Pressing On

Hey, everyone. Robin here. I’m blogging today in Deborah Raney’s place. She suffered the loss of two loved ones recently. Please keep her in your prayers as she and her husband walk through this time of grief and remembrance.

Deb, we love you so much.

I can’t believe we are already well into the second month of 2021. January went by me in a blur. How about all of you?

I’ve been writing up a storm, and as I write this post, I am within a few days of typing The End on another book (I hope, I hope, I hope). I have loved writing this story and look forward to sharing more about it with you in the future.

On the first of February, I received the first pass pages of Make You Feel My Love. Proofing these pages is the author’s last chance to catch typos and fix other minor mistakes in a book before it goes to print. So I am working my way through the manuscript this one last time so I can get the changes back to my publisher by their deadline.

Coming in July 2021

I read first pass pages on my iPad using a wonderful app called Goodreader. It allows me to mark up the manuscript in various ways (you can do the same thing in other apps like Adobe Acrobat).

Goodreader app

But the beauty of Goodreader is that, with one click, you can export all of the changes into the body of an email, along with page numbers (see examples). Plus it will attach a copy of the annotated PDF to that email.

Corrections on the PDF fileExample of how the email I send to my publisher looks

Okay, I confess. I am a bit of a nerd as well as an app junkie. But when I find an app for my iPad, iPhone, and/or MacBook that makes my life easier or better in some way, I sure am happy about it, and I love to share it with others.

Finally, I am beginning every day listening to the Breathe Bible audiobook of the New Testament (NLT). It’s performed by a number of actors you might recognize, including Kevin Sorbo, Josh Lucas, Ashley Judd, and John Rhys-Davies.

I am loving listening to the Word in those early morning hours, and I do recommend this performance version of the New Testament to you.

And I will leave you with this. Yesterday, as I wrote a key scene, a verse popped into my head, and I knew it was part of the lesson my protagonist needed to learn at that crucial moment.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:13-14, NASB95

As usual, God’s word spoke to me as well as to my protagonist. In a turbulent world, I need to press on toward the upward call of God. And I get to press on with wonderful friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, walking beside me. What a blessing.

Until next time,
~robin