Once Upon a Time There Was a Blog

I've always wanted a blog. I had one once. I wrote two posts (or was it one and a draft?) waxing poetically (i.e., ranting) about education and something else. My husband read my blog, just to be nice. He loves me, but I’m pretty sure he just skimmed it. It wasn’t great. This one is gonna be much better.

“Why?”, you ask. I will tell you why.

This time I’m going to start by telling people about myself. I’m going to tell them my name is Amy Landis, and I live with my husband Greg in North Texas. I’m going to make sure they know I have three fabulous, independent man-children scattered across the country and/or world at any given moment. I will sometimes show them pictures of my super cute dog Hank. People love dogs.

Readers will want to know that I’ve shifted through some gears in life—I dabbled in desktop publishing, I was a workaholic paralegal, then I came home to help raise three strong, independent young men. That instead of cruising into the next phase of life on Royal Caribbean, I decided to do a hard downshift and find a gear I’ve always dreamed about—being a writer, and eventually published author.

There will probably be some posts about writing. Truth be told, I think I was born a writer, but now I actually write. I’m a writer who writes—that wasn’t an easy transition. I’m also a storyteller. Writers write. Authors publish. Storytellers tell stories. I’m gonna tell the story of how I wrote my first story, how I found my inspiration in a stack of letters from a mysterious aunt in Germany, and how I am learning to edit and navigating the process of traditional publishing vs self-publishing. I’ll tell you a little bit about my story, and how it turned into two books instead of one, and keep you updated on when and where you can go and buy them.

I also love history, and I did a ton of research for my story. I have found that most people like to know a little bit more about history, as long as it is in manageable, interesting bites. My friends and family call me a funnel, since I take in large amounts of information and parcel it out into meaningful chunks. I will do that here for you.

You might have noticed the three words underneath my name up there ^^^. ILLUMINATION. IMAGINATION. CONTEMPLATION. #goals

I plan to ILLUMINATE—to throw a little light on things and see what crawls out of the woodworks. Let’s look together at a person, place or time and try to separate fact from fiction. Sometimes it might be something we think we know about, but the facts are blurred. Or it might be something we never knew. Whatever it is, we will all know a little more about it when I’m done.

I’m also going to invite you to IMAGINE with me. Together, we will step into someone else’s shoes and stretch our legs a bit in their lives. I used to wonder what it would be like to be in a hurricane in a sturdy, safe bubble right on the coast, where I could feel the wind blast and watch the rain whip against the windows. I could munch on popcorn while imaginary palm trees bend so far I wonder if they will snap in the gale forces. Is the breeze warm and humid? Or do I wrap my arms around myself to ward off the chill? How much taller than me is that wall of murky, salty water? Am I safe on the second floor? The third?

In our sturdy, safe bubble we can CONTEMPLATE what life is like in a particular time or place, what we might say or do, or how it might feel. We can thoroughly consider life, and think about it deeply for more than a second while we drink coffee, or wait in line, or try to get back to sleep at two in the morning. Anytime.

I also love to travel, and I love to share my adventures. I recently went to Bangladesh and the Maldives, and I'm headed to Europe soon. I'll be blogging about both trips soon, so keep an eye out for those posts.

Last but not least, I’m a spiritual person, always seeking to more authentically know and experience God. That’s become a lot trickier for me over the last several years. There are things I thought I knew that just aren’t true. And there are things that are true that I didn’t know. I had explained and contained God in a lot of ways: a genie-in-the-bottle who might grant my wish; a Magic 8 ball I could shake and find answers; a Jack-in-the-box scary God who pops up when I least expect; an all-knowing, unknowable mystery God who is only appeased when I check off the right boxes (and someone told me the wrong boxes to check so I’m screwed.) I’m a work in process. I’ve thrown it all out and started from scratch. I am happy to report God is still God, and He’s a whole lot bigger than I knew. I can’t contain Him with my words, but I can try to give you a glimpse of what I see.

Any-who. This blog is going to be better. A lot better. And mostly because you are coming along on the journey with me as we throw some stuff up against the blogging wall and see what sticks. What do you want to know more about? What would you have done? What do you think? Which character in my story do you most relate to?

Come along with me as I blog about writing, history, faith, and whatever else sticks. Subscribe below so you won't miss a post!