In August of 2011 (wow..that’s a long time ago!), I attended Jon Acuff’s very first Quitter Conference, where I came away reeling from the fire-hose of motivation and inspiration and practical advice about how to recover, develop, and finally realize (as in make real) my dream of being a writer. (Which I did, by the way.) It works with any dream, really. Unless your dream is to marry Prince William and eventually take the throne as the Queen of England. I hate to tell you, but that one is a bit of a longshot, as Kate is already a bit […]

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…a manifesto for the discouraged   Recently, I posted these words: When you start chasing a dream, it’s new, it’s fresh. You feel inspired. You decide on a focus. You start a blog to share your dream with the world. You set a schedule. Word counts, posting goals. You tweet. You write. You watch as your traffic grows and you celebrate your tenth subscriber. There are hard times, too. There are days when you really just want to stay in bed, but you get up and you slog it out. There are days when the words don’t come easy. You […]

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The Sloth has left the building. While the Week Of Sloth wasn’t quite as slothful as planned, it was a restful, restorative time, and I’m thankful to Mark, the girls, and God for aligning things to make it all work for my good. I needed it. But now it’s time to hustle again. It would be easy to settle into a routine of sleeping in, spending a nice long quiet time with a cup (or three) of coffee, watch the squirrels for a while, then putter around the house, root around on facebook, and spend a couple hours editing and […]

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From your comments last week, it sounds like this has been a pretty hard season for a lot of people. Everyone needs a nap.   For me, these last few months have been filled with stress and exhaustion at every turn. While some of it was very worthwhile and rewarding, much of my energy was spent chasing after the wind. So, after eighteen months of hustling toward my dreams of writing and making a difference in the world, and after nearly as long a time of intentional prayer about where God wanted me to serve, I’m taking a pretty big […]

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When you start chasing a dream, it’s new, it’s fresh. You feel inspired. You decide on a focus. You set a schedule. Word counts, posting goals. You tweet. You write. You watch as your traffic grows and you celebrate your tenth subscriber. There are hard times, too. There are days when you really just want to stay in bed, but you get up and you slog it out. There are days when the words don’t come easy. You get in the ring, lace up your gloves, and come out battered and bloody with maybe only a couple hundred words to […]

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