A novel idea: Rearranging a novel

What started as one little extra chapter has turned into a complete makeover...copying and pasting paragraphs here, deleting pages there.  I am mostly just rearranging everything, and I think that it will make the novel much stronger...but geeze what a lot of work!

Happy Marriage: God blessed the broken road

"God blessed the broken road, that led me straight to you!"

I've always loved that song by Rascal Flatts..."God Blessed the Broken Road".  It describes how I felt once I finally found my Chad.  Finally?  I met him when I was 20 years old.  What do I mean 'Finally'?  Well, I'll tell you:

We're all given difficulties to overcome in life.  When we do, we become stronger and more appreciative...and even in certain situations sympathetic.  My obstacle was depression.  It's a sneaky, very real, hardship that makes you feel....not right.  It is hard to describe exactly how I have felt the many times that I've been caught up in the grasp of depression, but I'll give it a shot. 

      Antisocial was a word I heard others call me a lot during my high school years.  I didn't talk a lot when others were, and I had a very hard time forcing myself into situations.   I didn't know why I was suddenly so frightened to be around others.  I was in constant fear that if I did join in, they would make fun of me the moment I left.  I was so scared that everyone was talking meanly about me behind my back.  I was so internally focused on myself and my fear that I couldn't see outside myself...I couldn't make myself accept the fact that things weren't as bad as they were in my head.

     Physically Incapable...I think I get such a rush from pushing myself through a hard workout now because when I was severly depressed I couldn't even make myself get off of the couch.  In college I would skip classes sometimes to not only avoid people, but the day in general.  After things got really bad in college, I finally saw a doctor, got on medicine, and moved home. 
...   I wasn't mentally able to make myself go to my college classes, so I was no longer in college after 3 semesters.  College also wasn't the best place for me since I took to drinking alcohol heavily, even self-medicating with it at times.  Alcohol is a natural depressant, so it was the last thing I needed in my life.

    I didn't have a lot to do once I moved back into my parents home.  I did have a lot of time to think though.  I couldn't figure out why God would do that to me?  Why would He give me depression?  Why do things that this come into our lives and turn them upside down.  I couldn't go to college.  I couldn't make myself keep a job, and was averaging only a few months at each.  Why?  Why me?  What was I going to do with my life now?

    With the help of medicine and exercising with my mom, I started to get a little better.  I still wanted to lay around all day a sleep, but at least my emotions weren't so dramatically up and down.  I began to lose weight (through the side effects of my medicine, exercising, my mom's homemade meals, and less alcohol) and I began I feel happy about how I was looking again.

   I wasn't going to go out for the St. Patrick's Day festivities in Butte that year of 2003, but my big sister and some of her friends decided to come in from Missoula and they invited me out.  I decided to give it a shot.  I met Chad at the M and M bar that night.  After meeting me, he missed his ride home with friends so that he could get to know me better.  My mom came to pick me up later that night (as I had some how lost my sister and her friends) and I had her give Chad a ride home too. 

    I know some guys don't really call you the day after you give them your number, but Chad did.  And I was glad.  We got to know each other better on the phone for a few days, and then we started hanging out and dating after that.

     I began to get myself off of the couch every day and do something...so that when I saw Chad or talked to him on the phone later and he asked me what I had done that day, I would have a better answer than "nothing". 

     I was never really depressed that first month of dating.  I was in the love bubble.  But after about a month, I had an off-day and started a fight with Chad over nothing.  Luckily, I had managed to find one of the greatest guys in the entire world; so when I told him about how I have been dealing with depression and that sometimes I still get caught up in it, he was understanding and forgiving. 

   After years together, he knows how to deal with me when I am in one of my moods.  I remove myself from the room until I calm down.  And after years, my medicine keeps me so that as long as I am taking it, I don't get depressed...and exercise helps too.

    So why did God give me depression?  It was His way of bringing me to Chad.  I first went to college in Hawaii....but depression brought me back to Montana.  I intended on finishing college closer to home...but depression made it so I had to move back to Butte.  So I just happened to be living in Butte, when I wouldn't have been otherwise, when I met the man of my dreams and my partner for life.

 Chad, you are my best friend.  I thank God all of the time for giving my depression so that I could meet you.  My life has been so happy since I met you and I know that it will be until my dying days.  I love you.





 

A novel idea: Inserting new chapters

True to my word, I have done editing on my novel every day of March so far.  But yesterday, as I finished chapter 3 and dove into chapter 4, I realized that there is a lot of information that needs to be present before I introduce chapter 4's new character....that's good news and bad news.

It's good, well great, because it is going to bring my word count up by a couple thousand words.  I need that word count to at least pass 60,000 before I can even consider sending my manuscript to publishers. 

It's bad because I have to pull a whole new chapter out of thin air.  Sure, I know where to start, but darn it...it is a lot of work.  Wish me luck.  Gonna need an extra large amount of coffee in order to get this done.

"I never laugh until I've had my coffee." -Clark Gable

I decided I had better give credit to the quote that inspired the title of my blog.  It was said by Clark Gable and is one of my favorite quotes because it very much describes how I function.

Adventures in Motherhood: the best of times

During my first pregnancy, I was convinced that I was going to write about my daily experiences once my baby was born.  I knew that every day was going to be different from the other and every day was going to be one that I would want to remember.  What I didn't know is that, when you have a baby, there is no time let alone energy for that.  I barely had time to sleep let alone write about what I was going through.  But now, I still wish I had taken the time to write a sentence or two about the day.  There are so many things that will always be in my heart, but are hard to remember in my mind.

The best of times:  Every moment can't be perfect when you are raising kids, but there are definitely perfect moments.  My heart melts sometimes and tears of joy well up when my boys do something incredibly sweet.  There are so many of these moments that I wish I could tell you about, but again, they are hard to pin-point.  So in the future, if you see a post titled "Adventures in Motherhood: The best of times" expect to read something that happened that I want to remember.  Afterall, this is my journal.

As I browsed my Facebook photos today I found a cute picture of my boys at Will's soccer game two years ago.  When I clicked on it for a closer look, I noticed I had written a caption above it.

"Will came over for a drink of water and Ethan grabbed Will and asked him 'Who's my favorite boy?!' to which Will replied 'I am' and then went back and continued playing his game."

I love my boys!  What is one of your favorite moments of motherhood (or fatherhood!)?  I'd love to hear!

A novel idea: holding me accountable

It turns out, when I challenge myself to do something on this blog, and then share the page, I feel like I should follow through more than if I just mentally tell myself to.  Today was a bit crazy...with errands and driving around and working out and cleaning...by the time I was done with it all I just wanted to lie down and close my eyes for about 30 minutes.  But that darn post from yesterday kept weighing on my mind...

So I did some editing.  I got an entire half of a chapter done, or roughly six pages.  I feel pretty great about it since it's the most editing I've done in a while.  This just goes to show that when you have an "accountabili-buddy" you can get more accomplished.  You, my darlings, are my accountabili-buddies.  Thank you.

Fitness Junkie: Inspiration