100 New Beginnings: Your Chance to Be a Winner

Well folks, here we are. After reading 100 memoirs, writing 400 blog posts, and drafting page after page of memoir, we are entering the last trimester of labor. 100 Days Until Launch. Yea!

Celebrating 100 Days to Launch

Thank you, thank you, for sustaining me thus far.

The best is yet to be. The goal has always been more than writing a book. Since building community (ubuntu) has been the goal all along, I invite you to enter into a challenge with me.

Fill in this blank. At the end of 100 days I want ______________.

Personally, I want to feel rested, trim, fit, and ready for a marathon fall. I also want to experience gelassenheit.

Whoa, you say. What’s that?

Gelassenheit means yieldedness or submission to God and to community. It was a favorite word of the Anabaptists (original name of both Mennonites and Amish). It can also mean “letting go.”

In other words, I want to work hard and play hard and underneath all the effort, I want to rest in the everlasting arms of God.

If I am going to fill in my own blank and achieve these goals, I need to take small steps every day.

So will you.

Follow me to the new 100 Beginnings Challenge Page to learn more. There’s a pretty sweet prize here for the lucky winner.

 

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Shirley Showalter

11 Comments

  1. Kathleen Pooler on June 4, 2013 at 11:26 am

    Oh my gosh, Shirley, such synchrony ( is that the word?) for all these numbers and events leading you to your launch. You certainly are building up the interest and excitement. It’s a pleasure to accompany you and learn from you. Count me in your celebration! 🙂

  2. shirleyhs on June 4, 2013 at 11:49 am

    You just made it a word, Kathy, and it’s a lovely one. You have been cheering all along in such supportive, helpful ways. I hope you know how deeply grateful I am. And also how eager I am to read your own story. I think we have many synchronous themes in our lives even if the journeys have been different.

  3. Melanie on June 4, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    I love this, Shirley! I’m going to think of something worth achieving/completing, and get back to you. (At first, I thought you’d written you were completing a marathon this fall, and I thought “so cool!” Okay, so a marathon fall is also cool.)

  4. shirleyhs on June 4, 2013 at 1:45 pm

    Well, writing a book is a kind of marathon, right? Since you are a marathoner yourself, I need to give credit to Brook Kreder who was the first to use this contest idea and to my daughter Kate, who did all the background work to make it happen.I think I’ll interview Brook about the comparison of writing a book to running a marathon.

  5. Joan on June 4, 2013 at 4:25 pm

    Love this, Shirley. In 100 days I want to: READ YOUR BOOK! Can’t wait. I’m with you all the way.

    Joan

    • shirleyhs on June 4, 2013 at 4:56 pm

      Ah, Joan. It feels so good to know you are waiting for this book almost as expectantly as I am. Thank you!

  6. Carol Bodensteiner on June 4, 2013 at 4:29 pm

    What a fun way to build interest (as if I wasn’t interested enough already!) in your book launch. I agree with Melanie – I need to think of something worthy of the challenge. I’ll be playing.

    • shirleyhs on June 4, 2013 at 4:58 pm

      I’m so glad you want to play, Carol. Country girls are good at that! Don’t think too hard about the challenge. I’ll be sharing tomorrow what I am learning from the first New Beginnings. They have already made me laugh and cry.

  7. Kirstin on June 5, 2013 at 5:25 am

    At the end of 100 days I want to have tied up all the loose ends in my copywriting business so I am ready to write MY words and my words only.

  8. shirleyhs on June 5, 2013 at 8:34 am

    Kirstin, I love the clarity of these words, which are clearly YOURS. I sense the passion that underlies them. I invite you to come back to the New Beginnings contest and describe your small steps toward this goal. Onward!

  9. Joanne Hess Siegrist on June 5, 2013 at 10:23 am

    My entry yesterday, T June 4, never got posted. Strange. While it must be lost in cyber space, I fortunately did save it by a fast cut/paste on my word file. Smiles – That’s where I archive notes for my later fun time retirement reading. Heritage Watchers regularly looks at published diary clips… and my file is being saved for such possibilities.

    NEW – Day 1.
    13 NEW replacement windows (Marvin windows) on our 50 year old home – that’s what I am getting this day. SMILES – No more storm windows to clean and NEW protection from sun rays. No more cords to break and NEW solar heat gain. NEW WINDOWS – Today’s costly but a big improvement. Cheers!

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