November Contest Winners and December News by Nancy Fraser

This year has flown by. I can't believe we're less than a month from the new Roaring Twenties!

Our November Rafflecopter drawing was a huge success with 2,832 entries!

First Place: $25 Amazon Gift Card - Nicole Martin
Second Place: $20 Amazon Gift Card - Rebecca Booth
Third Place: $15 Amazon Gift Card - Rob Hestar
Fourth Place: $10 Amazon Gift Card - Christy Meyer
Fifth Place: $ 5 Amazon Gift Card - Courtney Y

Congratulations to all the lucky winners!

Our theme of "Life Lessons" was well received and generated a number of great blog comments, as well as some awesome author giveaways.

It's time now to move on to December.

Our December Rafflecopter has 5 Amazon Gift Cards as prizes. Be sure to enter often to improve your chances of winning, and, please, tell your friends about Romance Gems—our Authors, our books, our blog posts, and our Giveaway every month.

Complete information on the contest can be found on our Monthly Giveaway page.

Watch our December Promotion Video, Candy Cane Kisses, and share the celebration with our authors. You'll also find this video and many others on our Movie Theater page. You can also watch our videos on YouTube.

That's all for me right now but I'll be back tomorrow with my regular monthly post. For those of you in the path of an early winter storm, stay warm and stay safe!

Nancy

The Big Picture by @SatinRussell #RomanceGems

This month’s Romance Gems topic about Life Lessons got me thinking about how perspective helps shape our worldview. There are people who excel at focusing on all the little details and lose sight of the bigger picture.

And then there are people like me who are good at seeing the larger whole, but sometimes forget all the little details that are needed to make it happen. Thank goodness we have both types of people or nothing would ever get done!

Photos are a wonderful way of illustrating this point about perspective. Take this top photo for example. What could she be looking at with such intent? Grasping the ropes so tightly, with her blue jacket flapping in the breeze around her hips.

Is she at the zoo staring at some exotic animal?

Is she on a balcony looking down at a crowd? Observing the people from afar, slightly above and slightly removed.

Or, maybe she's on an overpass somewhere, watching life and traffic flow past her.

Actually, she was a travel companion of mine in Ireland. We were crossing the Carrick-a-Rede Bridge. I remember the fear and trepidation reflected in her face as she stepped out onto the creaky planks.

She got about halfway across when suddenly her knees stiffened and refused to carry her any further. She stood there, eyes wide, breath suspended...and faced the true realization of her mortality.

With much coaxing and prodding, we managed to convince her to finish her journey. As her foot touched solid ground, her face broke out in a wide smile. Her cheeks flushed with an overwhelming sense of joy and relief — she was ALIVE!

That's how life can be. We can get caught going through everyday motions: get up, brush your teeth, take a shower, get dressed, go to work, drink coffee, answer phones, curse the traffic, eat dinner, watch TV, brush your teeth, go to bed...then rinse and repeat.

Little details. Mundane steps. All the while forgetting to remember the bigger picture. To stop and take it in. Hold on with both hands until your knuckles turn white and you have no other choice but to notice — you're ALIVE!

Be joyful!

Be thankful!

How about you? Do you have an example of how changing your perspective helped you though a moment in your life? Do you consider yourself more of a "Big Picture" or "Detail-Oriented" person? Let me know in the comments.

November tends to be a month to focus on anything good in your life, whether that's family, friends, experiences or all of the above. It's a time to take stock and give thanks for what has brought you to this moment.

Grateful, Thankful, Blessed—that's what we Romance Gems Authors feel. Join us this month in celebrating the Life Lessons we all learn. Click the link and enter our November Rafflecopter now for a chance to win 1 of 5 Amazon Gift Cards.

OR, check out our Monthly Giveaway page for more details.