Thankful for YA

I've been meaning to write this post all month. After all, November is the month for giving thanks.

I've been reading YA since I was younger than the YA age range. I keep coming back because it resonates with me on such a deep level. I relate to the emotions and the experiences I read about in these books. I go back to them when I need something comforting or relaxing.

A part of me wants to keep a hold of those years. Sure there were bad times. (Some of them felt completely bad, though not as bad as what could have been or does happen to others.) But there were also good times. First loves. First dates. Learning new things. Feeling like I knew it all. Learning that I didn't. Growing to trust myself. All the things that made me into the person that I am. Reading those stories in a YA book brings me back. It also makes me glad that I've already walked that journey.

I love that I can escape from the current dilemmas of bills to pay and work and family. Grownup troubles are so different from teenage troubles. It's nice to step away from whatever is bothering me right now and remember how all-encompassing my troubles felt years ago. It gives me perspective for what I'm experiencing now, and a reminder that troubles, no matter what they are, do go away or resolve themselves. And I won't be permanently damaged by my current stresses.

I'm so grateful for YA books that I started writing my own. Maybe no one will ever read them, but I have written them and they gave me the same escape I get from reading. I hope that some day, others will read what I wrote and find the same love that I have.

You can join in the love of YA with Beth Revis. She's hosting a contest for a library of signed books. Just click on the banner here, or in the sidebar and it will take you to her blog. Or you can check out her post by clicking here.

The End of the World As We Know It

Or something equally dramatic. All this to say, thing have got to change around here.

It's funny how much the little things get in the way of the big things, if we let them. We're muddling along, trying our best to do what we think is important, but when we look back, are we satisfied by it? Does anyone else care if you did all the dishes or washed all the laundry or picked up the living room or swept the kitchen floor? There's an endless litany of things that should be done, would be done, could be done if you had more time or energy or *insert whatever adjective goes here.

Really, the laundry waits, but the crying baby doesn't. The living room waits, but the kindergartner's homework doesn't. The dishes wait, but reading with the preschooler doesn't. There's hundreds of things that are optional, but the handful of necessary ones need to be more important.

I don't know what those things are for you, but I do for me, and I'm going to do more to make the bigger things the ones that happen more frequently. And I'm going to give up the guilt when the little things wait for an hour or a day or a week.

NOVEMBER!!!!!!

Well, I'm trying something out. It's been a while since I had a regular writing routine. And I've done NaNoWriMo in the past. And I'm really interested in trying to get back to a writing routine. So, in that spirit, I'm going to be doing my own version of NaNoWriMo. I'm seriously doubting my ability to be the mom of 4 kids, keep my house from being overwhelmed by the chaos, still do my at home job, and write 2000 words a day. (That's my own usual nano thing, since I choose not to write on Sundays.)

So, here we are. I'm going to try to get at least 500 words in Monday through Saturday. I've got two different shiny ideas plaguing me, so we'll see which one wins out. I'm hoping to start each writing day with a blog post, so watch for more from me this month.