What a response! {CELEBRATE This Week: 218}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

I have this belief about blogging -- really about life -- that we shouldn't make things more complicated than they need to be. I sit here torn about celebrating #EnticingWriters for another week. It feels a little haughty.

I cycle through the week and make a list of celebrations -- there are many. I sit here torn about celebrating something other than #EnticingWriters because it feels a little inauthentic.

Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers was released last week and the responses from the field have soothed my tattered writer's heart. You are so kind.

This is the hardest thing I've ever written. I wanted to write truth, but not just things that are true for me. I wanted Universal Truth. Until this week, I wondered if I hit the mark. Is it just a book full of stories or is it a book that will be a catalyst for change? 

I've been sending links of the sweet things to my parents. Andy has been following along in social media. I keep coming across these beautiful images of my words or quotes from the book and my usual response is: "I can't believe I wrote that."

Clare and Tammy's book review made me teary.

When you read something written from the heart, it takes your breath away.   The stories the writer shares draw you in and lines from the text replay in your head long after you finished reading.  We often get this feeling when we read a memoir, a story, or a poem, but a professional book?  Yes, when we read Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers it took our breath away. 

Michelle's sweet opening to her interview made pushing through the draft worth it.

There are many professional development books available to learn about mastering our craft of teaching.  However, there are only a few that make a true impact -- and this is one book that weaves raw truth, research, practical ideas, and story all in one {cute} little package. 

I feel so humbled and grateful that my stories are making things different in your corner of the world. I appreciated Leigh Anne opening her corner of the world to us by sharing a story from her classroom.

This I celebrate: the hard of life is turned into something beautiful simply by sharing our stories.

Stenhouse is giving away lots of copies of Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. Just follow along on the blog tour and leave comments on the posts for your chance at a free copy.

Blog Tour Stops from Last Week

• Clare & Tammy http://assessmentinperspective.com/?page_id=45​
• Michelle Nero http://literacyzone.blogspot.com​
• Leigh Anne Eck http://adayinthelifeof19b.blogspot.com​

I'm hoping you'll join in for this FB Live event!

11/18 (Sat) STENHOUSE FB LIVE at 1:30pm (CST) with Shawna Coppola and Stenhouse FB Page​

Upcoming Blog Tour Stops

11/20 (M) Mary Helen Gensch https://booksavors.wordpress.com​

11/22 (W) Jen Vincent http://www.teachmentortexts.com/​

11/27 (M) Julie Johnson http://www.raisingreadersandwriters.com

(November Newsletter -Write About https://www.writeabout.com​)

I hope you'll take time to celebrate this week! Share your links below.

#EnticingWriters BLOG TOUR {CELEBRATE This Week: 217}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers is going on tour! Check out all of the blog stops...not to mention I'm writing a feature for the Write About November newsletter. 

Here are a few of the reasons this blog tour spurred a little family happy dance in our kitchen.

• Stenhouse has generously donated TWO BOOKS to be given away at each stop. Follow along for your chance for a free book!
• Along with the free book comes a free registration to my new course: Enticing Writers Book Club. It starts in January.
• Mid-tour there is a FACEBOOK LIVE event at 1:30 pm (CST) straight from the Stenhouse booth at NCTE. Shawna Coppola will be with me as we talk about Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers.
• Check out a full preview of the book on the Stenhouse website. (If you decide to purchase the book, forward your receipt to enticing writers[at]gmail[dot]com for a free registration to my new course, Enticing Writers Book Club.

Here are the links to each stop.

11/13 (M) Clare & Tammy http://assessmentinperspective.com/?page_id=45​

11/15 (W) Michelle Nero http://literacyzone.blogspot.com​

11/17 (F) Leigh Anne Eck http://adayinthelifeof19b.blogspot.com​

11/18 (Sat) STENHOUSE FB LIVE at 1:30pm (CST) with Shawna Coppola and Stenhouse FB Page​

11/20 (M) Mary Helen Gensch https://booksavors.wordpress.com​

11/22 (W) Jen Vincent http://www.teachmentortexts.com/​

11/27 (M) Julie Johnson http://www.raisingreadersandwriters.com

(November Newsletter -Write About https://www.writeabout.com​)

I'd love if you would help me spread the word! 

Share your celebrations below.

Book Bonuses {CELEBRATE This Week: 215}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Last Tuesday, Stenhouse Publishers hosted me for a FB Live event. Each time I do something online to connect with teachers, I love it more. 

Seriously, it is SO. MUCH. FUN.

In case you missed it, I included an archived copy above. 

I was inspired to create a new course to go along with Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. It's the ENTICING WRITERS BOOK CLUB. The book club will officially begin in January, and content will release each week for 6 weeks.

We're going to have all kinds of fun. Each week of Book Club, I will release a video along with discussion topics. One of the things I love about book clubs are the side conversations. That's what this book club is about. Not only will we dig into content, but I'd like to share the behind the scenes details of my writing process, the inside jokes and the way my thinking has evolved since writing Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers.

There's a comment feed within the course, er, Book Club (!), and a private FB Group so we can keep the conversation going.

HERE'S THE TOTALLY AWESOME DEAL...

If you buy Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers by November 30 and send the receipt to:

enticingwriters{at}gmail{dot}com

(make it look like a conventional email address)

...then I will send you a coupon for a FREE registration to the Enticing Writers Book Club!

And another totally awesome deal...

If you buy Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers through Stenhouse (click here) and use the code ENTICING, you will receive the eBook for FREE! (This deal ends October 31.)

If you want a preview copy with shareable images, just fill out the form below. (Don't worry...you won't get double emails from me if you are already on my email list. My Email Service Provider is really awesome.)

Also, the full book is available for preview on the Stenhouse site.

My celebration is sending this book into the world. It's going to be a BIG BONUS celebration if everything works like I intend for it to work. Share your celebration links below.

Quirky {CELEBRATE This Week: 214}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Andy and the oldest three kids went to the Friday night high school football game. Sam and I stayed home because he's not feeling well. It might have more to do with his bearded dragon who died last night rather than actually being sick.

Sam said, "I could play video games, but I'd rather sit on the couch together while you write and I read. Do you mind, Mom?"

(I didn't mind.)

I've been reading Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal: not exactly a memoir since June. I haven't finished it. I don't want it to be over. I keep rereading some parts. I jump to new chapters every now and then. I haven't read it all. I didn't realize I was doing this, and now that I do, it seems too sad to finish the book. 

(I think Amy might have understood this better than I do.)

There are some bits called:

defining word.

I think I should write one of my own.

defining word

quirky

1. If you feel something, you feel it in

your heart and in your brain. You feel it

too big. This makes your eyes fill up and

your head hurt when your family goes to 

the football game, but you're still thinking

about your pet lizard who died the night 

before. You miss your lizard even if she

wasn't snuggly.

2. People often save things just for you 

that should be recycled because they know

you will appreciate the unique hinge of the 

box lid or the extra length of bubble wrap or

the odd size of a cardboard tube. You make 

things like giant robots and ATM machines. 

You add motors to ships and conveyor belts 

and airplanes. You create animals and race 

cars; machines and solutions. You might take

 over the dining room and tell everyone who 

comes in the front door, "Welcome to my 

inventor's studio. This is where the magic 

happens." Then you ask them to push a button

 on your Lego creation, which triggers a lever

 to set in motion a pulley that turns on a motor

 and cranks gears to create confetti. 

3. You can never have too much confetti (unless

 you're a dad...sometimes dads get tired of 

picking up little bits of confetti).

4. What if, instead of being enchanted by 

eccentricities and oddities, you conformed to be 

like everyone else. Maybe you would, say, only 

wear clothes that match. I imagine you wouldn't 

ever wear plaid and stripes together again. Your 

gym shoes would be white or grey, rather than fire 

engine red high tops that accentuate your knobby 

knees. Also, you would wear jeans, even if you think 

they are uncomfortable. And you would wear them 

with the button and zipper in front, even though the 

back pockets are more roomy and handy to have 

in front.

5. You sometimes get the sense that the important 

things to you aren't the things other people think are 

important. For example, it might be important to finish 

sorting all of the pieces from the Lego bin so you can 

make a candy machine for smarties instead of setting 

the dinner table. Even when dinner is on the plates and 

the plates on the table and your family is sitting at the 

table waiting for napkins and silverware and prayer, and 

you are looking for the remaining perfect piece to 

complete your candy machine, you still don't understand 

why they think forks are more important than the yellow 

Lego piece with the hole in the side.

6. You might smirk at the sky because a cloud shape 

reminds you of a silly fish you saw at the pet store last 

weekend. You chuckle at things the rest of the world is 

too busy to notice, and you never miss the oppor"pun"ity  

to be punny.

7. Theodor Seuss Geisel was proud of his quirk. Let's not 

forget his words -- "Today you are you, that is truer than 

true.There is no one alive who is you-er than you."

8. I like quirky. 

9. Always.

*****

I hope you have as much fun finding the celebrations as I did writing this "defining word." Share your celebrations below!

Friendship is Impossible {CELEBRATE This Week: 211}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Interestingly enough, I'm surprised by this post. A few lines in and I wondered if I was actually writing toward celebration. I wrote a little more and wondered if anyone would even want to read these words. I kept going and wondered where this was coming from? Why am writing about these memories? This isn't the kind of thing I planned to write or even typically write. Why are the words stacking up like this? Am I anywhere near celebration?

A few more lines and I wrote "and belonged everywhere and nowhere all at the same time." And just like that -- a slip, slap, loop -- I was reminded of a Maya Angelou quote that I read in Brene Brown's new book.

You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.

I realized I'm writing like Brene. I didn't set out to write like Brene. I didn't even want to write like Brene. But the words were stacking up and I decided to keep going...and push toward celebration. It may or may not be worth the read.

It was worth the writing, though. I'm reminded that sometimes the most important stories are the ones we don't even know we are carrying around with us. I'm reminded that what we read matters to how we write. And, most importantly, I'm reminded that a writing habit is the most important thing about being a writer.

********

I've struggled with friendship. Do we all struggle with friendship sometimes? It's not easy and we can feed ourselves a lie that it's not essential.

Plus it's hard.

Being friendly is not the same as being friends.

I'm good at being friendly. 

Friendship...well, that's another story.

My whole life I've been really good at having friends for a season. Then something shifts and we take different paths. It started in third grade. My best friend decided to get a new best friend.

In 5th grade the bestest friend a kid could want moved into my class. We were a solid pair...until she moved away in seventh grade. 

I was friends with my cheer squad in 8th grade, but didn't make the cut in high school. They stopped being my friends.

I made new friends in high school, they were from the other middle school in our district. We had a lot of fun. One of my high school friends was my roommate our freshman year in college. She missed her boyfriend and went home. The rest of us went to different colleges. It was like different planets.

College brought more solid friends for the road. And graduation led to goodbyes. A new job and new friends. Then I became an instructional coach for the district and belonged everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.

We adopted kids from hard places. I didn't have energy to chop fresh vegetables for dinner, let alone keep a friend. I had some super friends. They didn't last through the first year after adopting the girls. I gave up on the idea of friendship, deciding I wasn't a very good friend.

My most consistent friends were the ones who shared their stories each week during Slice of Life. They were splattered around the globe. My writing group formed. We told stories and laughed, and I realized not all women are terrible at friendship.

I wish I knew when, but I don't really remember dates, and I wish I knew how, but life was overwhelming, being a new momma to four -- three of them from hard corners of the foster system -- but somehow I became friends with Becca and at the same time with Jasmine. They were from two different spheres of my life.

For awhile I wondered when our paths would diverge. It always happens with the greatest of friends. We walk closely and then our paths curve away from one another. Rarely is it because of a fault or an argument or a mishap. We simply turn different directions quietly and kindly.

Last week I opened up that kind of happy mail that arrives in the box at the end of my driveway. I found a card...

If this were the 50s, I'd bring you so many casseroles.

And I realized everyone has roads that are kinds of crazy twists and turns. The greatest of friends will have roads that turn away from one another. When that happens, friendship is about shouting across the distance and holding tight when it gets impossible.

Friendship can seem impossible -- but the truth is the best life is impossible without friendship. It is essential to a well-lived life. Throw yourself into being a friend and hold on when it gets impossible.

And maybe, just maybe, make a casserole.

Not Busy {CELEBRATE This Week: 209}

I'm glad you are here to celebrate! 

Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. 

Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

*******

Weekly celebrations by the numbers...

• 28 sandwiches for kid lunches
• 5 games, matches or performances
• 15 loads of laundry
• 9 dishwasher fills and empties
• 45+ showers
• 7 gallons of milk
• 8 dozen homemade cookies
• 23 cups of hot tea (all of the kids are hot tea drinkers)

We are in the thick of life with kids. They are active. They are healthy. They are growing up. I celebrate these numbers.

There are some days when I write an after school schedule so Andy and I can be sure everyone is picked up, dropped off and back home. Usually we have an extra kid or two to pick up, drop off or take home.

We also believe in creating space for relaxation and play. So even though the schedule sees to bulge, each of our kids has time to be home and do their own things to relax. Sam builds with Legos. Jordan plays Madden football. Hannah watches a Hallmark show. Stephanie plays with the dog in the backyard.

I convince them to go on bike rides and walks with me. We throw the frisbee in the front yard. They make dessert with me in the kitchen. We squeeze in a game of Skipbo before bed.

Andy watches baseball (or football or hockey or basketball, depending on the season) with his friends. I write.

This week Andy and I sat together in the tippy-top of metal bleachers watching Jordan play football. Stephanie sat beside us eating the second meal of the day out of her lunch box. Hannah was at work and band practice. My mom helped out by picking up Sam from tennis practice. They had dinner for two at Dairy Queen.

Life is packed right now, but that doesn't mean we are busy. We are enjoying each beautiful moment and holding it tight. Perhaps the number that I'm celebrating most right now is: ONE.

1 full heart

***

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If you missed it, last week I shared a preview copy of my new book, Enticing Hard-to-Reach Writers. Feel free to get your copy by completing the form below.