What I Focused on in March: 

1. World building and editing Echoes 
2. Searching for an agent for When Life Hands You Lymes 
3. Life – lots of time with family, friends, and every day stuff

Birthday Challenge Update 

 (Here’s the update for everything since my birthday.)

1. Buy 25 Books – 17
2. Do 25 new things and write them down – 4
3. Take pictures of Sequoia (teddy bear) in 25 different places – 2
4. Request 25 Books for Review – COMPLETED
5. Vlog 25 Times – 8
6. Dance, Skip, or swing in the rain 25 times – 12
7. Watch the sunrise or sunset 25 times – 17
8. Eat paleo 25 weeks (not in a row) -3
9. Try 25 new recipes – 1
10. Read to, or cook with, children 25 times – 9
11. Color 25 pictures – 10
12. Have less than 5 emails in my inbox Saturday night 25 weeks (not in a row) COMPLETED
13. Have a picnic in each season – 1
14. Move over to WordPress COMPLETED
15. Host a contest or giveaway on Noveltea COMPLETED
16. Go to bed by 10:30 sixty times (not in a row) – 56
17. Blog by 9:30 a hundred times – 58
18. Go to Wednesday night church 20 times – 15
19. Drink coffee or tea while reading or journaling 25 times – 15

Reading Update

Non-Fiction: 5

Fiction: 10

Reviews: 16

Traveling

Nights gone: 2

New States or Countries: None

March  Goals 

I hope to post about these tomorrow, but I’m quite happy with how the month turned out.

 What I’ve Been Learning

I read some great books in March, especially the book Love Lives Here. I liked it so much that I gushed about it on my blog, and promptly ordered several more copies to give away. The book reminded me (yet again) that we’ve been given such a short amount of time to live, and that means we need to make the most of each moment.

All throughout March I worked on learning about world building, and then applying it to my writing. It always amazes me that even after years of studying there’s still so much I don’t know about writing. Looking back over the last 30 days, I’m confident that this was a really good month for me as a writer.

The reoccurring lesson that I’ve been trying to solidify into my mind is that my identity comes from Christ, not from what I can accomplish. My adrenals and thyroid were acting up some this month, which led to some pretty difficult weeks for me that included a lot of resting. (Hence the 15 books I read.) It’s hard for me to look back on a day and not have a list of things checked off, but I’ve been trying to be content with wherever God has me – no matter if I’m zooming through my to-do list, or simply abiding.

Other

 It was nice to be home most of this month. As I mentioned previously I was dealing with some health issues, so I rested a lot. One nice thing about resting is I was able to catch up on some reading – I’d been feeling rather behind cause I’d only read ten books during January and February combined.

I also had my wonderful friend Hosanna come and visit for a week and a half, and that was lovely indeed. Although she isn’t a writer, she’s one of the people who I discuss writing with the most. She’s a fantastic listener and gets properly aghast when I decide to do something horrible – like kill off a character. In addition to listening to me talk endlessly about my characters, she’s so easy going that she’s totally content for both of us to just curl up on the couch with a book and sit in complete silence for the whole afternoon. She’s also hugely amazing with jumping in and doing things like cleaning my office and hanging up my laundry while I work on writing. (I know, I know. I’m incredibly spoiled.)

Church was terrific this month. I’m so thankful to have been home every Sunday and all but one Wednesday. I am so, so, so grateful for our church family! We also had tons of company over this month, which meant lots and lots of people time for me. It was delightful, and also exhausting. Overall March has lots of good memories.

This month also included lots of emailing with beta readers, writing book reviews, trying to blog before 9:30 in the morning, listening to the birds sing and the creek roar, and realizing that I needed to take a break from coffee and get back on Paleo.

How did your March go?