inspiring

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. Yesterday, I had a day off work and I spent my morning in my hometown conducting an author visit with third, fourth, and fifth graders. As I drove toward the school, I noticed some of the streetlights in town were out, and when I arrived, I found the school was without power as well. That certainly made my presentation more interesting. LOL!

I have to tell you these author visits are the bomb. I enjoy working with these kids so much. I like to run an interactive, informal presentation, and I also reward the kids for participating by giving prizes at the end of the presentation. These prizes certainly motivate them to participate!

Photo credit: flickingerbrad on Visual Hunt / CC BY

The teacher who organized this asked me to talk about my passion for writing and dealing with revisions and rejection. So, I started out the presentation by asking the students about their own passions and the discussion took off from there.

The students who spoke up had some intriguing passions. One girl wanted to be an actress, another wanted to be a soccer player, and still another wanted to be a gamer, and then there was one shy little girl who wanted to be a writer like me. 😊

I get just as much out of these author visits as I give. The kids’ enthusiasm is intoxicating, and you can’t help but become infected with it. They’re at that age where all they see are possibilities. They don’t see the obstacles and rough roads ahead and for that moment, I feel the same way.

Photo credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Visualhunt / CC BY

I also explained to them about constructive criticism and just plain old bad criticism. I told them that if someone doesn’t like your work, they need to tell you why. Just saying they don’t like it isn’t enough. If someone can’t give you constructive criticism, then don’t listen to them and don’t let them influence what you’re doing.

It is so rewarding to talk with students and learn what they’re dreams are. It makes me young again and realize I can still accomplish all the goals I want to achieve. I just have to keep working at it. After the visit, I drove through my hometown and noticed the changes and the things that have stayed the same, and a bubble of nostalgia swelled up inside of me. At that moment, I figured out an ending to the story I’ve been rewriting for the last year. I can’t wait until this project is done because I also have two other projects in the works and I came up with another idea while sitting at a stop light.

Sometimes, I accomplish so much without writing a single word down. 😊

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk on Visual Hunt/ CC BY-NC

How about you? What do you do that takes you back to the time of infinite possibilities? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. I know I did. This year was certainly better than last year, that’s for sure. Now it is officially Christmas Season. My favorite holiday, but enough about that, this isn’t a Christmas post…not yet anyway. 🙂

I want to talk about Inspiration.

http://allthefreestock.com/

What inspires me to write? There are many things but here are a couple that I’d thought I’d share with you.

The first is a note from a fellow author, who purchased my first book “The Super Spies and the Cat Lady Killer.” She bought it in hopes her reluctant reader would be inspired to read. This is a direct quote:

“Lisa Orchard is like the best writer EVER” ~according to my daughter, who until recently, never read a book voluntarily. Her next statement was, “You’d better get the rest of the series.”

Yes, ma’am. Going to buy them now!

Here’s the review they left on Amazon:

My 12 year old daughter says:

I loved this book so much because it was so exciting. All the cool moments in the house were really creepy. It made it feel like the girls were going to come to the end of their road. It was super suspenseful. Please keep writing more books like this!

I say:

My reluctant-reader daughter inhaled this book–twice! She came rushing into the room at least three times an hour with breathless updates on the adventure. Definitely an engaging read for kids who like a little mystery.

This made my week. It just felt so good to inspire someone to read. I immediately began thinking of ideas for the next book in the series, even though I’m in the middle of a new one with new characters. I’ve got a couple of ideas brewing so we’ll see where they go.

My kids also inspire me to write. They’re so proud of my accomplishments. My oldest has read two of the books in the series and he told me they were awesome. I’m hoping by sticking with my writing, they’ll see how the hard work pays off and they’ll learn to follow their own dreams and aspirations.

My boys are learning so many valuable lessons with my writing. Just the other day, I was talking with a friend and she told me about another author who bought enough copies of her own book to get on the New York Times Bestsellers list. She told me this as an idea for marketing.

I relayed this information to my husband and told him that I didn’t think I’d get a big sense of accomplishment if I made it to the list that way. My son was present during the conversation and this was his response.

“Mom, that’s cheating.” He wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

I was cheering inside, while on the outside, I just smiled. My son has an excellent moral compass and it’s so nice to see it. My hubby and I did at least one thing right. 🙂