Never Surrender Blogfest

Elana Johnson's book Surrender released June 5th! She has the coolest promotional blog tour underway and is hosting the Never Surrender blogfest this week!

In Elana's words: All you have to do is blog about a time you didn't surrender. Trained for a marathon? Queried agents? Had to study for an entrance exam? I'm looking for inspirational stories that you have experienced. Hard things you've accomplished because you didn't give up. I want to be inspired by you!


You can check out the rest of the details here.


Surrender? Me? No thanks!

*Not when I learned to ride my bike with no hands. I can remember the day my big sister convinced me I was ready to learn. It was summer, I was six. She watched me take off, going straight on her gigantic blue Schwinn with the curve of the culdesac looming and then WHAM! I crashed into the pavement and came to with a puddle of blood in front of my face. Thanks Jennie! I didn't learn the skills on that attempt, but I can ride without hands (and blood) now :)

*Not when I broke my nose. I was in a car accident when I was 16 and broke my nose in three places (forehead got a ripped up too, but that's beside the point). Because of this accident I had to sit out from soccer for 4 weeks, totally sucked! When the time came, I opted to play JV the first game back because of my fear of re-breaking my nose (or ripping open the scar on my forehead, but really I was just more worried about my nose) and ended up scoring a goal from mid field. This may not sound too exciting, but I'm a defender and I don't score very often, so this was really cool! That game gave me the confidence to get back out there and play tough. Of course, I re broke my nose on a girl's shoulder later that season and have done at least two more times since :) Oh well, I'm still playing!

*Not throughout college. I'm not one of those people who knew what I wanted to be at birth. So college wasn't the joyride I expected it to be. I constantly felt like a flounder, changing what I wanted to be every quarter. I even took time off to work in order to make money to pay for such floundering. Anyhow, I made it through and don't regret my decision to become a teacher (even though my degree is a BA in Sociology--makes sense, right?).

*Not during child birth. This goes without saying. It's not like once you get there you can just decide, "Nah, I don't think I want to do this anymore." Even if you've been pushing that 8+ pound baby for two hours and the bag of drugs hanging on the IV hook has been empty for the past ninety minutes, surrendering is not an option. Cort is beautiful by the way, even if his head was a little funky for a day or two :)

*Never when writing! We're all here, we're all working toward the same goal. I THANK YOU for your encouragement and support, your guidance and tutelage (that one's for you Cassie, are you laughing?), your struggle and conviction. You are my NEVER SURRENDER!


There you have it. Life's ultimate challenges--learning to ride a bike with no hands, broken noses, college, child birth, and writing (not necessarily in that order) .


Go get your copy of Surrender now! And you may as well pick up a copy of all of them while you're at it :)

Thanks for the blogfest Elana!

Here are others who have looked surrender in the face and said, "No thank you!"