A Prayer for Talking to Your Crush Before Valentine's Day

If you walk into any store right now within moments you know Valentine's Day is coming.  You can't miss the display with all things red a few feet away from the door. Red hearts full of candy, red teddy bears, and a frog or two. Many things of red saying buy me your sweetheart wants me.

            Or it’s all saying Sorry just not your year is it? No sweetheart? Bless your heart.

            Ok, the last part is what all the hearts are saying to me. Yup I'm single.  No boyfriend this year.

            I thought I share a few prayers with the other singles out there maybe one of us will find a sweetheart by Valentine's Day or at least a date.

            "Thank you Lord, that they will be able to speak with their mouths what fills their hearts. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen" 

            Prayer by Joy Lamb in her book "The Sword of the Spirit The Word of God" Inspired by Luke 6:45 with is:

            "The good man brings good things out of the good stored in his heart and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks." NIV

            This prayer can mean a number of things.  It could be for someone already in a relationship and wish to communicate better, with their sweetheart or other love ones.

            When I first read it, I thought about trying to talk to my crush.  How I wish I could just say what's in my heart.  No, I don't mean just walking up to him saying I like you do you like me.  No, not that.  Just wish I could talk to him and get to know him.  Have a "getting to know you" conversation. Or better yet he come up and talks to me.

            Not because I think men should make the first move, its more that I'm shy and not sure and I have tried to talk to him. 

            I walked up to him and just said "Hi, how are you?"                                                            

            When he answered "Fine, how are you?" I realized I couldn't hear him and he wouldn't look at me long enough for me to read his lips.  (Yes I have hearing loss) So I asked him to repeat himself, then because I'm leaving... (yeah I got up the nerves to talk when I'm leaving... yeah not the best idea..., ) and I still didn't understand him (won't look at me, and I can't hear his soft voice.) I say "ok, bye" and left, feeling unsure and silly.

            I put aside the fact that I couldn't hear him or tried to anyway and felt that God was giving me courage and helping me get pass my shyness and tired to talk to him a few more time. The last time I tried to talk to him he answered the how are you question before I finished the question.

            One of my guy friends told me if a guy gives you a quick answer he's not interested.  (and I wondered if I was getting on his nerves.) With that in mind I lose my courage to talk to him every time I see him now.  So I also pray to God for the courage to come back.

            Maybe he's not interested, but I pray "That you Lord that they will be able to speak with their mouths what fills their hearts." just hoping we'll talk. Not sure I'll get the courage back to try to talk to him.

            But I'm still praying.

            I planned to share a few more prayers with you as we get closer to Valentine's Day so stop by again and check it out.

Annie Laurie

P.S. Lets not forget about the One who truly loves us.

Nicole Nordeman's What If

A notebook, a pencil, and ROW 80 Check-in

A notebook, a pencil, and ROW 80 Check-in

As some of you know this is my first Around the words in 80 days or #ROW80 as its called on twitter.
It's been a learning process.  I keep changing my goals since I'm learning about how I write and learning how to write this book "Feathers and Deaf"

When I wrote the first draft I remember writing 500 words a day. What I forgot was that I didn't write every day when writing the first 1/4 part of the book or the intro act of the book. Some days I just brainstormed, or plotted.

And here the the other thing the story flowing better when I sit down with a notebook and pencil vs sitting at my laptop.

All my characters are changing but maybe one who I haven't even wrote into the story yet since he made an appearance into the first draft until later in the plot.
Things that changed:
My heroine is not a cheerleader, she doesn't have two best friends, at least not yet. 
One of the best friends Mallory, turned into the new girl at school, the first day of senior year.
The remaining best Friend Karen, is not starting a new relationship but had a boyfriend since 8th grade.
Oh and least not forget that my heroine is now hard of hearing.
This is all in the first chapter.


Without a doubt this is a Work in Progress!
But I'm having fun, can't see my life without writing. I think I'd write no matter what.

Annie Laurie

ROW80 check-in and FashionBeans

It's that time of the week again, its either the first day of the week or the last day of the week depend on how you see Sunday, and it also the Sunday check-in for Around the Words in 80 days.

On Wednesday I had a happy preppy report for my check-in about what I discovered about my 1st draft of Feathers, now called Feathers and Deaf, at least that how I've saved it on my computer.

I kinda of like it, deaf and death kinda sound alike and it's goes with the plot line.
I have my good days and my bad days as far as writing my (changed) daily goal of 500.  I haven't wrote today yet.  I still have time after supper to write.  I'm going to the Rice Box to get Chinese in a little bit. I'm hoping to have my 2nd draft written in 100 days a total of 50,000 words. A good length for a young adult novel.

Today instead of writing I did a little characters resourcing over at FashionBeans a Men's Fashion website in England. I have three male characters in my story so far and since my heroine know her world more by sight since she's hard of hearing I wanted my guys to have a more individual fashion styles.  When I googled men's fashion that what came up and they had a section called Men's Street Fashions with 1077 photos seem like a good place to start.  (really wish my bbf was here with me to look, I think we'd have a good laugh over some of the street styles they found, you don't see most of these in Alabama. But I did see a few styles that remind me of guys I've seen at the coffee shop my go to place to people watch and write)

I realized yesterday I didn't write a writing prompt this week. 

My editing goal has turned into writing my 2nd draft, trying to decide if I still want to write my memoir about my spiritual journey the last few years.  If so I'm going to have to change my daily goal again.  Maybe 100 words on memoir and 500 words on Feathers and Deaf...
Need to decide, maybe I'll know by next check-in on Wednesday...

Annie Laurie

Only 10% of the world's population is this and I'm one of them

Ok thought I share a fun fact or two about me.

Only 10% of the world's population share this fact with me.

I'm left handed.

And the other fact I share with even smaller percent of the world, don't know the number.

My brother is also left handed.  Not only am I left handed but my sibling is too.

Nope, neither parent is left handed, they are both right handed.

Interesting, right?

Arise, Called The Lord Our God

My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling,
my beautiful one, come with me.
 See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;"
Song of Songs 2:10-12

I read this during my quiet time with God sometime last week.  Now I keep thinking "Arise! The winter is past."
The Lord Jesus is telling me the "winter season" of the past year or so is in the past, it has passed. I am now to "arise."
My questions to Him are:
Ok, I am to arise and how do I do that?
What am I suppose to do to get out of this winter season?

But see He told me the winter season is past.  He's saying Annie, the winter season has PASSED. You are out of it.  It's is IN the PAST.

Ok, but what am I to do?
Then the idea of praying come to mind.

I need to pray not do, listen and wait like the wild seeds do during winter.
The Lord said that the Father provide for the birds and the plants, what more He will do for us. (Matthew 6:24-34) 
Like the plants from the seed, the winter called last year might be over, in the past but I still need to break through the shell and the hard ground formed from that winter.  And the only way to do that is to trust my God, my Lord.

Right now I think He want me to write, this week during quiet time, scenes for my story are blooming in my mind. Inspired by God or my own imagation? I'm going to go with inspired by God - the Holy Spirit. 
Here is a YouTube time lapse video of Fern sprouting from the ground. 

  

ROW80 Mid-week Check-in Writer's Voice

ROW80 Mid-Week Check-in

I read my 1st draft of Feathers (Working title) while it didn't have big plot holes it didn't have a strong plot. I did find a few scenes that suggested a stronger (I hope a stronger) plot.

I need to get rid of the love triangle between heroine and two boys, just make it one boy.

I changed the heroine's name again. It's was Stormy Anne, than Hannah (which make me think Hanna from the T.V. show Pretty Little Liars [Love that show] and while my book is placed in a small town, the best friend is missing possibly murder and who did it anyone guess I don't want it to also share a character's name)

Add a little Switched at Birth (Love this show too) and me into the plot.  My heroine is now hard of hearing.  I'm hard of hearing and see/experience the world differently why not write about it.  It might help me find my writer's voice.  (So of course Switched at Birth is one of my favorite shows look at all the deaf characters and actors and part of the plot deals with everyday things people who are deaf deal with)

Speaking of writer's voice I found a blog post on YA Highway by the author of Divergent Veronica Roth about Embracing Your Own Voice not changing it.  After reading it and looking at the parts of my 1st draft I liked I realized I'm a sparse prose girl and not a lyrical prose girl.  But I have learning over the years of writing that I love symbolism in stories and it show up in my writing whether I plan it or not.  In college ( lit major) one of my favorite short story writers was Nathaniel Hawthorne.  I'm sure this symbolism is part of my writer's voice.

All that dealt with my editing goals now my writing goals.

 I woke up Monday with a head cold I thought for sure it would hinder with my writing.  Nope. I think I wrote more thanks to this cold.

Since I'm working on my 2nd draft I turned to writing in my notebook.  Something about the drag of the pencil helped the ideas and scenes emerge on the page.

Funny what you can learn while being stuck inside by rain, cold weather, and a head cold.

Annie Laurie

Row80 Sunday Check In

My editing goal for the week was to read my first draft of "Feathers" (working title). Ghosts of high school English past would haunt me for the first draft.

So one of my new goal is to write my second draft.

I'm not writing every day more like every other day. Next week is a new week. Still sticking with writing 100 words a day.

I'm managing to write one Writing Prompt post a week.

Thank you for taking the time to read my check in report for around the words around in 80 days.