Appreciate a Dragon Day

First -- I love the new look of our G,G, and GL
Second -- Camy's street gang looks like fun
Third -- January 16th, every year, is Appreciate a Dragon Day. It is probably too late for you to plan anything big, but just a salute to your favorite dragons in literature is easy enough to do.
I actually declared this a National holiday back in 2004, when DragonSpell first came out. How cool is it that you can declare a holiday! How very cool that seven years later you can Google Appreciate a Dragon Day and find hits. Hold on to your hats! References to AADD wound down at 60 pages of google hits.
It is amazing how a little thing can spread like wildfire. Quite often it is not a positive thing that goes viral. Gossip flows faster than fact. As the Bible says to guard our tongues, in this age we need to guard vigilently against things we put forth in written form and through all the social medias. Some things are fun and innocent. Others are destructive. Consciously choose what you look at and what you recommend to others.

Here is a video of an illusion. It is not what it seems. Watch the video and listen to the commentary. The last line is "We move far enough around to the side, we suddenly realize the structure is different, and the illusion fails."
If we use the tools of observation, the standard given by God, we can discern when the world's wisdom is shallow, an illusion of truth, not truth.
There are also instructions for making the dragon. Have fun!
Dragon Illusion

I lose many things, but

. . . the thing I miss the most is my head.
This past week has been filled with so many wonderful happenings that I got overwhelmed. I guess that being overwhelmed is not as good of an excuse as being under the weather, or undermined, or under stress. Life has been full of the the extraordinary. So much so that the ordinary, mundane things have been pushed to the side. (Anyone want to volunteer to do laundry, clean the bathroom, or put books back on the right shelves? Yes, putting books back is a major task at my house.)
We are getting ready to release The Dragon and the Turtle. My webmaster is designing this super website. I keep throwing new ideas at her and then she goes above and beyond the call of duty in presenting them. The site is not live yet, but when it is, I want you to visit. Not because you would drool over this book, but because you probably babysit kids who would. LOL
It's http://www.dragonandturtle.com/.
I've even enlisted one of great friends who develops games and crafts for elementary church curriculum. And we developed a recipe for Mock-mock Turtle Soup. Yum. (No turtles were harmed in the making of this soup.)

And I feel like Peter Pan in the old stage play, where he flies around the nursery, singing, "I gotta crow!"

And you know what makes this book so special?

It isn't MY book. It's OUR book. My daughter and I wrote it, and Vincent Nguyen, with his creative genius, brought it to life. It is so much more special because of the joint venture. Just like the website is a compilation of several friends' talents.
Oh, I absolutely LOVE this.

(Yes, Capital letters are SHOUTING. Not at you but because of you. I get to share this enthusiasm. I'm not stuck in a closet with my joy bundled up and no one to share it with. Hurray! Hurray!) Hurray! You see, even one of the hurrays escaped the parenthesis fence.

This type of joy is not an everyday thing so I am going to revel in it, not stifle it. I know God understands it is not about me, but all He has given me. If I tamped down the bubbles in my blow bubble pipe, I would not be expressing the gratitude I have.

Do the Snoopy Happy Dance with me?

Rejoice with those who do rejoice!

"All too often we are living in the past, preoccupied with something that has happened to us; or we are living in the future, waiting for a time when life will treat us magnificently and we will be happy; or worrying about what lies ahead and how we will cope....But every day of our lives brings the opportunity for a new beginning, and there was never a better time to be." --Eileen Campbell

If you've explored my website, or my facebook, or my shoutlife, you know I am a Max Lucado fan. I love the way he uses story to impact his readers.

I read the general market copy of Every Day Deserves a Chance. Now I see there is a version especially for teens.

And it seems the middle of the summer is a good time to look at how we treat the days of our lives. Days of Our Lives was a soap opera. It was on when I was a kid. I didn't watch soap operas, but sometimes I had the tendency to make my days into soap opera material. Perhaps that tendency toward melodrama is par of why I am an author now.

In October, I have a book coming out, "Two Tickets to a Christmas Ball." In the book, one character refers to her family as living "Tomorrow's Sorrows."

She explains,

“They live their own soap opera. I call it ‘Tomorrow’s Sorrows’ because whatever they choose today inevitably ends up being something they regret tomorrow.”

The operative word here is choose. Few people realize how much their own powers of choice determine the "mood" of their lives. A sign of maturity is the ability to be aware of and take responsibility for our choices.

Get a copy of Every Day Deserves a Chance. Max Lucado explains the concept in Christian terms, and he does a much better job than I do. I love reading a Max Lucado book. My spirit is always uplifted. I hope you'll get the opportunity to have a great day, every day this summer.

Merry Christmas

Some Christians think we should contain Christmas in a little square box and only allow things "holy" into the activities of a "true Christian." But doesn't that go against Jesus coming to the world?
I agree that the commercialism around the sacred holiday is annoying, but the act of celebrating contains exuberance. So when I see Christmas homes decked with snowmen, reindeer, gingerbread houses, and other "secular" items, I relish the creativity, both cute and beautiful, and let the joy bubble in my heart. I think for those of us who are secure in the real meaning of Christmas can deal with the difference between the sublime and the ridiculous.

In my own house as the kids were growing up, we celebrated the tradition of Santa Claus from the day after Thanksgiving until Dec. 6th, which is St. Nicholas Day. We hung stockings the night before. After giving the jolly fat man his due, and also studying the different Santa Claus traditions of the world, we put him away and concentrated on the birth of Jesus for the rest of the holiday season. My children loved it. They not only got Santa Claus, but they got him early. The rest of the kids had to wait until Christmas Eve. And I told them from the very beginning that if they followed Christ and developed His gift of love and generosity, they would grow up to be somebody's St. Nick!

I'd like to invite you to the Christian Author Holiday Home tour. You can begin at my blog:

Dragon Bloggin

What makes you buckle down?

I'm a people-pleaser, so the idea of disappointing someone else really motivates me. To that end I started a new blog.

Now that, in itself, is ironic, because blogging is not one of my favorite things to do. I always feel the pressure to be witty and spiritual on demand when a blog is due. This is a pressure I put on myself. It is one I could do without. So now I have four blogs I participate in. LOL

Have you ever noticed that your cat goes and torments the guest in your house who doesn't like cats? I feel like my blogs are cats that show up in my lap, determined to get some attention. And I really want to pet the cat, enjoy its soft fur, bring on that ingratiating purr, and have the cat curl up in my lap. I guess I'm a cat-pleaser too. But it takes time.

The reason I am a people-pleaser is that people matter to me. They aren't just a mass of a nebulous something that exists beyond my immediate circle. And I think that God in me is what recognizes that.

Back to the blogs. I love connecting with readers, and once I've blogged I feel good about it. But beforehand, I squirm. I ought to write out this blog when the inspiration hits me, then just post it on the day it's due. But that would aggravate the procrastinator in me.

So, I guess being human and having noticeable flaws takes me to the point I'm getting to.

I am horribly late on my manuscript. Therefore, with my people-pleaser motivation taken into account, I started a new blog called A Writer Writes . . . Sometimes. I post the number of the chapter I'm on and the word count.

Then I said to myself, "You know, sweetcakes, it's never all about you. So I decided to include a writing tip directly from the work I did that day. That way I can please people who are interested in writing.

Take a look and tell me what you think: A Writer Writes . . . Sometimes.

We're going to have our own TV Show - sort of.

I just learned that the Motiv8 tour in October is going to have a sort of TV show following our progress and interacting with Internet viewers. Do you remember the Motiv8 project? I know I've talked about it before. 8 Christian Fantasy Authors from 8 different publishing houses will be visiting 8 West Coast cities in 8 days. Goal: to motiv8 young readers to choose positive fiction.

(BTW, you can't click here and go to the site. I didn't know how to do that. But you can go to my site www.donitakpaul.com and click the same picture there and that will take you to www.fantasyfictiontour.com .)

I hope you will be praying for us. Pray for me to be healthy, and of course, the others too, but I feel like I may be the slow man in the relay race, as I am the oldest and tiredest.

Anyway, this is how Christopher Hopper explains this TV thingie:

"Right now I have it set to run all the Video Journals from last year interspersed with the new promo video. When we're actually on the tour, we will broadcast live, field questions from viewers through IM, and update it with that day's Video Journal. I think this will go a long way in getting people interested who don't live on the West Coast. I'm certain God invented the internet just for Christians to advance the Kingdom. How cool...You can also check out the channel here: http://www.mogulus.com/fantasyfictiontour ."

I've Been Tagged

So I am posting out of turn.

After all this time of avoiding being tagged, I’ve been hit by Rebecca LuElla Miller at http://rebeccaluellamiller.wordpress.com/ , in other words, Christian Worldview of Fiction, and the topic is “8 Random Facts About Myself.”
The first rule of the game, however, is to post the rules of the game. Here they are:
Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. My name almost means little miss in Spanish. My mother was taking beginning Spanish at the time, and thought it did.

2. I've lived in Kansas, New York, Texas, Arkansas, and Colorado.

3. I had 24 bookcases is one house before we moved and downsized.

4. I've taught for 44 years. HONEST! I started when I was 13 in a Sunday school class.

5. I loathe macaroni and cheese but will eat it when I'm depressed.

6. I've always wanted to write a picture book.

7. The cat I grew up with was named Fifi Abdul Abul-bul Amir La Foofu Natasha Hamid. Long story.

8. I want to sing in the choir in heaven and know the words!

Now I get to tag others. Hmm! I'm going to try all the other authors on this blog!

House or Home?

We're moving! Hurray for a lot of reasons! Oh dear, for a lot of reasons. Besides the hassle of thousands of details, the prospect of making a house a home is exciting. And God showed me something interesting yesterday as we contemplated the merits of three different houses. We probably will go with the house that needs the most work. Why? Well, it's cheaper, but that's only part of it. There is something very appealing about choosing your own paint, creating a living space in an unfinished basement, laying out the use of the backyard for play and beauty. As I realized we would be happier having more input into our surroundings, I realized that God gives us a house (a life) gives us instructions as to what works best, then lets us choose our own surroundings. Right? He gives us the framework and lets us do the decorating. Pretty cool, if we make the right choices. And if we don't well, we can paint over the purple wall striped with sunset orange and try again.