My Mission Statement

I write to serve, to unite, to educate. I write to share literature and flesh out ideas that may be of interest to others. I write to document an emotion, experience, or a blip in time. My mission is to write in such a way that the reader is reminded that we can find humor in all situations. It's one of the great blessings of life.


Friday, March 5, 2010

Today's the Day!!!! OMers on their way to the Coastal Region tournament!

SO....Today is the day that all the Edenton OM teams make their way to Rocky Mount for the regional tournament. This trip is the culmination of months of hard work, sacrifice, commitment and heart. These kids have gone from being strong individuals to bonded team. Their brains have searched, twisted and wrapped around the problems from every which angle. They've rolled their eyes at their coaches, begged for snacks every 15 minutes, and kicked a beach ball down the hall. They've mastered spontaneous problems and bombed spontaneous problems. They've loved their scripts, hated their scripts, then tweaked it to perfection. They've been shocked when ideas failed and equally surprised when ideas succeeded. Through it all, they kept pushing, pushing, pushing it to the limit. And now it's time. Tomorrow, these kids will match wits against teams from across the region. It promises to be fun, exciting, scary, uplifting and heartbreaking for everyone. But through it all, there will be a room full of winners at the college in Rocky Mount tomorrow because every child and parent there has gained something important in this process.

Whew. Please pray for our safe travels. A lot of precious cargo heads down the highway today. Thank you for all the encouragement and support from the community and beyond. I can't wait to see the kids perform.

I dreamed last night that I was drafted into the army and dropped (literally dropped) with a parachute down into another country. We were told it was a 'classified' mission. It was so classified that they didn't tell us what to do or even what country it was. Oddly, I met up with my writing friend, Jody, there. We took up residence in a little hut and did what we always do--write.

I've had all these wierd dreams about writing this week. For example, another night, I dreamed that my agent said an editor really wanted a book about a handicapped animal. You have a manuscript about a dog, she reasoned, can we just remove his legs? Uh, what? But sure enough, we orchestrated a shark attack to remove the legs of this poor dog, and the book was a hit. (particularly amazing and ridiculous because he saves the day by swimming to shore in a big storm--wonder how that worked? Did he float? Did they send him with a sling shot? Shoot him out of a cannon? It is set in 1832...)

So I guess I have some anxiety about these manuscripts out there in the world and whether anyone is going to like one or not! But here's the beauty of it, there's nothing I can do about it. So I just keep writing in my hut (okay, sunroom) out in the middle of an unknown country (aka Edenton). And much like my dream where I'm dropped from the sky with a mystery mission, I plug along trying to do the very best work I can. God (and my agent) takes it from there.

Have a wonderful week-end. Good luck and Godspeed to all four Edenton OM teams. And Happy 7th birthday to my baby boy on Sunday!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I like your dream--sometimes I do feel like I'm stuck in a hut in a foreign country with no idea what my mission is. I guess we might as well be writing.

--Jody


Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman

Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman