Dreams coming true

I have a terrible habit of letting my fear of failure and my perfectionism keep from even trying.  As a result, I went all summer without writing and felt pretty wretched about it.  I thought I would always hold myself back from the thing I wanted most.  

During the summer, I also began to draw nearer to Jesus.  It's been a gradual but steady change.  It started with attending a city group (think home group/small group/Bible study) every other week.  Then it grew to regular church and city group attendance.  Next a job fell into my lap and brought with it long prayer sessions, daily Bible readings, and my city group becoming my family.  All of this happened outside of myself.  It had to be the work of the Holy Spirit because I could never be so disciplined or motivating to make these changes out of my own will.  

This Autumn, God has moved me from blocking His will in my life.  A story started to form in my mind, a young adult mock-Gothic religious allegory.  The religious allegory part surprised me the most because I always stumble into symbolism and I had to play with the story for awhile to realize an allegory stared me in the face.  It remained an idea I only toyed with in my mind until Jordan Drew asked me to contribute to 13 Stories 'Til Halloween a blog counting down to Halloween with a new story everyday.  I took my ideas for the first chapter of the novel a turned them into a creepy short story, which I am a bit of a proud mama over.  They haven't posted my story yet but the three already up are deliciously chilling so you should check them out.

To stay motivated, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time.  The goal of writing 50,000 word in 30 days is extremely intimidating.  Still, if I am ever going to write a novel, it has to be now and it's going to take lots of support.

Finally, a twitter friend, Karen Heard, blog tagged me to answer ten questions about my work in progress.  I will do mine on the young adult novel and it will be appearing this week.  

All these opportunities that God has given me make me feel like a true writer for the first time.  It's like Moxley Bugg the author has been born and I'm exciting to see how she develops.  I will work harder to keep you updated on my progress and give you sneak peeks at my work.  So keep reading cause big things are coming.