January 25 Newsletter and Extended Learning

January 25 Newsletter and Extended Learning
Saturday, January 25, 2025 by Cindy K. Sproles

Ya got your nose to the grindstone?

Mine certainly is. I'm excited. Stressed. Tired, and I'm facing life. I bet you are, too. Life gets hectic for all of us. A hint about my life goes like this. Book deadline to the publisher by January 31. Final edits and polishing for novel finish by January 30. Daily (and multiple calls from my 98-year-old momma, who finds running out of tissue a disaster. The Prince had surgery on his arm. The mentoring and editing business is growing, work, work, work. Prepare to teach Bible study. Send new submissions to Guideposts. Gather tax information. PAY taxes. Where's my glasses? Sleep? You get it, I'm sure.

We're all busy and well -- life never really slows down so we put our nose to the grindstone. Get your sniffer ready, and we'll put you right in the business of this conference!

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EXTENDED LEARNING - Thank you to Andrea Merrell for this week's extended learning on losing the word WAS. It's oh so important in your writing that you learn those words that I loving refer to as real estate mongers. Think of your work in progress as a piece of real estate that you want to mow, trim, and decorate so you can put that FOR SALE sign in the yard. You think it's pretty until you back out of the driveway and see weeds growing in the cracks of the sidewalks -- real estate mongers. No one wants to buy weedy property. You're welcome for that very descriptive analogy. :) Visit our blog and take time to learn about how to GET RID OF THE WORD WAS. I really hope you take the time to look over these posts. Andrea and Denise work hard to add that extra learning for your pre-conference.

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TA-DA I Have Our Housing Location - This week, Terri and I were able to Zoom with our event planner at the Cove. This conference has been rolling for eighteen years, and certain things run like well-oiled wheels and then there are always bumps, and we do our best to avoid those. Hence, the meeting is one month prior to conference time. We iron out all the little details about logistics -- rooms, chairs, sound, aspirin (lol). All the things you are not aware of.

That said, we will be staying in Shepherd's Inn, which is the hotel directly adjacent to the Training Center. Yay! It is literally only steps to the training center, and if you take the elevator to the first floor of the hotel, you can walk under the covered walkway directly into the lower level of the Cove. Take the stairs up to the main floor, where meals are held, and the elevator for the trek to the 3rd floor, where we meet.

Here are a few details about Shepherd's Inn. If you are flying into Asheville and need to leave your bags inside the lobby, they will be perfectly safe. We are slated to be the only conference on-site. There are Cove employees in the hotel lobby all day, so you can park your luggage by the fireplace and know they will be safe until check-in. If you are NOT flying into Asheville, leave your bags in the car until time for check in. This prevents clutter, falls, and, well, chaos. If you can imagine dumping a full airplane's underbelly of luggage into a lobby, then you can imagine what it would be like. So, leave your luggage in the car. You'll have time after early bird classes to grab your luggage and go to your room.

Now that said, as we are leaving, there is a conference checking out. So there will be a little congestion. The Cove employees have to turn these rooms around quickly. We ask for your patience.

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WHEN YOU ARRIVE - Go to the lobby in Shepherd's Inn, and meet Andrea and Denise. They'll give you your packet (Which isn't much. We try to go green and avoid as much paper as possible.) Those ladies will have you sign our liability letter for the event insurance, and they'll give you your nametag and lanyard. Hopefully, our pens will arrive so you have a nice pen to use. Once you have your nametag, you can head to the early bird classes on the 3rd floor. REMEMBER, you must wear your nametag at all times. It's your meal ticket, your admittance to the conference, and your security clearance for the 3rd floor.

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THE BOOKSTORE AND BOB BOX - Our bookstore gals will be feverishly working to set up the bookstore. Books will not be for sale on Friday afternoon. Our gals have to inventory everything, so be patient. We will be selling pre-orders Friday afternoon for our MP3s of the conference, and if you'd like to hold your name on a slot for on-campus next year, you can pay a $25 deposit. That deposit is subtracted from your room total when we bill invoices next year. However, if you do not attend and we do not have a response from you when we contact you for verification for the 2026 conference (usually in August), then the $25 goes into our scholarship fund. And, of course, our mission for the weekend is to help Bob Hostetler raise funds on behalf of his grands for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Please feel free to give to our mission. We believe that God has blessed us and that we are called to help those in need. If you see fit and are able, give to our Bob Box. Christian Devotions matches the amount in the Bob Box at the end of the conference.

I have had several ask if we are donating money to the Cove for their help with relief from Hurricane Helene. We have given a lot of support to victims of Helene to the tune of $6000 in a fund raiser. We have been able to be boots on the ground in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee by supporting small business contractors who have personally helped some of our faculty that required assistance. We've been and remain very active in donating and helping where we can in Hurricane Helene relief. We felt it best for our conference to remain true to our commitment to also help the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

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Our Insurance Liability Letter - This letter is posted at the bottom of our CONFERENCE UPDATE PAGE so that you are able to read it in advance.

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THE CONFERENCE UPDATE PAGE - This page is up and active on the website. Please note, that this page will continue to update with information you may need for check-in and conference attendance. I encourage you to check it weekly and a couple of weeks before the conference, check it frequently.

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JUST AN FYI - It's wonderful to see so many of you step out on faith and enter the Sparrow Award and The Kingdom Contests. I am so proud of you. However, just a tiny detail that literally 90% of you missed. It's so tiny, but oh my, it is very important. What could it be?

Well, it's a tiny thing called your name. Yep, 90% of you failed to put your name on your entry. Don't worry, our contest directors stepped up, but just an FYI. Anytime you enter a contest - put your name on your entry. :)

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And finally,

Keep Your Nose to the Grindstone

As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. - John 9:4 NIV

My mom is the greatest, though I will say her 98 years are taking a toll on me and my brother. She is in assistive living, and though she is in amazing health and turning out a quilt every other month, we see her body grow frailer by the month. She hardly eats enough to keep a bird alive, and her biggest worry is that she'll run out of prune juice or thread. (If only those were my worries!)

Still, my momma is the last of seven siblings. She's the matriarch, and there are times I see a certain loneliness in her. Still, she "bucks up and keeps her nose to the grindstone." That's what we do in the mountains -- buck up and keep at it.

Mom and Dad raised me with an incredible work ethic an,d honestly, almost to a fault. When I got my first job, Mom reminded me to be fifteen minutes early and the last to leave. I've maintained that ethic my entire life. So, when an entire host of deadlines, appointments, surgeries, and editing work dumped in on me, a friend sweetly took my arm and offered me some advice.

"You need to take a break before you break," she said. I smiled and thanked her and then asked if she had time to help me with putting a quilt together for Mom. I think it occurred to her that my work never seems to end.

John hardly slowed down, either. He told folks that as long as there was kingdom work to be done, he'd be at it. "Night is coming when no one can work." I fully understand his work ethic and his desire to spread the Word.

Though I make every effort to keep hard at work on my calling as a writer, sometimes life throws me for a loop. It's important that you keep your eye on the finish line. That you continually work toward that kingdom work God has assigned you, but it's also important that you rest. I take weekends off and pretty much play catchup on Elsbeth, High Priority, and NCIS. I call my boys and do things that bring me inner peace, but when the time to work arrives, I answer the call and keep my nose to the grindstone.

Learning that balance is important. Answering your call to write is important, too, so don't forget it when life gets hard. You may find there is great peace when you are writing for the Lord.

Prepare for the conference. As my grandma used to say, "Line the ducks up and don't let Uncle Don shoot one. I don't want duck for supper." I was never fully sure I understood that but the gest was that I keep at the work and not let one thing fall through the crack. God has blessed us. Work for the night is coming when man's work is done (from the hymn Work for the Night is Coming). God's work is never done.

(P.S. - typos, commas, and goof-ups are courtesy of autocorrect - for the most part.)

Much Love,

Cindy