My Magic Word Is Now — Wrapping Up 2018 + A GIVEAWAY!
I'll admit it, I'm the stereotypical bossy older sister. And having ten younger siblings has only made me great at it.
"Jerushah. Bring me some water."
"What's the magic word?"
"Now," I reply with snark.
"No, that's not." Nevertheless, she laughs.
As do I.
After that I use this "smart" reply a lot. Now it's kinda old, but it's still one of my favorite words (among acceptable, stupid idiots, and beyond) despite how mean some people may think it is.
Source
But this post isn't about that sort of now.
You know how people have a word for the year? Well, I've never done that before, but now that this year is nearly over I realize I sort of have had a word for this year. That word has been NOW.
And I don't mean as a substitute for the word please.
I mean in every day life, how I live.
In previous years I've always had something to work forward. Things in the past were always holding me back. Today was never near as interesting as what had happened or what I hoped would happen. The future always tended to disappoint. And life became a struggle, because it was much too full of only todays.
But as this year started, I decided I wanted every moment to be special. I wanted to live every day as if it were amazing. Even if my plans changed, or if hardships remained, I decided I wanted peace to fill me always no matter what.
Part of this journey has been my calendar journaling, which I'll talk about in two weeks.
Most of it has been simply choosing to be happy now, realizing that I didn't have to look forward to a possibility to live life, but that life can be full now and that no matter what's happening I can make the best of it now.
Overall, 2018 has been the best year of my life. I don't have any big concrete reasons why — except I lived the entire year now. I loved life, even the mundane parts. I decided before going into anything that I was going to love what happened no matter what.
Before going to a party I didn't particularly want to attend I decided, "I'm going to talk to tons of friends and make sure that I forget being tired. I'm going to enjoy this."
Guess what? After leaving I realized it was some of the best fun I'd had in a long time.
We had some company over. I wanted to grumble. I was tired of people invading our space. But then I realized my attitude was neither hospitable nor loving. I decided to enjoy the time they were here and be active in their time here.
Guess what? You got it — once again, after they left, I'd felt like I'd just had one of the best nights of my life.
Every morning I get up. I read my Bible and choose to love the time, not worrying about what comes next. I write however many words I can, trying to love them all. I work all day long and don't think, "Life will start once my work day is done" because I can live life even as I work. I smile and greet the people I clean for and be happy in the fact that I can clean for them. I listen to podcasts and enjoy every moment of learning something new.
No matter what may be in my nows I have chosen to love every moment. Does this always work? Of course not. I've still cried this last year. I've still had moments of frustrations. I still worry about my future and cringe at past pains.
But overall, 2018 has been the year I've felt the most satisfied in the majority of every now.
I've learned to better live NOW.
I had two main goals for 2018 - to rewrite all of my Christian Dystopian series, A SERIES OF THOUGHTS, and to read at least fifty books (fiction and nonfiction).
I finished rewriting the books on December 19. Between all six novellas, I wrote 219,602 words last year (more on other writings, of course). If anyone thinks these look interesting, I love beta readers! Just send me your email and I'll send you google doc links.
As for the fifty books . . . I have sixty-three read, including audio books, according to my Goodreads challenge.
As this post is to wrap up 2018 here are some of my favorite posts from this year:
I Lust You: A Romance Story
I'll Love You Unless . . .
Question Marks Are Broken Hearts
I Have It All Figured Out (And You Can, Too!)
Twenty-Two and Smiling
Spend Wisely
I did a lot of traveling, attending a federal court trial in Las Vegas, helping one of my best friends after her second daughter was born, hiking with friends, and attending an amazing writing conference then spending quality time with friends.
My Lawrence Children Serial finished posting and I wrote a behind the scenes post.
Three of my short stories — Unerella, The Piper's Last Song, and Prince Perfect — were published in two anthologies.
I've had three short stories featured on other websites: Digory Kirke's Love, My Cleaning Girl, and Not Less and I've been interviewed at the blogs: H. L. Burke, Godly Girls For God, and Saver of Memories.
Living Like The Amish: Part 1 received the most views of any blog post I've ever written, currently at over 3000 views. Inside The Land Of The Free (published last year) is my second most viewed post with over 1500 views.
My posts with the least views for last year are Fairy Tale Riot: Published Again . . . TWICE! with forty-nine views and The Seven Drawers, Book Review with fifty-one views. All the other lesser viewed posts tend to be book reviews, I've noticed. My all-time least viewed post is one of my very first blog posts, a review on the Amazing Spider Man 2 and it has only nine views!
My posts with the most comments are Why I Love Myers-Briggs and The 5-Part Writing Special: Introducing the WIPs each with thirty-two comments.
My total blog stats are 80,813 views and I have sixty-two blogger followers and 455 email subscribers.
I know my stats aren't anything compared to many of y'alls. But I'm happy that they are growing, that people are finding my blog and enjoying and interacting with my thoughts.
I definitely plan to keep this blog alive and I have SOOOOO many exciting posts planned. I hope you all have been enjoying see my blog grow with me (from eye-blaring blog designs to radical rants to soul-searching sermons).
And one last thing — a giveaway of a signed copy of this book! I have read both the old version and the updated version of the Go Teen Writers book. It's amazing. So encouraging and a huge part of the reason why I write seriously. I'm excited to be giving one of you a paper book copy of this book! Just enter the giveaway below. I'm probably going to regret this (shipping is outrageous!), but the giveaway includes all of you outside of the USA.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
How are you doing living NOW? How has 2018 been for you? Did you have a favorite post of any of my blog posts this year? I'd love to hear is was! Is there anything you'd like to see more of on my blog?And thank you so much for being a part of my life this last year, for growing with me and helping me smile more and more. May we all have an amazing 2019!
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