My Hope for Tomorrow

My hope for tomorrow is more bright sunshine and sweeping clouds drifting across a clear sky, as birds wing its’ breadth and awe, amidst the constant we know as time.  When the sun tires and reflects against the east, the storm clouds, crouching in the distance, move forward and as the storm arrives, it brings nourishing rain and cleansing winds, even as it sweeps away things we may cherish, it renews what is left behind with new life and sustenance.

My hope for tomorrow is a gentler spirit among men, a more loving heart and tender mercies, showing forgiveness to the unforgivable. Finding gratefulness in all things necessary or not, and a mindfulness of the consequences of all our actions and words.

My hope for tomorrow is a broadening spirit, reaching out to all men with open arms embracing kindness, thoughtfulness and love, with an understanding of broken hearts and dispirited lives; painful regrets and unrequited service.

My hope for tomorrow, as I lay my head down tonight, is to wake on the morrow to a world healed of its wounds, cleansed of its anger, thankful for its blessings, and renewed by the overpowering love each of us has to give – freely.

©2012 Linda Gatewood

Writing a Novel

I’m working on the third book in my Winter Secret Series (Originally called Four Seasons to Choose, series).  The first book, Winter Secret was released in May, 2012 and the second, Spring Promise, is in production and due to be released this spring.  The third in the series is called Summer Truth and, as any reader knows, in a series, there are always issues that need to be resolved and loose-ends that need to be tied up by the finish of the series. Summer Truth is the book that begins to answer some questions left previously unanswered and so, in writing it, I find myself returning to the first two novels to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. I only want to tell part of the truth in this third book – not all of it, because the final book, currently only partially written, will be like the fireworks finale on the fourth of July!

When looking back, I realize how many hours I have been writing; years in fact.  I’ve found that it takes about a year for me to finish writing a novel.  I think I must “chew” on it a lot. Recently, I was looking for a particular chapter I wrote for Winter Secret and when I couldn’t find it in the book, I remembered that I threw it out during the final edit because it just didn’t seem to relate to the section of the story at that time.  That happens a lot when writing.

I still haven’t chosen a title for the last book.  I haven’t found the right word yet:  Autumn…something?  Fall…something?  It must be a singular verb, for instance, Secret…not Secrets. And it must epitomize the culmination of all the books in the series.

Guess I’ll chew on that for a while!

©2012 Linda Gatewood