 