Live a Little!

One of my favorite blogposts this year came through Novel Rocket. As one of a collection of authors who post on this site, Allen Arnold, former senior vice-president and publisher of Thomas Nelson's fiction division, wrote a post titled The Biggest Threat to Your Novel. His theme, at least the one I picked up on, is that you have to live well if you want to write well. He writes, in part:

“Get away from the laptop now…

Spend more time living than writing.

Invest more in the world around you

than the world you’re creating…”

                                                                                                           

And so I did.

I baked and cooked, cleaned and decorated, read stories and played games with my grandkids, visited with my kids, slid down the waterslide, touched base with friends and neighbors, caroled at a local seniors’ home.

Everywhere I looked, new ideas for blogs and stories cropped up, nudging me for screen time. Now that the Christmas season is over and 2014 has wound down, I’m more ready to embark on a new year of writing. I don’t want the “living time” to be forgotten in favor of deadlines. I am realizing anew the importance of priorities, of living in the now.

I wish each of you a successful new year in terms of your writing, but more so in your living. As author Allen Arnold says,

“Your characters are fully aware that you can’t tell a better story than you are living.”

Let’s live in 2015. If and when we do, the stories and the blogposts will follow. 

Note:  All images from www.morguefile.com