Hope's Choice

Here she is, the object of all my work the last few weeks. I use to write papers for classes and such without much thought. I wrote a thesis. Once, I helped write 4 chapters in a book. But, as a friend who writes said when I mentioned the struggle I was having, "You're a bit out of practice!" Yes, I blog consistently, but blogging and chapter writing are two different things.

The proposed title is Hope's Choice. I'm proposing 12 chapters totaling 40,000 words broken down in to 4 content sections. With the proposal, you have to write 3 sample chapters. I did the following chapters: Hope Deferred -- When Life Doesn't Measure Up; Fixing Our Eyes on Hope; and Hope Transforms Relationship with God.

With all the work and steam coming out of my keyboards, it seems that she should be a bit bulkier. But then, there are only 3 chapters out of 12. She is only a quarter of what she will be!

I went to church and came home immersed myself in the Fixing Our Eyes chapter. But, I got stuck, so I retreated to my bed and set the alarm for an hour. I laid there praying, thinking, dozing. Suddenly it got really dark and windy. As I sprinted to my computer the rain had started and my computer was doing an abnormal shut down. I couldn't remember if I had saved all that I wanted. PANIC!

I had visions of a story my friend Jill tells. She was working on her last book. The computer crashed. It had already been a trying day. Mark came home to find Jill eating the chocolate frosting out of the can. She was in need of some comfort food.

I had saved. But it did prompt me to also save each piece to a flash drive.

The conference is called She Speaks but it should be She ____________ and fill in the blank.

I would list the following:

• She jots notes on odds and ends
• She writes, deletes, writes, deletes
• She spends all day writing, forgetting the laundry, the dishes, the cats
• No, wait. She can't forget the cats as they are on top of the desk trying to get her attention
• She prays
• She edits
• She obsesses
• She worries
• She HOPES

Still much to do in the talk department. And I'm sure I will not be able resist editing a bit more.

And then there is packing....

Oh, and trying to figure out my "face." I often go natural, but have begun to think a little makeup might not hurt. I have some. I've been experimenting a bit with that and the hair.

Today, at church, a good friend and I were talking. We were kind of side ways from each other. He said, "Oh, my gosh, what happened to your eye?"

"Make up"

"Oh, yeah. It was just the light. Really it looks good."

Sigh on my part. I didn't think I had done that bad of a job.

"It's just the light. Really. I think I'll stop talking now....."

Probably wise.

But it prompted me to get Jill's opinion on the makeup. (Did it look like someone hit me?) She liked the purple eye makeup and the bit of mascara (I never do mascara or eye makeup). She thought it looked fine! But then the lights were up higher....

He's forgiven, but I have to give him a hard time about it.

We'll see if I decide to risk it at She Speaks.

Oh, and then there are the talks. Let's not talk about them. They are more undone than done. Lots of thoughts but little on paper.

Please keep praying!