Category Archives: Southern Sands Newsletter

Southern Sands Newsletter

Blog, Devotion, Southern Sands Newsletter

The Wind and the Waves

Over the Fourth of July Holiday, I woke up to a radiant sunrise. I enjoyed my breakfast on the porch of my parents’ beach house as beams of light shot through the vanishing clouds, creating a sheen on the smooth ocean. It appeared to be a perfect opportunity to take my stand-up paddleboard out for a ride. I love the peace and calm of being out on the water, so I prefer a flat sea for my paddle boarding but I don’t mind gliding over gentle waves that lumber into shore. However, if the current is fighting against strong winds, it creates choppy waters that threaten to toss me. Unfortunately, when I got out into the water, I realized that I’d taken too long. Although the waves were tame, the incoming tide was relentless, and I could not paddle against it.

So often in life, we want excitement and thrills. Isn’t that why paragliding is so popular? (Don’t ask me. I’d never try it.) During those calm seas, we don’t stop and enjoy the rest. Even though it is a perfect time to relish in God’s creation and give thanks for his blessings. But when everything is going right, sometimes we start checking the horizon for storm clouds and miss a lovely day on the beach. It’s good to be prepared, but sometimes it’s okay to huddle under your beach tent in a passing shower and have faith that God will protect you in this moment and wants you to enjoy his extravagant creation with abandon.

And really, why try to predict and control the weather? If you live on the Southern coast, you know a thunderstorm can pop up without warning, like the one that just rolled over my house. I always carry sunglasses and an umbrella to afternoon swim practices. The good news for us is that Jesus is the same as he was on the Sea of Galilee. He is all powerful, and He controls the wind and the waves.

How do you prepare for Summer weather? How do you surrender control and have faith?

Fun St. Simons Island Fact

As most of you know, I just completed writing my sixth book, and it is set on at an Olive Orchard in a fictional South Georgia town. While researching for the book, I learned that Thomas Jefferson thought the Southeastern United States would be a good place to grow olives. Although his crops failed, other farmers did have success along the coast of Georgia and South Carolina. There was even an olive orchard planted on St. Simons Island near the lighthouse. It survived until Hurricane Number Seven in 1898.

Writing Updates

I’m so grateful for all of you and your continued support as I navigate my way through this writing journey. As I wrote above, my time off from blogging in June was well spent. I completed a very rough first draft of my sixth book that I’m currently titling Secrets and Love at the Olive Orchard. Someone once told me that you need to write seven books to get published, so I hope she was off by one.

In the meantime, I continue to edit and rewrite the three books I’ve written over the last eighteen months, so I’ll be ready when we get the call.

Also, I found out in June that I won first place for Contemporary Fiction at the Write-to-Publish Conference in Ohio. This was for my third Contemporary romance manuscript, so I plan to prepare a proposal for it over the coming months as well.

Thank you all for your Southern phrase suggestions. With the responses on Facebook, I ended up with four single-spaced pages of great sayings. Isn’t it fun to live in the South?

As I continue to work to find a publisher, I’m trying to educate acquisitions editors on the Golden Isles and would love your help. What are your favorite things about the South Georgia Coast? Describe your perfect day on one of the Islands. What is a wonderful memory you have of time spent on the coast?

I’d love to share why we all love the Golden Isles with people around the world. Please leave your comments on the website, so everyone can read them.

Southern Sands Newsletter and Privacy Policy

Southern Sands Newsletter

Happy Summer Friends,

It has been awhile since a newsletter. Hopefully, you have been enjoying the blog posts and flash fiction stories. As we move into June, I will be taking off the month from posting, so I can write a new book. I have spent the last month researching and planning and have completed the first scene. It will start on St. Simons Island but most of the book will take place on an Olive Tree Farm in a fictional South Georgia town. If any of you have any knowledge about olive farming or blueberry farming, please send me an email. It is so important to me to get the details correct.

Hopefully, when I return in July, I will have a completed novel. Prayers are very welcome.

I’m happy to announce that I placed seventh in the 18th Writer’s Digest Short, Short Story Contest and my piece, Avoiding the Bouquet, will be published in the July/August edition of Writer’s Digest. Award Article

In more awards news, my mentor and writing coach Lindsey Bracket is a finalist for ACFW mentor of the year. Also, Lindsey’s book Still Waters recently won Best Debut Novel, Best Book, and The Director’s Choice Award at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. If you haven’t already read the book, get it for the summer. You won’t be disappointed.

Lately, I have been contributing regularly to BoldCityVoice.com. I’d love for you to check out this site. Lots of good stuff, and I will be doing author profiles. Lindsey is the first one. Working with this website has given me the chance to interview New York Times Bestselling Author Rachel Hauck. She also has a series set on St.Simons Island if you are interested in a sweet romance for the beach.

Okay, now for the boring, legal stuff. As you’ve probably noticed, all websites that have newsletters are required to send one of these notices and put a privacy policy on the website. Just when I thought I’d escaped the lawyer’s life. This is all due to a regulation from the EU.

But because I love y’all and wanted to actually give you a helpful tool, be sure to read to the end of this newsletter. I’m going to give you a great tip for organizing your subscriptions. By the way, I truly appreciate the support and encouragement from all of you. I could not keep doing this writing thing without you.

Here’s the Privacy Policy and Disclosure information for this www.lesliedevooght.com. You can find the policy HERE. For future reference, this page can be found under the In a Seashell tab on www.lesliedevooght.com. If you have ANY questions regarding this information, I would be more than happy to chat with you.

Please know that I take your privacy rights very seriously. I never share information with anyone without prior consent. And if at any time, you wish to remove your information from the list, all you have to do is unsubscribe. This option is provided at the bottom of every email you receive from me.

And I know it works because a very few people have chosen to use it. Of course, I prayed for their souls and asked Jesus to help me forgive them. Perhaps, one day when I’m a famous published author, they will choose to return, and I will embrace them as the father did in the prodigal son story. (Please know that I’m being slightly sarcastic. Slightly, because it really does hurt when I lose one of you wonderful followers.)

Here’s the Important Tool to keep following and keep your inbox organized. Seriously, friends, I’m about to share a fantastic secret, so be sure you read the next part. And if you missed the last part, it wasn’t very interesting anyways. So here it is, before you unsubscribe to my website or any other website (because if you’re like me you don’t want to miss the one email where Lands End gives the 75% off coupon.), I encourage you to use a rollup service, such as unroll.me. This service is free and helps you keep your inbox organized. You can use it to unsubscribe, keep in your inbox, or roll up the subscription. When you roll up your subscriptions, they all come in a single email that you can quickly scroll through and only open if one interest you. I keep all of my favorite stores here. It also checks your email inbox daily and offers you the choice of rolling up subscriptions or unsubscribing. (Again, here is the link unroll.me) Once again, remember who is giving you this fabulous advice and how you will break her heart if you unsubscribe. (Just sayin’)

I hope you have a fantastic June and will be back with you in July. 

Blessings, Leslie

Southern Sands Newsletter

Blog, Southern Sands Newsletter

Happy end of January! How did that happen? I’m still writing 2017 on everything. My family went on a ski trip to Breckenridge, Colorado at the beginning of the month. Then we spent a week recovering from the National Championship game. Why can’t they start those things earlier?

At the end of November, my agent sent my first book proposal to several acquisitions editors. One of them said she liked my voice, which was very nice to hear even though she didn’t contract the book. We are still waiting to hear on the rest, so please keep those prayers coming. My word for this year is ‘rejoice,’ so I’d sure like to be rejoicing over a contract instead of the strawberries being buy-one-get-one-free at Publix.

I keep reminding myself  of Paul’s words: “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” Philippians 1:6

So while I wait faithfully and patiently (ha, ha), I’ve been binge writing.  I’ve found that it’s easier for me to write two-thousand words in a day than five hundred.  I finished a first draft of a book Sunday afternoon, and I am trying to add a subplot to finish another one by the end of the month. With long sessions of writing, I believe I’m starting to experience a writer’s high much like runner’s high. It kind of feels like being in a dream. Which brings us to another casualty of binge writing, persistent characters that want to discuss their storylines at three in the morning.  This results in me dashing to the kitchen to find a scrap of paper and a pen or a purple marker and jot notes. I certainly wouldn’t trust my characters to remind me of their brilliant idea, and I know I won’t be able to remember it.

One of my favorite parts of writing are conferences. I will be attending the Florida Christian Writers Conference a the end of February, and the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference at the end of May. Besides learning from professionals, there is time to meet new friends and enjoy old ones. It’s nice to hear other people share the same doubts and hopes as me. In preparation, I decided to have new headshots taken for my business cards. Of course, the day I met the photographer at Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island it was forty-four degrees and falling. I wanted the pictures to look like the summer, so I was in a sleeveless top and barefoot. I’m still surprised a didn’t lose a toe to frostbite, but the pictures are fantastic, so it was worth it.

I hope your year is off to a great start. I would love to pray for you. What is going on in your life? Do you have a dream? Has God planted a seed in your heart? Comment below on the website or in an email.

 

 

Southern Sands Newsletter

Blog, Southern Sands Newsletter

Big news for this month, Matt Damon followed me on Twitter, and I don’t need you to tell me it’s not the real Matt Damon. I’m happy living in denial; however, I also experienced a Twitter hater. Yikes! More about that later but still waiting on Prince Harry to follow me.

As October comes to an end, hopefully, it is starting to feel like autumn where you live. My family traveled to Athens for a UGA football game, but alas not so much fall there either. However, winter came to Jacksonville overnight this weekend. I guess we will just skip fall this year.

I am excited to share updates on my writing journey with you. In November, I will have my second flash fiction piece published in Spark magazine. It is titled Waterford Crystal Dreams. Carlton and I visited the Waterford factory on our trip to Ireland in 2016, so it was fun to revisit it as I wrote this story. If you would like to read Waterford Crystal Daydream, click on this link: Spark Magazine

You know you’ve arrived when you get your first hateful comment on Twitter. This happened to me last month over a re-tweet from Proverbs 31 ministry on prayer. I was stunned, but I figured I must be doing something right to get this kind of response. Are you on Twitter? If you are, I would love to have you follow me and say nice things to combat the bad. Leslie’s Twitter Profile

As I meet more authors and learn more about the publishing industry, I am learning how important good book reviews are for success. Hundreds of books launch every month, so a new author needs help to get noticed. If you read a book and enjoy it, I encourage you to leave a quick review on Amazon and Good Reads. It can be one sentence or just a couple of words. It won’t take you long, but it will pay dividends to the author. (By the way, if you didn’t like the book, it would probably be best to follow the time-honored advice: If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.)

Lastly, I want to say thank you to Amy and Joey Baldwin, owners of Boulevard Café and my mother Tina Kirby for hosting wonderful parties for my friend and mentor Lindsey Brackett author of Still Waters. It was a lovely day on St. Simons Island visiting with old and new friends. Also, thank you to my friends who read Lindsey’s book and came to our first book club meeting. It was such a treat to have Lindsey here to talk about her story.

My next newsletter won’t come out until January, so please follow me on social media for more updates on life and writing and please share things you find interesting with your friends.