National Reading Month

If you didn't know that March is National Reading Month, then you haven't been following my blog. Arrgh! Nevertheless, now you know. So what are you going to do with this newfound knowledge or reminder, if you already knew?

Read, I hope. If you've got free time and like to give back to the community, get out and read to a group of children or seniors.

"What are YOU doing, L.A.?" You may be inclined to ask while I'm all telling you what to do. Of course, I'm READING. In celebration of FINALLY finishing my second manuscript, I started reading back in February but my chalkenge for March is to actually finish as many books as I can!

Why? Mainly because I'm tired of starting books and not finishing them in a timely manner--not that it's a race or anything but finishing is important.

Here are two of the books I'm working on now:

Feel free to share what you're reading. Subscribe for updates and Happy Reading!

Yours Truly, 

L.A.

L.A. Jefferson Accomplishing Goals in 2012

Accomplishing goals is not something I do well. At least not as well as I'd like to. Aside from acquiring my college degrees by the time my youngest child started elementary school, I did manage to accomplish the goal of publishing my book, albeit with no time frame in mind which explains why it was a 10yr plus project. Therein lies my challenge:  Meeting goals ON TIME. However, a change appears to be on the horizon for me. Forget that I didn't make my 12/31/2011 goal for having my manuscript complete, in recent weeks I have accomplished two important personal goals.

Posted on the wall of my cubicle at work is a to-do list that I created to keep myself on track. At the top of the list was submitting my application for the 2012 Kresge Artist Fellowship due February 1, 2012. My goal was to submit my app by Friday, January 27, 2012. True to form, I missed that date, but I was on it the day the application was due! Who knew applying for a fellowship would be so stressful??? Although I didn't submit on the day I planned, I still applaud myself for seeing the application process through, not giving up considering this would be my third opportunity to apply for the $25,000 prize since learning about this opportunity for literary artist in the metropolitan Detroit four or five years ago.

The second goal I've achieved is becoming a literacy tutor for the Detroit Public Library Adult Literacy Program. I'm a week premature in declaring myself officially but it's as good as done. The Detroit Public Library requires its tutors to complete a two day training, which for me began last Saturday and wraps up this coming Saturday.

While this second goal has little to do with my building my writing career or platform, it's even more special to me than being in the running for the fellowship. For years I've been wanting to combine my love for reading with my desire to make a difference in my community. Becoming a literacy tutor will allow me to accomplish that. Because of my busy schedule as a mother of two and author, I hadn't been able to commit to the two day training session until now. Of course, there were things that I could've done on one or both of these days. But this time I'd firmly decided that NOTHING was of greater importance the training this training.

Now all I've got to do is transfer that same level of committment to completing my novel!

Reconciliation to Hell....Summer 2012
Free Excerpt