Life of A Writer

I'm excited to announce that so far I have completed five chapters in my rewrite of Help From Above. Although I've not finished the entire novel, the first five chapters are available for you to read without charge. I've made them available at Authonomy. If you sign up for a free membership there, you'll be able to comment on my novel and add it to your bookshelf so you can keep watching for more chapters, which I'll be adding as I finish writing them. To add Help From Above to your bookshelf at Authonomy, just click "Back the Book."

When I first starting rewriting Help From Above, I thought about re-publishing the second edition. However, because I wanted to share some of my inspiring words with my readers and fans, I later decided that the second edition of Help From Above would be free. I was going to wait until I'd completed the entire novel, but today I decided to go ahead and make the finished chapters available to readers, and then I'll add the additional chapters as each of them become available.

If you enjoy Christian fiction, head over to read the first five chapters of Help From Above today! Again, there's no charge, so for those of you who haven't yet purchased the first edition or were unable to come up with the money to make the investment, you can now read it free. If you did purchase the first edition, you may enjoy this one as well. While the plot remains the same, I have add new text, cut text and the location was also changed.

After you've read the first five chapters, please leave a comment here or at Authonomy with your feedback and/or comments. Nothing you say will hurt my feelings. I love to hear from my readers and criticism only makes me better. After all, I can't learn from my mistakes and make things better if you don't let me know what I did wrong.

Enjoy, spread the word and God bless!

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If you're a fan of my Facebook page and have been watching my updates there, then you know for the past three weeks I've been sick. I'm doing better than I was the first week, but I still have a cough, stuffy nose and I lost my voice on Monday. Because of all this, I've had to cancel my speaking engagement at John A Logan College in Southern Illinois. Although I hated this and was looking forward to sharing my advice with the Southern Illinois Writers Guild and guests, I am happy to report that it will be rescheduled for next year. I'll be sure to let you know when the date and time has been set.

I'm finally able to hold my head up again, so starting today I have a lot of work to catch up on. In addition to getting back to work, I'll continue nursing my cough and stuffy nose, and of course, I'll pray that my voice returns to normal real soon.

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A while back I talked about how my shyness has kept me from marketing my books locally. Well, I'm excited to let you know that I've decided to step outside of my shell this year. This decision came about when the Vice President and Program Chair of the Southern Illinois Writers Guild contacted me a few days ago and invited me to come speak at their September meeting. This is a writers guild in my local area that I'm familiar with. In fact, I've talked via e-mail to a couple of their members. That said, I look forward to meeting the writers I've talked with as well as more writers from my local area. The drive for me is approximately one hour, but I think it would be a perfect opportunity to market my books, myself and get a jump-start on my goal to start speaking to groups in my community.

Although this will be my first speaking engagement, I plan to speak from my heart. Yep, I'm diving in head first, without preparing a speech. Why? Because I want to sound natural and connect with my audience, some of whom I know have been following my accomplishments for a while. Furthermore, while the event is still a few months away, I'm already preparing the materials and freebies to give away, as well as the press releases and my media contact list. I began by sending a list of questions to the lady who contacted me so that I could get better organized for the big day.

I'll be sure to let you know how things go, and you can bet I'll have some advice to share as well. Speaking of sharing what I'll learn, I'll share the first piece of writing advice related to speaking engagements in my next post. At that time, you'll learn what questions you can ask to help you prepare for an upcoming speaking engagement. Just subscribe to my full RSS feed or via e-mail to be notified when this post is live.

If you're a writer from the Southern Illinois area or plan on being in the area on September 17, then I'd like to invite you to come and hear me speak at the Southern Illinois Writers Guild meeting on that date at 7:00pm (CST). The meeting will take place in the Terrace Dining Room (room C113A) at John A Logan College. The college is located on 700 Logan College Rd. in Carterville, Illinois. The topic that I'll be speaking about will be announced soon.

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This isn't the post I'd planned for today, but when I ran across some information on Jenna Glatzer's blog about health insurance through the Freelancers Union (aka, Working Today), I decided I'd post a word of caution for my fellow writers. As for the original post that I had planned for today, I'll save it for next time, because I believe the word about this health insurance should be spread to all writers.

Fortunately, I have health insurance coverage through my husband, but many writers out there don't have this luxury; therefore, they have to search for a health insurance plan on their own. Naturally, most writers turn to unions for writers in hopes of discovering an affordable health insurance plan. Jenna was one of those writers, and she chose a health insurance plan through the Freelancers Union, and it broke my heart when I read what happened to her and many of the other writers who opted for health insurance through the same union. It's bad enough when we have to deal with clients who don't pay or with companies who don't want to pay us what we're worth, and now to learn about writers getting a bad deal through a union they trusted is even more unfortunate.

I urge you to read about Jenna's experience with her health insurance plan, and then follow the link in her post to learn more about the changes to that health insurance.

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Michelle Kafka was generous enough to give me the Butterfly Award. As many of you know, I've been writing for over 10 years and began this blog in September 2005 . I started this blog not only to share my life as a writer and mother, but also to share writing tips and advice based on what's worked for me over the years and what hasn't. It gives me great satisfaction when my words help others, because that's exactly what I want them to do. That said, I'm honored and pleased to accept this award from Michelle Kafka. Thanks, Michelle, and may you always be blessed!

To keep this beautiful award circulating, I'd like to pass it on to a few bloggers that I always learn a lot from. So, without further ado, I'd like to give the Butterfly Award to Michele Tune over at Writing the Cyber Highway, Lillie Ammann at A Writer's Words, An Editor's Eye, and to the entire team of writers over at Freelance Writing Jobs (FWJ). Each and everyone of you deserve this award. Keep up the great writing and may God bless you all!

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After weeks of planning and another week or so of looking through 3-column blogger templates, I finally finished the new blog I've been working on. This blog is about my journey to weight loss, and I hope to inspire others by sharing my struggles, as well as sharing dieting tips, low-calorie recipes and much more.

Are you overweight and trying to lose weight or plan to begin your diet soon? Have you lost weight recently or in the past? Then I invite you to visit me at WAHM's Journey to Weight Loss. In fact, you don't even have to have any issues with your weight to join me, because everyone is welcome.

The template there is temporary until I find a 3-column diet/weight loss blogger template that I like, which so far, I haven't had much luck finding any diet/weight loss templates for blogger. You wouldn't happen to know where I could get one, do you?

Anyway, help me spread the word and build my comments section, please. Hope to see you there!

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Hooray! Big Brother 8 has arrived. As many of you may already know, I'm a big reality TV fan, but one of my all time favorite reality TV shows is Big Brother. I anxiously wait for this show every year, and when it arrives, I jump up and down shouting with excitement. In case you can't tune in for some reason, I will be writing recaps of Big Brother 8 for Associated Content. I just finished submitting the first recap today, so as soon as it's published I'll post the link to it on my Myspace blog for you to read. You're also welcome to read my Big Brother 8 recaps even if you did get to see the show; some like to relive what they just watched. My recaps will include screenshots as well.

Last year I watched the live feeds, however, I promised myself I wouldn't watching them this year. When I watched last year, I have to admit I didn't get much writing done. I tell ya, those Big Brother 8 live feeds are VERY addictive. I never would have thought I could get addicted to watching people live in a house and sleep, but when I first started watching the live feeds, I surprised myself at how quick I became addicted. With that said, this year I'm forcing myself not to go to the site and subscribe, but I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out. Blogging about it is making me want to surf on over right now. No, I can't. I told myself I wouldn't. Of course, if I do break the promise to myself, I guess I could write some recaps of the live feeds. Hmmm, interesting. Okay, I need to stop this and move on to blogging about something other than the Big Brother 8 live feeds. Don't be surprised though if next time I blog, you read that I broke the promise and have been watching the Big Brother 8 live feeds.

Since Big Brother 8 just started, I've not decided who my favorite houseguests are this year. I do like Daniele. She seems sweet, but we'll see if her personality continues to win me over. As for her father, Dick, I'm not quite sure what to think about him yet. So far, I think he has some skeletons hid in his closet that hasn't come out yet, and those skeletons may be the reason Daniele rejects him. Do you remember Howie from last year? Well, I'm not certain yet, but I think Dick may be just as much of a flirt as Howie was. Do you have a favorite houseguest yet? What do you think of Dick? Let me know by commenting.

I'll go now as I have a few more articles to edit then submit, and these articles have been setting in my documents folder for about three days now. Yep, I'll definitely be looking at those with a fresh set of eyes. :)

Do you watch the Big Brother 8 live feeds and chat? If so, comment and let me know which software you use to watch the feeds, and mention the name you chat with. Why? Because if I do happen to break the promise to myself, I'd love to chat with you while we watch the Big Brother 8 houseguests together. ;)

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Today I was so busy with my writing that I had no idea what had happened at Virginia Tech until my husband returned home from work. During supper, he asked me if I'd heard or read anything about the shooting at Virginia Tech today, and I looked at him in shock and replied, "No, I have been so busy today I haven't had a chance to read through all the press releases." He began to reveal to me what he had heard, and later, I sat down to catch up on the news for today. When I read and heard about the shooting in Virginia, my heart went out to each and everyone involved. At times, while watching Dateline, I found myself wiping away tears. They not only discussed today's shooting, but they also talked about the shooting at Heath High School in 1998. The Heath High School shooting was too close to home for me, because I live close to where that tragedy struck.

Each time I hear about a school shooting I always have a fear and begin to worry about my own children. In fact, I can remember feeling the fear parents fear when they hear of any kind of threatening activity at their child's school. I remember this because not too long ago I received a phone call from my mother. I answered the phone and the first thing she asked was have I been watching the TV. When I told her I had not, she reported that there has been a bomb threat at the school. Not only did I fear for my children at the time, but also I remember feeling sick, and my stomach dropped. It didn't take her long to ease my mind by telling me that everyone from the school was moved to safe location at the time, but the fear never really went away until I knew for certain that my kids were safe.

After she reported the news to me, I immediately phoned my ex-husband to see if he needed me to go pick up the kids, because mom had told me all parents were being asked to pick their kids up from the location they were taken. He assured me he had already taken care of it and they were home. Talk about a relief!

Fortunately, the bomb threat that day was just that, because no bombs were found, but after watching the story unfold about Virginia Tech, I thought back to that day with my children, because in one of the reports they said Virginia Tech had been receiving bomb threats that turned out to be nothing. I'm not certain if there's any truth to that or not, but it makes a parent think and worry. The way things are going in the world now-a-days I'm sure every parent worries about sending their child off to school. Anymore, every time the TV interrupts programming with breaking news my stomach drops and my heart beats faster. There is a little relief when I know my kids are safe, but I always feel for the parents who may be told their child is not, and I start to pray for those families. So, today, my heart and my prayers go out to all the families in Virginia that lost their loved ones as well as to the students, injured and everyone else involved. God bless you all!

Hugs and best wishes,

Misti Sandefur
Enter to Win an Autographed Copy of "Help From Above"

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