by Peter Leavell, @PeterLeavell

You’ve a dream to write a book. Oh, what a dream! There’s so much to be grateful for when you finish and publish. Let’s acknowledge the awesome parts that will come about when your book hits the shelves.

• You’ll cradle your book like a newborn. 
• Fans will meet and love your characters almost as much as you.
• The validation of a company using your art to make them money is lifechanging. 
• Signing books because people want a memento showing they met you feels amazing.
• You read a review from someone you don’t know who wishes they could meet you makes you want to buy a plane ticket and spend the day with them.
• People listen to you. Honestly listen. And some even take your advice. 
• “When is your next book coming out?” A question with so much meaning and confirmation.
• Your colleagues are published and famous Not just people you look up to, they are your contemporaries. They’re the ones you hang out with now.

If this list doesn’t inspire you to continue your writing journey, then let’s go a little deeper, to the heart of the matter. Your heart.

Writing is a difficult endeavor. Combining your imagination with your emotions, you concoct a brew which magically relates a story. You’re sequestered in your laboratory of your own free will, attempting to control the laughter and distraction calling from outside. Instead of partaking in the joyful bliss of fleeting moments, you’re alone, pitting your wits against a blank page. Sometimes the ink wins. Sometimes the white wins. And yet, day after day, your invention takes shape and forms into something recognizable and wholly unique. 

Writing a story is difficult, with you in one corner of the ring, the work in another, and some days it’s a boxing match. While other days you dance like lovers. 

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful the writing life chose me. People know writing is difficult. You’re respected when working on a book. I can’t imagine a feeling of greater accomplishment than a day of writing. Also, I don’t know anywhere else a person can find better friends.

Ignore the feeling of self-pity, the emotions of doubt, the terror, the trepidation, and focus on the gratefulness that you were chosen for this glorious life. Writing a book, finishing, is an act that will send shock-waves through your world. Keep up the good work, and maybe, some day, I will get the opportunity to stand in line to get your autograph, so I can show my family I met you.

Dino Hunters: Discovery in the Desert

Siblings Josh and Abby Hunter don’t believe their parents’ death was an accident. After taking pictures of the most incredible find of the 1920’s—proof humans and dinosaurs lived together in the same time and place—desperate outlaws armed with tommy guns are on their tail! Only Josh and Abby know where the proof is hidden—in the canyons of Arizona’s desert. When an intruder searches Josh and Abby’s bags inside their new home, the two convince their uncle Dr. David Hunter to return to the canyon and find the pictures they’d hidden. But the outlaws are just as eager to find the proof before Josh and Abby. Can Josh use his super-smart brain to outfox the villains in time? Will Abby’s incredible physical abilities stop full-grown men? And will their uncle believe them?
Dino Hunters is an apologetics-adventure series aimed at the middle reader to help them trust the Bible from the very first verse.