moral compass

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m participating in “A Slice of Life” today. I’m excited and a little nervous because this is my first time. I hope you find what I want to share interesting. It’s a story about my oldest son.

I had gone out to breakfast and then church with a couple of friends. We were talking about making the New York Times Bestsellers List and what it takes to make it. My friend told me the story about another author who made the list by taking out a loan and buying the required number of copies to do this.

Now, it’s been one of my goals to do make this list. I just think it’d be a great accomplishment and I’m working on improving my writing to get there, but what an easy way to do it. However, would I feel the same sense of accomplishment if I made the list the easy way as opposed to having my book make it all on its own?

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So, I was talking with my hubby and my son happened to be in the room listening as I explained the story my friend had told me. Just as I said, “I don’t think I’d feel a sense of accomplishment if I made it that way.”

My oldest wrinkled his nose and responded. “Mom, that’s cheating.”

“You’re right,” I said and he rose from the couch and went in the other room.

I was so proud of him. He knows the difference between accomplishing something on your own and buying it. I don’t know where or when he learned that lesson, but I’m so glad he did. I hope I had a part in teaching him that.

It’s funny, when you’re a parent, you think of yourself as the moral compass in your child’s life, you never think that they’re going to be your moral compass. 🙂 It just goes to show you, you never stop learning and we can learn from everyone can’t we?

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Thanks for stopping by and reading my “Slice of Life” post. I’d love it if you’d take a look at the other posts and if you want to leave a short snippet of your own slice of life in the comment section, feel free! I’d love to read it!

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.

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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. 🙂