Sally's Christmas List: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Sally: I've been looking for you, big brother. Will you please write a letter to Santa Claus for me?

Charlie Brown: Well, I don't have much time. I'm supposed to get down to the school auditorium to direct a Christmas play.

Sally: [hands a clipboard and pen to Charlie Brown] You write it and I'll tell you what I want to say.

Charlie Brown: [sticks pen in his mouth] Okay, shoot.

Sally: [dictating her letter to Santa Claus as Charlie Brown writes it for her] Dear Santa Claus, How have you been? Did you have a nice summer?

Sally: How is your wife? I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents that I want.

Charlie Brown: Oh brother.

Sally: Please note the size and color of each item, and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money. How about tens and twenties?

Charlie Brown: TENS AND TWENTIES? Oh, even my baby sister!

Sally: All I want is what I... I have coming to me. All I want is my fair share.

(Image from here.)

Go ahead and visit my squidoo lens "The Peanuts Gang: A Charlie Brown Christmas".

For more holiday cheer visit these articles on my blog:

• Getting Over the Holiday Blues | Five Ways to Keep Your Spirits Up During the Holidays
• 28 Glorious Christmas Traditions
• Fun, Whimsical Gift Ideas for Creative People

Ten Inspiring Journal Prompts

There are many benefits to keeping a journal, such as recording your memories, setting down your goals and resolutions, keeping track of events in your life, and so on. However, a lot of people aren't sure how to get started in keeping a journal. My suggestion would be to scour the internet for fun journal prompts to help get you started.

Here are ten journal prompts to jumpstart your journaling efforts:

1. What's your favorite season and why?
2. Have you ever been betrayed by a friend?
3. What's the biggest lie you've ever told?
4. Describe your perfect career.
5. What is your fondest memory?
6. What traits do you look for in a friend?
7. What would you like to be remembered for?
8. Who has had the biggest influence in your life?
9. What advice would you give to your younger self?
10. What would you do if you won the lottery?

For more ideas on journal prompts you can use, visit "119 Journal Prompts". In addition, you can create a journal jar and fill it with slips of paper, each containing a different prompt. For instructions on how to create a journal jar, visit my Squidoo lens "Unique Handmade Gift: A Journal Jar".

A Poem of Thankfulness

Be Thankful

Be thankful that you don't already have everything you desire,
If you did, what would there be to look forward to?

Be thankful when you don't know something
For it gives you the opportunity to learn.

Be thankful for the difficult times.
During those times you grow.

Be thankful for your limitations
Because they give you opportunities for improvement.

Be thankful for each new challenge
Because it will build your strength and character.

Be thankful for your mistakes
They will teach you valuable lessons.

Be thankful when you're tired and weary
Because it means you've made a difference.

It is easy to be thankful for the good things.
A life of rich fulfillment comes to those who are
also thankful for the setbacks.

GRATITUDE can turn a negative into a positive.
Find a way to be thankful for your troubles
and they can become your blessings.

Author Unknown

For more gratitude quotes visit my blog post "49 Gratitude Quotes and a Poem Of Thankfulness". You can also donwload a free ebook on "114 Ways to Celebrate Life".

Five Happiness Quotes to Make Your Day

1. “The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others. — William Lyon Phelps

2. “Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don’t set any condition.” — Arthur Rubinstein

3. “If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing Double Dahlias in his garden.” — W Wolfe

4. “I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge.” — Willa Cather, My Antonia

5. “To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy . . . is to set our own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

For more happiness quotes visit my post "65 Happiness Quotes".

Increase Productivity at Work: Have Some Fun

In "The Levity Effect: Why It Pays to Lighten Up", bestselling author Adrian Gostick and humorist Scott Christopher use science to reveal the remarkable power of humor and fun in business. They argue that there's a correlation between having fun and making money: happy people are more productive; more productivity leads to greater profits.

So how do you introduce more fun into the workplace and thereby increase your bottom line? Here are five things you can try:

1. Turn the coffee room into a "Fun Sanctuary" filled with comic books, stand-up comedy routines on audio tapes, toys, and other fun props. Toys can include silly putty, Legos, crayons, wooden blocks, and even nerf ball guns.

2. Every Monday send out a riddle by email and give a small prize to the first person to solve it.

3. Create a bulletin board and have everyone hang up a picture of when they were babies. Better yet, have everyone bring in a picture of their pet and have a contest to see who can match the pets with their owners.

4. Bring in a cake once a month and sing "Happy Birthday" to all those in the office who had a birthday that month.

5. Do something together outside of the office once a month, such as trying out a new restaurant, going to a pub, or having a barbeque.

For more ideas on ways to have fun at work, visit my blog post "Have Fun at Work and Increase the Bottom Line".

Six Creativity Quotes to Inspire you

1. “The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau

2. “Creativity is… seeing something that doesn’t exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God.” — Michele Shea

3. “The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.”– Stephen Nachmanovitch

4. “We have come to think of art and work as incompatible, or at least independent categories and have for the first time in history created an industry without art.” — Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

5. “As competition intensifies, the need for creative thinking increases. It is no longer enough to do the same thing better . . . no longer enough to be efficient and solve problems” — Edward de Bono

6. “So you see, imagination needs moodling – long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.” — Brenda Ueland

For more creativity quotes visit my blog post "75 Creativity Quotes".

Marelisa Fábrega blogs over at Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online.  She blogs about creativity, productivity, and simplifying your life. Marelisa is the author of the ebook: "How to Be More Creative: A Handbook for Alchemists".

Subscribe to Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online for free by RSS or e-mail and you'll always know when something new is published. (What's RSS?).  Follow Marelisa on Twitter.

Making Your Characters Real

One of the most important elements of any novel is creating characters that come to life in the pages of your book. We’ve all experienced the sorrow of finishing a book and realizing we have to bid farewell to a character in the novel whom we practically felt we had befriended. Then we wait anxiously for the novel’s sequel so that we can resume that friendship.

How does a writer create characters who appear to be made of flesh and blood?

Although some authors prefer to come up with the basics of their characters and then simply allow them to reveal themselves as the story moves along, a lot of experienced writers recommend that would-be authors create character profiles, at least of their main characters. How detailed you make your character profiles depends on what works best for you.

What You Need to Know About Your Character

Some of the things you'll probably want to jot down about your characters are the following:

• Age
• Appearance
• Occupation
• Income
• Education
• Marital status
• Recent relationships
• Children / siblings
• Likes and dislikes
• Favorite music
• Hobbies
• Strengths and weaknesses
• Special characteristics (movement, speech, laugh, and so on)
• Favorite sayings
• Idiosyncrasies
• Birth date/ Sign of the Zodiac
• Knick name

Six More Things You Can Do

Six more things you can do when it comes to creating your characters are the following:

1. Write what a typical day looks like for your character.
2. Create your character's backstory; even if you never include a word of the backstory in your novel, if you know your character's past you'll be able to make him or her more convincing to the reader.
3. Create a profile for each of your characters similar to those of popular socializing networks such as Myspace, Twitter, or Facebook.
4. Draw a family tree for the character.
5. Make a sketch of your character so that you can get a better idea of what they look like.
6. Research your character's job or career if it's different from your own.

Character Profile Worksheets

Here are some links where you'll find worksheets to help you create character profiles:

• How to Create a Character Profile
• Character Creation Form
• Developing Fictional Character Profiles
• Creating Character Profiles
• Character Development Worksheet
• 100 Character Development Questions for Writers

For more tools, tips, and resources for writing your novel, visit my Squidoo lens "NaNoWriMo - Write a Novel in 30 Days".