My name is Kristen Reber. I'm deceptively simple. I'm going to tell you a few simple things about myself that will merely scratch the surface of who I am--this is largely because I'm not entirely comfortable telling you too much about my life on the internet.
The first most notable thing about me is that I married a wonderful man in the Manti Utah Temple on May 4th.
His name is James Reber and he is my best friend and new partner in shenanigans (we don't really do the whole "crime" thing...and besides that's just cliche). We have a lot of fun together.
The next most noteworthy thing about me is that I'm a writer. I've been published once in the Church's Ensign magazine, and recently submitted a book to Deseret Book. I should hear back from DB sometime in November, maybe really late October. I'd tell you what my book is about, but since this class probably has several writers in it, and writers are competitive, and DB may ask me to revise and resubmit it before they accept it for publication...well, I just don't want anyone stealing my idea in case I need to do extra work on it. Sooo...I'll let you know in November what happened with that! Publishing books is my dream, and I hope to see that dream become a reality.
Next, I love penguins. In fact, I really like all birds, but penguins are the most interesting to me. They swim instead of fly, they enjoy frigid temperatures (at least most of them), and they have the cutest walk. They do stink and they make horrible screeching noises, but we all have our less-than-admirable qualities, and people still love us, right? Anyways, I got to pet one at Sea World back in May. You have to pay $50 to do that, but for me it was totally worth it.
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| That's James behind me. And that's a Macaroni Penguin in front of me. |
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| James plays the cello and composes music. We have a lot of fun sharing and combining our musical interests. |
That's so cool that you guys get to play music together. I love the harp and the cello, and it seems like that could be something that really brought you guys together. Have you thought of recording your songs and putting them online?
ReplyDeleteJames is currently composing some pieces for the harp and cello and I am SUPER excited about one of his arrangements! He has some editing to do on it still, but once that's done, we're definitely going to look into recording it. James might decide to try to publish his arrangement, and if so, we probably won't put it online immediately especially if he contracts with a publisher and needs permission and all that. If not though, recording and putting arrangements online would be a fun hobby for us. I definitely hope we'll continue to play together throughout our lives!
DeleteKristen! We were married on the same day! It must be lucky! I'm looking forward to hearing if DB publishes your book. I greatly admire your determination to be published and commend you for your contributions to the literary world! I'm really looking forward to being in your group!
ReplyDeleteIt must be :). And thank you! Every bit of encouragement helps. I'm looking forward to being in your group as well!
DeleteIt's so neat that you're getting publishing experience! This last winter semester I took the publishing course and it gave me such a strong passion to be published some day. How did you do it?? Maybe I need to snap out of it and stop doubting myself. Can't wait to get to know you more!!
ReplyDeleteHaha, well DB hasn't published me yet, but if they do I'll certainly let you know how I completed the entire process. To get my manuscript ready for submission though, a big part of it was believing in myself and that I had something worth saying. A big help for me was telling others about my book and receiving their encouragement (genuine encouragement--not the fake kind that everyone can see through). I used to never tell people about what I was writing because I always thought they would say something like, "Why would anyone ever want to read that?" If you have something good to say though, people generally are interested and want you to write that book so that they can read it. If not, they tend to give you helpful feedback so that your idea can get to that point. Just believe in yourself!
ReplyDeleteFor the Ensign, my bishop encouraged me to submit my story about deciding to serve a mission. I basically submitted my farewell talk. Six months later I got an email from one of their editors saying they'd like to publish it, but that they needed to get it down in length. So we worked on that and a few months later it was ready for production, and several months later it was in print! It was a neat experience.