January
2008
Changes for the New Year
by Meredith Efken
Happy 2008! I hope your new year is off to a great start already. It’s been ages since I’ve actively posted on my blog, but the time has been well-spent. I have some new book contracts which I’ll say more about at a later time.
What I’m especially excited about right now are the changes and improvements in the works for this site. Within this year, you can expect to have a brand new email newsletter option–a short, weekly email with information and advice on how you can change your life and your world, without feeling overwhelmed or stressed. This newsletter will also be posted onto the blog, for those of you not fond of receiving much email.
I’ll also be making some major changes to the blog and the site–including a new name, a new focus, and a new design. More details on that in the weeks ahead.
For now, I’d like to hear from you. What is one change you’d like to make in the coming year? This is not a “resolution” but just something you’d like to make different in 2008.
Anyone want to volunteer a comment?
The Changes for the New Year by Violet Voices, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Written By: Meredith Efken
Posted under: Women's Voices . 
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The change I want to make is in my attitude: living on purpose, positively.
I think that’s a great change, Pattie! Any ideas on how you’re going to go about it?
Of course, there’s lose weight and organize. But I’d like to be content where I am as a writer, whether God keeps me unpubbed this year or gives me a contract.
Looking forward to hearing about your contracts, Meredith.
I found you, Meredith. I check some blogs every day, and it dawned on me that I don’t event know the name of yours! Nice. Right now I’d like to change this cold Nebraska weather! I look out the window all day as I work, but I think twice about getting out into the freezing cold. I know–be content in whatever state you’re in, and Nebraska is cold!
Check my blog, too? http://www.audreyhebbert.com. I’d love to have you!
2007 went out with a bang for me - kidney cancer incidentally found when a surgeon was looking for a hernia that wasn’t there - God is good!!!
2008 came in with a bang for me - a heart attack that cannot be explained because the tests all look so good - except for the ones that show I did have a heart attack - the week before my 58th birthday.
I raise my hands to the sky, praise God and ask what He would like me to learn from all this - two miracles in 30 days? Thank you, Lord, and may I have another?
Good to see your post here, Meredith - looking forward to finding out what your changes will be.
I’ve been inspired by Meredith’s success to return to my own writing, and my goal is to write a new novel this year. I’ve entered a comic, ‘hen-lit’ novel I wrote some years back in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest, and it’s currently a semifinalist.
It’s called “Adelaide Einstein”, and it’s a story about a very traditional wife and mom who’s facing empty-nest syndrome, feeling like the best years of her life are over. As she herself says at one point, “I thought I was done, the way a cake is done, and people would just keep taking little pieces of me away until nothing was left.” When she volunteers at a hospice, Addie meets a college professor who sees more potential in Adelaide than even she herself would’ve believed, and despite her fears and insecurities, she decides to go back to school. Little does she suspect she’s destined to take over for the ailing professor, eventually becoming part of a team that’s up for the Nobel prize in Physics. Along the way she earns the admiration of her upstart daughter and the respect of her dismissive son, and learns to believe in herself.
The contest is like an American Idol for novelists, where customer reviews are supposed to determine the winner (which will be published by Penguin Books). Amazon customers can download free excerpts from the entries and enter their reviews at Amazon’s site. The next elimination round will cull us down to the top 100 by 2/19, so if my book sounds like something anyone here would like and you have an Amazon account, I’d be very grateful for any reads and reviews between now and 2/10. Here’s a link to my entry’s page:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B00124COKM
Thanks in advance, and here’s hoping we can all make at least one of our cherished dreams come true in 2008. =’)