{"id":123,"date":"2025-05-31T23:11:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/?p=123"},"modified":"2025-05-31T23:11:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T03:11:29","slug":"lets-get-to-it-shall-we","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/31\/lets-get-to-it-shall-we\/","title":{"rendered":"Let&#8217;s get to it, shall we?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Enough dilly dally. It&#8217;s time I bit the bullet and said, &#8220;I&#8217;m making this website thing happen.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Guys, you must understand:  I am not tech savvy. I&#8217;m a creative, through and through, and understanding how websites function is not my forte. So, rather than sweating the details and graphics and cool buttons right now, I&#8217;m jumping in with some writing. That, at least, is something I know how to do. More website prettiness will come in the future (probably with the aid of my brothers, who know about such things). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"769\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-769x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-125\" style=\"width:281px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-769x1024.jpg 769w, https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-768x1022.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-1154x1536.jpg 1154w, https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-200x266.jpg 200w, https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/IMG_0974-1-rotated.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);color:#000000\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Oooh, glowy sunbeams.<\/mark><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>So this is me, here at the end of May 2025. And while it&#8217;s easy for me to look at these first five months of the year and bemoan the fact that I haven&#8217;t finished everything I had in mind, I can remind myself of these facts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8211; In March, I had a short story published in PRINT &#8211; not just online &#8211; with Twenty Hills Publishing. Their anthology <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Amidst Fury and Valor<\/span> includes my story &#8220;Icebound,&#8221; and 85% of the royalties from that anthology are going to the family of a young man named Ephraim who is fighting cancer. That&#8217;s a pretty cool way to remember my first piece in a physical book.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8211; I had a publisher\/editor\/author graciously take me under her wing to learn the ins and outs of editing. I&#8217;ve learned the differences between developmental, line, and copy editing, and I&#8217;ve had opportunities to put that learning into practice. A loooot of practice. But I enjoy it! And I will offer editing services of my own in the near future.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8211; I got my LLC paperwork squared away, talked business stuff with my CPA, and got the ball rolling on the website. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8211; I did a little presentation on writing at my local library. Yes, only two people attended, but it&#8217;s a start! <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8211; I had a piece accepted to Project Red with Twenty Hills Publishing, even though the poor story isn&#8217;t quite finished. It was incredibly encouraging when I sent the publisher a note saying, &#8220;Here&#8217;s my sad, incomplete story. I understand if you reject it,&#8221; and she came back with, &#8220;Yes, we want this. It&#8217;s awesome.&#8221; That definitely put a smile on my face. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8211; And finally&#8230;my book <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">53<\/span> has a home! Contracts need to be signed and things need to be made official, but I&#8217;ve been in talks with a publisher who wants my YA allegorical, God-made-me-write-it portal fantasy. This is so gratifying and exciting, especially considering the buckets of tears I cried &#8211; some from stubbornness, many from happiness &#8211; as I wrote this book. There&#8217;s still a LOT of work to be done, but maybe I&#8217;ll have <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">53<\/span> in my hands by early 2027. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So, yeah. Maybe I&#8217;ve accomplished more than I realize this year so far. True, I didn&#8217;t finish the first draft of Project Shepherd (more on that later), but that&#8217;s okay. Maybe I need to write this piece for Project Red first, seeing as how it takes place in the same world as Shepherd. Maybe I need to hone my editing skills a bit more, learn the business side of things a bit more, and get back to praying as I write a bit more.  These are all good things, and changing direction if necessary is okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes, we all need to take a step back and recognize the accomplishments we&#8217;ve made instead of regretting the ones yet to be completed. Celebrate, regroup, and move forward with the next step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank You, Lord, for all that I&#8217;ve been able to do so far this year. Guide me in my next steps and equip me for the tasks ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep writing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Megan <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>5\/31\/25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enough dilly dally. It&#8217;s time I bit the bullet and said, &#8220;I&#8217;m making this website thing happen.&#8221; Guys, you must understand: I am not tech savvy. I&#8217;m a creative, through and through, and understanding how websites function is not my forte. So, rather than sweating the details and graphics and cool buttons right now, I&#8217;m [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,11,12,14],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-author","tag-first-post","tag-writing","tag-writing-journey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mepwrites.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}