Emily Rachelle Writes

When I chose "wild" as my One Word for 2015, I wasn't expecting quite what I got.

So apparently a few readers of last week's post misunderstood what I was saying. And I can understand that; I was purposefully vague, but maybe a little too vague. Just know that, if you were reading that post and believed it was about you, it probably wasn't. If you were reading it and thought it was about my parents, it definitely wasn't. Now, on to today's post! I've decided to dedicate this month's blogging to the OneWord365: Focus 2014 theme. Today we have a word study, similar to what I did last year with Dream 2013. Next week, come back to hear my fellow students' take on "Focus." Enjoy, my lovely readers! focus      (noun)      1. a point in an optical system to which something converges or from which it appears to diverge      2. (a) focal length (b) the distinctness or clarity with which an optical system renders an image          (c) adjustment for distinctness or clarity      3. ...

Some of you, my lovely readers, will remember that last year, I began participating in the OneWord365 community. (For a refresher, stop by my page explaining what that's about and how I'm involved.) Last year, 2013, was "dream." This year, I chose "focus." I have not been as active on the blog this year as last year, and I certainly haven't shared much about my One Word 2014. But I've still been focusing on, well, "Focus." When your last summer at home falls apart, you can choose to focus on how selfish people ruin what should be your happy time... or you can focus on the fact that you've still got several days you can work to make happy ones just for you. When you start a new life at a new school, you can choose to focus on everything you identified with in high school... or you can focus on the stuff that actually interests you today, and find a new identity along the way. When you start fresh with friendships, you can c...

FOCUS means saying no.  It means giving up the things that eat my time but no longer -- or maybe never did -- seem worth it to me. It means giving up something I'd like to do for something I'd love to do -- or, yes, something that just has to be done. It means logging off LibraryThing forever so I can spend my time on sites I like better (or even offline entirely.) It means turning down a book review offer, no matter how great the book, because I already have a stack of unread tomes on my nightstand. FOCUS means living now.  I will focus on what the pastor is saying, not on my Sunday afternoon to-do list. I will hear what my friends are saying and not formulate my response before they're halfway through a sentence. I will log off the computer before my blog post is complete to play a board game with my brothers. I will attempt to slow down and actually enjoy the novel. “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather ...

It's that time again, my lovely readers. Time to pack up the tree and toss out the wrapping paper. Time to find homes for all those Christmas presents. Time to get ready for New Year's Eve! Along with a new year comes new year resolutions. After a whole year of honing in on just one little word, dream, I've decide d to keep up OneWord365 as a tradition. So for this year, my one word will be... What to Do With Your One Word Originally posted Dece mber 30, 2012 Claim your word  - with  free blog buttons  made by Melanie, personalized with your word to match your blog design (the images above? those are buttons she made for me!).  You  can also share your word on  www.myoneword.org , and link up a post about it on Melanie's blog  here . Wear your word  - on personalized jewelry from Etsy!  You might know of an Etsy shop that makes personalized, hand-stamped jewelry.  If not, here are a few I've found:  Tiny Tokens De...

Once upon a time, a teenage girl who liked writing and trying new things decided to do this whole New Years thing called One Word 365 . She wanted a fun word, a pretty word. She landed on "dream." She wasn't really expecting it to become a heavy word , a serious word . To that girl, "dream" meant smiles and laughter, anticipation and excitement, happy days and big, bright emotions. Sacrifice ? Waiting? That's not what "dream" was about, not for her. No, she wanted to reach out and grasp her dreams - today. via

Haven't read Ruth yet? No problem! Read it online for free now ! Last month, I set up a new Bible reading plan for myself. I'd been struggling to stick with my devotions, mainly because I felt like I wasn't learning anything or growing. I jumped from study to study, book to book, in my search for a deeper connection with God. Finally, I gave up on books or pre-made reading plans. Instead, I made a list of all the books of the Old Testament I'd thought it would be interesting to read. Yeah, preachers talk about how the whole Bible connects and every word is important , and that's true. But that doesn't mean every word is interesting or makes sense without extensive study and references. I wanted to find a way to make reading the Bible as interesting to me as reading fiction was. So I picked out the books of the Bible that stand on their own, that tell individual stories, that don't involve chapters and chapters of genealogies or prophecies that are beyond m...

The more I learn about literal nighttime dreams, the more I realize that my choice of dream  for One Word 2013 was way more involved than I expected. According to our memories, some people never dream during sleep at all.  Others only dream occasionally.  Still others, like me, dream several dreams most nights. According to science, everyone dreams numerous dreams every single night.  Some people just remember them better than others, and even that is often linked to what sleep cycle a person wakes or is woken during. source Have you ever had one of those dreams where you have an idea of what's going on, but your periphery is dark and everything you can see is foggy or dim - no matter how hard you rub your eyes or how many times you blink, you still feel like you're surrounded by a cloud of smoke.  Only once you've woken up do you realize it was a dream and it all makes sense.  Even then, you don't always really know what was going on in the drea...

Check out my interview yesterday at Zara Hoffman's blog!  I won third place in the story pitch contest at her shared writing blog, A Pocket Full of Pens . :) There I was, sitting in church on Sunday, just like usual.  Picture it with me: second red-upholstered wooden pew from the front, in the set of pews on the right side of the auditorium.  I'm sitting in my new black dress with blue and green polka dots, if I remember correctly.  In my hands is a copy of one of the INSPY book nominations I'm helping to judge.  People sit or stand scattered around the auditorium, waiting for service to start in about 20 minutes, and the music of the orchestra practicing in the meantime combines with the chatter surrounding me.  I tune it all out and dive into a great story, at least for the twenty minutes I have. You can see it now, yes?  As I sit there, alone and happily oblivious to the world, a young woman approaches.  I notice her standing in front of ...

As I mentioned last week , I just spent June 3-8 off in a beautiful mountain retreat in North Carolina called the Wilds Christian camp.  (P.S. - The fanfiction also mentioned in that post has a new chapter up !) Green Team Rally Well, my camera broke before we arrived, I got sick in the middle of the night, I almost broke my nose twice, and I went to breakfast and chapel in my pajamas one morning. But overall it was totally, completely awesome.

After reading Tuesday's post, you, my lovely readers, might be wondering... what's the point of chasing our dreams if we just end up discouraged, defeated, or in my case, overwhelmed? That's where examples of others' success comes in handy.  When we feel like we just can't do this, we look up to those who already did. I'd share the stories of these people, but there's so many of them, I decided to just give you the names and a short tidbit.  If you want to see the specific stories, just do an internet search or find a book about them at the library.  You're sure to be inspired!

Today, I'm just going to be real with you.  No glossy photos.  No smiley, happy, bouncy Emily today.  Right now, my life is crazy and messy.  If I want to be real with my lovely readers - and I do - then my blog has to reflect my life, messy and all. One of my biggest dreams is to be published.  As many of you know, I've been working on self-publishing my novella Sixteen.   This month, my friend and editor Rachelle Rea and I are working on editing.  With my focus on this book, I decided to look at everything I need to do between now and the launch date (the day my book comes out) and make a timeline for me. I ended up going to bed very late and very discouraged.

From  Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd: dream n.,  v.  dreamed   dreamt, dream•ing,   n. 1.  a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep. 2.  a particular sequence of such images, thoughts, or feelings... 3.  an involuntary vision occurring to a person when awake. 4.  a daydream or reverie. 5.  an aspiration; goal; aim. 6.  a wild or vain fancy. 7.  something of unreal or striking beauty, charm, or excellence. v.i. 8.  to have a dream. 9.  to indulge in daydreams or reveries. 10.  to conceive of something in a very remote way ... v.t. 11.  to see or imagine in sleep or in a vision. 12.  to imagine as possible; fancy; conceive. 13.  to pass or spend (time) in dreaming... 14.  dream up,  to form in the imagination; devise. adj. 15.  most desirable; ideal... "You...

This year, my lovely readers, many of you have watched as I set out on a brand new journey: OneWord365 .  I picked one word - dream - to focus on and live out for all of 2013 in place of New Years' resolutions, which often make us discouraged or overwhelmed. I posted all sorts of things at first -  What To Do With Your One Word ,  My OneWord365 Journal ,  Why I Love OneWord365 ,  How To Keep Your Word Alive , and lots more .   I've been thoroughly enjoying this new approach to life! But even with this streamlined method of changing our lives and bettering ourselves, I've discovered there's still room for failure.

Have any of you, my lovely readers, heard of the INSPY awards?  They're awards given to one book each in five categories every year.  INSPY is short for "inspirational," and is focused on finding good quality, faith-driven fiction.  The five categories include romance, young adult, general fiction, speculative fiction, and mystery & thriller.  Each category has three judges, and yours truly is one of the Literature for Young Adults judges this year ! I'm so honored and excited to be a part of this.  You can read more about the INSPY awards at the website,  http://inspys.com/   Today the short-list novels - five books in each category that are 'competing' for the award - will be announced!

Stop by the OneWord365 blog to read my official guest post: how to keep your word alive! {via} Dreams take patience.  I can't expect to achieve all my dreams and goals in one year.  I have to decide what's most important to me, and then I have to organize my time to accomplish that.  Sometimes I have to set aside a dream or desire of mine in order to help with another's dream, too.

As you read this, I'm currently on a bus full of kids on the way home from my first ever college visit in Florida!  Woo-hoo!  But that means I didn't get to write a Pinterest Report post this week.  :(  Instead of leaving my lovely readers with a simple 'on hiatus' message, this time I thought you'd enjoy reading a post I rediscovered this week that reminds me a lot of my word this year. I couldn’t even pinpoint why I was grip-the-steering-wheel angry, frustrated, anxious. All I knew was that my heart was broken. Not by a boy. Not by a bad grade. Not by anything identifiable. Just…Sky gray with hovering clouds. Stress of a semester rolling toward the end. Sense of accomplishment from graduating community college combined with head-whirling nervousness of looking ahead to university. I felt as if I could drive on into the unknown, toward the last exit I’d never before followed home. So many dreams coming true this year. Graduating with my associate’s degr...

Last week, I reviewed a book titled Wake Up, Generation by Paige Omartian.  In that review I mentioned her focus on the reader's finding his or her individual mission in life: The focus on a personal mission was the best point of the book, I think.  In my mind, my word for 2013 - "dream" - can be used to refer to goals, but it can also be used as another word for vision, passion, mission.  So this book seems to resonate well with my dreams of this year for me!  Paige also talks about this focus on life missions on her website:  http://www.paigeomartian.com/paige/how-do-i-find-my-purpose/ {via} Since I feel like this book and my discovery through it of my mission is closely related to my word for 2013 , I decided that today I would share my mission statement and ways I will/I could/I have already live(d) it out.

Wake Up, Generation  by Paige Omartion You have a life... how will you use it? Click the cover to buy When Paige Armstrong was diagnosed with bone cancer at ten years old, her entire world was turned inside out.  However, what she never dreamed even then was that a Christmas CD she made in the hospital with a friend would eventually lead to her being a semi-celebrity as a recording artist, world traveler, child sponsor, author, and more. Honestly, I'm not sure what to say about this book.  It was well-written, both in general and in light of its content and target audience.  I enjoyed reading it and thought the stories shared both to start the book off and later on to get readers thinking were amazing and well-chosen.  What I particularly loved was the personal approach Paige took - talking to individuals each made differently by God.  Another thing I appreciated was that, in light of how different each person can be compared to another, she cover...

After It's Official! and a hint I left in The Liebster Award, I have a big, big, big announcement for you. This is bigger than my first rejection. This is cooler than when my blogging hero wrote a blog post inspired by me. Yes, this is even better than when I received  my own newsletter column. And it's almost greater than the amazing, incredible, fantastic trip I went on this past summer. Guess what?  Seriously, before you read more, guess in the comments!