Here it is! The next installment of the video portion. I told you I would introduce you to the people in my world.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
@donmilleris Manuscripts
@donmilleris's book Blue Like Jazz changed the way I looked at the dream in my heart. Donald Miller was someone who's writing style was much like mine and he had a New York Times Best Seller. You could get published writing the way that I did.
When I read his books it was the first time that I connected to a writing the way I connect to music. I am in love with the way Donald Miller puts words together. It has opened my eyes to certain aspects of life and how to represent Jesus, and God has used his writing to speak directly to me in an answer to life changing circumstances. Read just the Author's Note in Through Painted Deserts! If you want that story ask and I'll tell you. It's pretty amazing!
Hopefully, by now I have demonstrated my passion for Donald Miller's writing. I need you to understand this as to it is important to the next part of the story.
Miller has a new book coming out this month. Last month he kicked off a contest to promote his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The contest?
The Hidden Manuscripts. His concept was to hide 60 manuscripts in cities scattered around America. Each day he would twitter and/or Facebook the locations of two manuscripts and whomever got there first got to keep it! Each manuscript came with a letter from Miller which contained a cell phone number that the winner would call at the completion of the book.
People make fun of Twitter. But I LOVE Twitter. @gnay is hilarious and it promotes this blog etcetera etcetera! In August the contest took off and each day my cell phone would vibrate with the text that contained the coveted location. And each day I would hope that it would come to a town where someone I knew lived and could go get it.
Memphis: I sent an email to my Aunt Linda in Cordova and asked her if she was close to the location would she go get it?
The text came and she was across town. STRIKE ONE!
Nashville: Yeah right, it's the home of Thomas Nelson it took like four minutes for that one to be found
Washington DC: THE best person lived in DC for this challenge and she was one board. She was following @donmilleris and waiting for the tweet...it came...but only stating that it had already been claimed! STRIKE TWO!
One Monday I got a tweet to my phone saying that VA was tomorrow. I was like cool...in my heart though I was convinced that it would be near Liberty or DC or Richmond. Tuesday morning I was in a meeting in my boss's office. It wrapped up a few minutes after 11am and I came back to my desk. I checked my phone and there it was! The location of today's manuscript: 508 Central Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 Suite 106. It was 11:04 and the text was time stamped at 10:47 - had it been too much time? I quickly Googled it and it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
I told my boss I needed to step out for a few minutes and being awesome she said, sure thing. I hit print, grabbed the paper off the machine, and was out the door, praying for favor the whole way there.
When I pulled up it was a little strip building in an industrial/business district. I got out and meekly stood just inside the door. There was a man on the phone walking around who smiled at me and knocked on a door jam just up the hall as he passed. A blonde woman walked out with a warm smile and asked if she could help me.
"I don't suppose you still have the manuscript do you?" I asked her.
"Actually, we do."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've been waiting since 7:30. We didn't know how it was going to happen."
She and I chat back and forth and tell our sides of the story, all the while I am smiling from ear to ear. She hands me a giant manila envelope and tells me there is a letter to hang on the door once it was found. I smiled at her and thank her as I leave.
I got in my car and tried to text my girls who had been believing and trying to help me get it in other cities. I was shaking so badly out of excitement all I could get out was, "GOT THE MANUSCRIPT!!" Then I called my friend Matty, who I think we became as good of friends as we are due to mutual love of Blue Like Jazz, and hollered into his voicemail that I had gotten the manuscript!
I can't wait to call him. I can't wait to ask him how he does it. How he decides what goes in and what doesn't. I'm so excited to talk with a writer that I love and understand and see what ideas come out of the conversation. I received a lot of flack in college for my content and his content was a best seller. I can't wait. It's like a musician being able to pick the brain of Bono!
I still find myself saying, I can't believe that I found it. That I got there first. But I did and it's exciting and I wanted you to know.
Big week of marriages and engagements...CONGRATS TO ALL!!!!
When I read his books it was the first time that I connected to a writing the way I connect to music. I am in love with the way Donald Miller puts words together. It has opened my eyes to certain aspects of life and how to represent Jesus, and God has used his writing to speak directly to me in an answer to life changing circumstances. Read just the Author's Note in Through Painted Deserts! If you want that story ask and I'll tell you. It's pretty amazing!
Hopefully, by now I have demonstrated my passion for Donald Miller's writing. I need you to understand this as to it is important to the next part of the story.
Miller has a new book coming out this month. Last month he kicked off a contest to promote his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The contest?
The Hidden Manuscripts. His concept was to hide 60 manuscripts in cities scattered around America. Each day he would twitter and/or Facebook the locations of two manuscripts and whomever got there first got to keep it! Each manuscript came with a letter from Miller which contained a cell phone number that the winner would call at the completion of the book.
People make fun of Twitter. But I LOVE Twitter. @gnay is hilarious and it promotes this blog etcetera etcetera! In August the contest took off and each day my cell phone would vibrate with the text that contained the coveted location. And each day I would hope that it would come to a town where someone I knew lived and could go get it.
Memphis: I sent an email to my Aunt Linda in Cordova and asked her if she was close to the location would she go get it?
The text came and she was across town. STRIKE ONE!
Nashville: Yeah right, it's the home of Thomas Nelson it took like four minutes for that one to be found
Washington DC: THE best person lived in DC for this challenge and she was one board. She was following @donmilleris and waiting for the tweet...it came...but only stating that it had already been claimed! STRIKE TWO!
One Monday I got a tweet to my phone saying that VA was tomorrow. I was like cool...in my heart though I was convinced that it would be near Liberty or DC or Richmond. Tuesday morning I was in a meeting in my boss's office. It wrapped up a few minutes after 11am and I came back to my desk. I checked my phone and there it was! The location of today's manuscript: 508 Central Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 Suite 106. It was 11:04 and the text was time stamped at 10:47 - had it been too much time? I quickly Googled it and it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
I told my boss I needed to step out for a few minutes and being awesome she said, sure thing. I hit print, grabbed the paper off the machine, and was out the door, praying for favor the whole way there.
When I pulled up it was a little strip building in an industrial/business district. I got out and meekly stood just inside the door. There was a man on the phone walking around who smiled at me and knocked on a door jam just up the hall as he passed. A blonde woman walked out with a warm smile and asked if she could help me.
"I don't suppose you still have the manuscript do you?" I asked her.
"Actually, we do."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've been waiting since 7:30. We didn't know how it was going to happen."
She and I chat back and forth and tell our sides of the story, all the while I am smiling from ear to ear. She hands me a giant manila envelope and tells me there is a letter to hang on the door once it was found. I smiled at her and thank her as I leave.
I got in my car and tried to text my girls who had been believing and trying to help me get it in other cities. I was shaking so badly out of excitement all I could get out was, "GOT THE MANUSCRIPT!!" Then I called my friend Matty, who I think we became as good of friends as we are due to mutual love of Blue Like Jazz, and hollered into his voicemail that I had gotten the manuscript!
I can't wait to call him. I can't wait to ask him how he does it. How he decides what goes in and what doesn't. I'm so excited to talk with a writer that I love and understand and see what ideas come out of the conversation. I received a lot of flack in college for my content and his content was a best seller. I can't wait. It's like a musician being able to pick the brain of Bono!
I still find myself saying, I can't believe that I found it. That I got there first. But I did and it's exciting and I wanted you to know.
Big week of marriages and engagements...CONGRATS TO ALL!!!!
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