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Better Than New
The coffee mug hung momentarily in mid-air, ultimately surrendering to gravity. The morning quiet was shattered along with my favorite mug (a not-so-ironstone cup), as fragments, shards, and coffee splattered everywhere. “What a way to start my Monday,” I muttered. Maybe you’ve had that type of experience, if not that, possibly a flat tire, a family squabble, or a dreaded phone call. Scratch that, dreaded phone calls always come at 2 o’clock in the morning.On my knees, hunched over my cup catastrophe, I simultaneously gathered the mug’s seemingly endless fragments, daubed up the coffee and fended off our curious puppy. But mostly I thought about broken stuff. All around me…
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Should Politics and Fiction Mix?
While bookworms consult other bookworms for reading recommendations, there is often a common caveat to these requests. It goes something like this: “I love the suspense or thriller genre, but please no politics.” Readers have valid reasons for avoiding the political. Fiction is often viewed as an escape from the problems of the world. No one wants to be lectured from either the left or the right of the political spectrum. So why do writers, who happen to be political junkies, inject their stories with political principles, and why is it important? Here are a few reasons to consider. Education Infuse fiction with politics in order to educate. There is…
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I Want Their Career
Who wants to spend their days daydreaming at coffee shops and talking about their ideas with fans? (Especially when the misnomer of a writer’s life also includes unexpected lump sums.) Have you ever wanted the wage of a CEO but the responsibility of a middle-schooler? It’s easy to wish you had someone’s house, but not their mortgage. And it’s tempting to desire someone’s career without having to spend the years it took them to get there. Do I want their career? Sometimes I think I deserve success/pleasure/ease without sacrifice because I received salvation freely. I forget that someone else paid for it. We forget that the free cost of salvation…
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The Bottom Line: What I’ve Learned in 40+ Years of Writing
The writing life is a great ride—if one can hang on. I’ve never liked roller coasters—and yet, that’s exactly what I’ve been riding for nearly half a century. How well I remember that glorious first book contract somewhere back in the mists of the 1970s. I thought I was set. I had a publisher, I had an editor, I could just spend the rest of my life writing the stories I was passionate to tell and—Voilà—they would be published. It didn’t take me long to figure out that editors change, publishers cancel series, agents retire—or even die. Life is unstable—and nothing more so than the writing life. Zondervan cancelled their…
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The Small Things
“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.” Luke 16:10 NLT I remember the first big party we hosted. I spent so much energy preparing, and it was a financial impact we could feel. Almost no one came. I would have done twice the work and spent twice as much if people came, ate, and enjoyed themselves. But, we wrapped up food that wasn’t designed to keep and sat down in an awkwardly clean house feeling superfluous. Some people feel destined for greatness, it’s a deep longing. But even…
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Writing Groups and The Writer
IdaHope Christian Writers has a writing group that comes together quite often to read, write, and fellowship. Why do established, mainstream authors suggest all writers join a writing group? Stay in a writing group, don’t give up, contribute, and you may be fortunate to find yourself like the man in the following joke: He pulled up to the charred ruins of his home. Smoke still drifted from the possessions they spent years accumulating. She stood out front, a pan of burned biscuits in her hand, a cell phone in the other. She sobbed. “I’m sorry. I put biscuits in the oven. The phone rang. It was your agent. And then…
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Unproductive
Maybe you are better at planning rest, but I feel like most of us mostly wait for mandatory rest, like illness. It was a loving God who scheduled a rhythm of rest in the Sabbath mandate.
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The Great Adverbectomy
When I first began writing, I wrote completely without guidance, operating my keyboard without training. After several manuscript rejections, I found much-needed help through a critique group. My first writing mentor addressed a problem. Since I had enough adverbs in my first paragraph to give an editor a heart attack, they were removed. Gasp. Wheeze. Whimper. I loved my adverbs. They were astonishingly, beguilingly, charmingly, alluringly wonderful.After recovering from the shock, I went home and held a small service in their honor. Lovingly, longingly, I took one final look at my Word document before starting my search. Weepingly, I sought for any word ending in the dreaded, tell-tale “ly” and…
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Writing Lessons from My Dogs
Sometimes, when I’m goofing with my two dogs, Baxter and Taffy, God will snap his fingers, hold his hand over my nose, and tell me to, “Sit. Stay. Listen.” And when I do, I learn valuable lessons. Almost every morning, I have the same breakfast—two slices of peanut butter toast. I love peanut butter. At one point in my (much younger) life, I was going to marry peanut butter. My siblings still make fun of me for this—I do not care. However, during the year I was working from home as a freelance editor, every morning Baxter and Taffy would come and sit attentively near the table, convinced I would…
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Write It Down
When you write it down to share with the Lord, he does not judge you or sever relationship. You do not need to fear his audience. It may surprise you to hear his voice gently expose what is false.
