September 2010
Last to Know
31 August 2010
I don’t think I’ve ever discovered anything.
I’m never the friend who knows about great new bands, restaurants, blogs, travel destinations, anything. Even when I think I discover something, I quickly realize no, I didn’t. Like when I happened across a Sarah Dessen novel at Barnes and Noble about 6 years ago. I really thought I was getting in on the ground floor. Um, no. By that time she already had a wildly successful blog, and two of her books were being turned into a movie starring Mandy Moore. So…
This point was further hammered home to me when I met my new YA writer friend, Nicole. She’s seriously too cool for me, so I’m not sure that our friendship has much of a chance. For starters, she read Twilight ages ago. (I read them because I got tired of saying I hadn’t.) And then she made some casual comment about how she has problems opening “Word” instead of “Facebook, Pioneer Woman, Photoshop.” Which left me saying, “Um … what’s Pioneer Woman?”
Turns out it’s this whole phenomenon that I can tell, after like three minutes of browsing her blog, I’m totally going to love. And I’m so making this Layered Salad. Just the pictures have me salivating. (I’m way impressed by food pictures. I’ve tried and they are hard to take.)
I think my only chance of discovering anything will be if my daughter becomes an insanely successful writer. Because I’ll be able to say, “Yes, I totally saw that coming.”
Have you ever discovered a phenomenon before it really took off?
The internal and external of a story
1 September 2010
Today on Go Teen Writers, we’re talking about layering your characters outer problems and inner problems. Hopefully I managed to make a teeny-tiny amount of sense despite my brain only working at half-capacity.
Nervous blogger
2 September 2010
Okay, now that both my blogs are available for e-mail subscription, I feel way more nervous about posting. It’s kinda like when I’m sending an e-mail to a group. Even if it’s a group of people I feel 100% comfortable e-mailing individually, I have this panicky feeling when I send out a corporate e-mail. Is my tone okay? Will everybody get that joke, or just a handful of people?
In the past, if you wanted to read my thoughts, you had to actually make an effort. Now they can be delivered directly to your inbox. And something about that makes me feel like my thoughts need to be extra … something. Only I’m not really sure what you people want from me. Should I focus on being insightful? Funny? Should I talk more about my kids or writing? Have you had enough of my, “So I was at Costco yesterday…” kinds of posts?
I read that people read blogs because they want to know what their life is like. Here’s mine in a nutshell: BORING.
I mean that in the best of ways. I love my life. I love my family, my career, my house, my dog, my city. (I do not love my sleep schedule these days, but it’s temporary. Hopefully.)
But there’s a reason I can’t stand journaling. My life is not what books are made of. Nobody wants to read a diary of my day. Even me.
Just re-read my post. Seriously? 280 words on how, a year-plus into blogging, I’m still nervous and clueless? Good grief.
In summary:
You can now subscribe to my riveting blog by clicking here. It takes you to the Go Teen Writers site, and there’s a box on the left for both my author blog and GTW.
And unless you take the time to comment below about why you read the blogs you read, you can expect more of the same from me. Little of this, little of that.
Have a great weekend everybody!
What's Life like as a Published Author?
6 September 2010
I’m on the Aerie e-mail list. I’ve been on it for about a year now. For a while, I received e-mails on occasion. Then there was a drought for a couple months. But for the last week, I’ve been receiving them daily. What genius at American Eagle thinks I need e-mails about underwear on a daily basis?
Anyway.
Today on Go Teen Writers, I’m answering questions about the glamorous life of being a novelist. Check it out and chime in here.
A Living, Breathing Main Character
6 September 2010
My article entitled A Living, Breathing Main Character went live today on Novel Journey. So if you’re into the whole writing thing, check it out.
Also, Writers Digest named Novel Journey one of the most valuable websites for writers, so it’s a good one to bookmark.
Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!
Into life's depths
7 September 2010
So recently I’ve been reading The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. It starts out saying, “Superficiality is the curse of our age.”
It was one of those lines that I read over and over again – brain buzzing – along with the few lines that followed:
“Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”
It’s scary to think of myself as superficial. Sure, I can point to others who are more superficial than me, but them being more superficial doesn’t make me any less superficial.
Until I read that quote, I had this mindset of, “Some people are extra intelligent or discerning or deep, and I’m just not one of them.” I felt like I was average, and it was smarter to just be content than to frustrate myself by wrestling with big questions. To say, “I don’t know the answers, and I’m going to be okay with that.”
I’m now disgusted with this attitude and have decided to no longer put up with it. I’m forcing myself on a spiritual journey, and if you read my blog semi-regularly, you’re coming with me.
Here’s why the idea of blogging about my spiritual insights terrifies me:
1. I hate confrontations.
It really freaks me out. I’ll do almost anything to avoid it. But if I’m pushing myself to ask questions and form opinions, and if I’m posting it on the internet for people to see and disagree with, then I’m guessing we might have a breeding ground for confrontation. Although this is assuming that anybody reads this. Which leads me to number 2.2. This idea sounds like blog suicide.
Blogging experts tell us to keep posts short. Like 200 words, and already this post is 393. And it’s hard to cram big subjects – what does God say about taking care of the environment? is the Sabbath relevant to us here and now? – into 200 words. Heck, it’s hard to cram talking about future-big-subject-talks into 200.Also we’re supposed to know our audience and talk to them. As a YA writer, my blog audience should be teens. (Although I’m pretty certain my blog tends to primarily reach those with the last names of Morrill or Hines.) When I was a teenager, growing spiritually interested me … but not so much that I really wanted to read about it. Or think about it. Or put effort into it. But:
3. I’m taking a stand – yikes!
I was recently asked in an interview, “If you could change the minds of 100 teenagers about one thing, what would it be?” And I thought of tons of responses, but finally came back to this idea – that the world needs deeper people. And so this is me trying to help with that.And we’re not going to be sitting around thinking about deep thoughts just for the sake of thinking deep thoughts. Those are the types of people who frustrate the heck out of me, because it’s like they don’t even live in the real world.
We’re going to wrestle with questions that our relevant to our lives, that will help us to be more engaged with the real world, not less. I’m new at this, and I’m not really sure what I’m doing. All I know is I’m tired of being afraid of wrestling with big issues.
So let’s dig in…
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Enough is Enough
8 September 2010
As writers, we’re always trying to figure out when we’re “done” with a manuscript. Weigh in with your thoughts at Go Teen Writers by clicking here.
The Sabbath Experiment
9 September 2010
So this Sunday, my husband and I will be taking our first official Sabbath.
The idea of keeping Sabbath – a day of rest – is a subject that’s continued to pop up all around me for a couple years now. And then last Sunday, it popped up in the sermon at church and my husband and I decided it was worth a shot.
We went round and round about it for about 30 minutes. At times I felt like Ben was the one arguing against it, and other times it felt like I was.
The way our weekends look now are typically Friday nights off, and then Saturday and Sunday are a mix of hanging out and crossing things off our to-do lists. So the question that kept coming up for us was “Is it worth Saturday being absolutely crazy to be able to take off all of Sunday?” Like is there some sort of special ingredient in having an entire day off versus spreading leisure time over a couple of days?
I feel very divided on this. Part of me does the whole, “It was a different time back when God set up the Sabbath. Employers didn’t recognize the weekend the way they do now.” And part of me – albeit a dumb part – feels like people back then just weren’t as busy as I am now. Sure, they had to hunt for their own food, but I have a blog to run!
The other part of me thinks of when Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” (Click here for context.)
If God is trying to hand me a day of rest, why do I keep fighting Him on it? It’s quite possible that I need that day of rest more than I need to wipe the spots of the bathroom mirror.
Do you take a Sabbath? Why or why not?
God and Trash Day
12 September 2010
I planned on talking about how our first Sabbath went, but we spent our Sunday driving down to Tahlequah, Oklahoma for the funeral of my beloved aunt.
So. I’m not feeling particularly bloggy today.
But I’d already scheduled a post for Girls, God, and the Good Life. It’s about my daughter and how she always cries when the garbage men take our trash, and how I thought that was totally weird until it occurred to me how similar I can be with God. Click here to read the full post.
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What does your writing routine look like?
13 September 2010
So last week I was at the hospital and there was a Chevy Tahoe – not a particularly new or nice one – straddling TWO SPOTS right near the entrance. It takes some serious jerkiness to do that at a hospital. Especially one where parking can be tough to find. I felt deeply offended on behalf of the pregnant women and elderly people who frequent that part of the hospital. Grr.
Moving on.
Today on Go Teen Writers, I’m answering the question, “What does your writing routine look like?”
He makes me lie down in green pastures
14 September 2010
I feel like ever since July I’ve been in a pattern of catching up on e-mail/work/cleaning … only to be called out of town and fall behind again. And it’s not like I’m getting called out of town for fun stuff. (Although, as I’m thinking about that, do you ever get called out of town last minute for good stuff?)
When Connor was 2 weeks old, we dashed off to McCook, Nebraska to see my husband’s grandmother. It seemed she only had days to live, that she’d never leave her room in the hospital, and so we went. But God worked a miracle and now six weeks later she’s doing things like canning vegetable soup.
And then when Connor was 6 weeks old, he and I booked it down to Oklahoma to say goodbye to my Aunt Penny, who’s been battling brain cancer for a year now. It was a very aggressive kind of cancer, and they told us they didn’t expect her to live more than two weeks.
And on Sunday we loaded up 8-week-old Connor and headed back down to Oklahoma for Penny’s funeral.
One of the Psalms that was read during her service was Psalm 23, one that’s so familiar I rarely think about it anymore. It starts out, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.”
This was the first time I’d noticed, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.”
Makes me.
At first I thought of this being something God forced on David, the writer. Same as McKenna might say I make her take naps. She can choose her attitude – good or lousy – but the nap is not an option.
But then it occurred to me that I would also say, “My husband makes me weak in the knees.” So maybe it doesn’t mean that God forces David to rest. Maybe it means that when God is truly your shepherd, you can’t help but rest.
And as I’m staring at the 45 message sitting in my inbox, I’m realizing how in need I am of my sense of peace being something bigger than having a short to-do list. It needs to be something bigger than the laundry all being folded, ironed, and put away.
Because even if I take the afternoon to clean my inbox out, there’ll be messages waiting within the half hour. And each day produces new laundry. Heck, when you have a 2-month-old, each hour produces new laundry.
Today I’m choosing to trust God to shepherd me. I’m going to trust Him to order my day. All in hopes of finding the green pastures and quiet waters that elude me when I attempt to manufacture them on my own.
Dumb names
15 September 2010
It appears that if you own a gas station convenience store in Oklahoma, you have to give it a really dumb name. Here’s a sampling of the ones my husband and I observed on our two-ish hour drive through Oklahoma:
The Git-n-Split
The Kum and Go
The Hop ‘n SackAnd my personal favorite, The Hit and Run. It just seems to be begging to be robbed.
On Go Teen Writers Today, I’m talking about 3 things you should ask yourself before submitting your manuscript to agents or editors.
Happy Thursday everyone!
The Written Word
16 September 2010
Last Spring I did a Bible study that talked ever-so-briefly about prayer. It was a blip of a paragraph about how prayer should be life-altering, that it takes sacrifice. Then the writer moved right on to other stuff, leaving me with that feeling of, “Hey, wait, can we talk about that a little longer?”
My prayer life has basically been limited to praying at meals, praying at night as I doze off, and the occasional prayer of crisis where I have the kids stop what they’re doing and we take a minute to pray for so-and-so.
This is something I’m working on.
Progress has been sloooooow.
On Monday, at the service for my aunt, the pastor talked about what a woman of prayer Penny was. Which I knew, though I didn’t realize the extent of it. Not until the pastor shared passages from her prayer journals and it was clear how devoted Penny was to her conversations with God.
The amount of time she put into it … I’m sure it was hours a week. Maybe even hours a day. And I thought, “That is what the Bible study author meant when he talked about sacrifice.”
I wish my aunt were around so I could ask her how she progressed to that point. I’m sure she trained for many years to reach that place in her prayer life, and I wanted to know what she thought would be a good next step for me.
After her service, I was alone in Penny’s room and noticed a stack of books placed inside a glass-doored cupboard. I’m a book girl, so I went to see her selections.
Writing books.
My aunt never published anything, and as far as I know, it wasn’t a goal of hers. Instead she wrote privately for the Lord, and it appears she was determined to make it as worthy as possible.
I don’t know what the answer is for everybody in regards to taking prayer life to the next level, but for me I feel it’s writing them down. Everything else I write – e-mails, blog posts, novels – has a public purpose. I look forward to seeing what kind of fruit comes from using my talent for a private audience.
Have a great weekend everybody!
Sabbath Experiment Part 2
20 September 2010
So yesterday was our first real stab at keeping the Sabbath. It’s kinda tough for me to say how it went. To be honest, at the moment it just feels like it’s made my life crazier.
We’re trying to avoid being legalistic about what we can and can’t do on Sabbath, but it still seems like some lines need to be drawn. Like unloading the dishwasher doesn’t seem like a good activity on a day of rest. But you know what also doesn’t feel restful to me? A sink and counter full of dirty dishes waiting for their turn in the dishwasher. I guess I’ll just need to be better about emptying the dishwasher Saturday night so that doesn’t happen again. We’re learning here.
What appears to be my biggest problem so far is my strong instinct to enforce my opinions on my husband. Yesterday Ben was tidying up the place a bit. My mom and Nana were coming over; he thought it’d be nice if they had a place to sit. Anyway. As he’s doing this, I made a couple of comments like, “This and this can be picked up, but cleaning up such-and-such doesn’t seem like something we should do today.” Until finally this thought rang through my head:
You are not Lord over Ben’s Sabbath.
Oh. Right.
Yet this didn’t stop me from getting onto him ten minutes later when Ben opened the dishwasher to get out a couple clean plates. Poor guy, I came just short of body slamming him to prevent him from touching the dishwasher.
So we still have some kinks to work out. Mostly involving my personality.
Happy Monday everybody!
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Totally gross jobs
22 September 2010
Last week, I cut 10 inches off my hair. I didn’t want my hair quite so short, but it was close enough that I’d rather deal with the no-ponytail inconvenience and be able to donate to Locks of Love.
I just tossed my two bundles of hair into a padded envelope and dropped them in the mail. This is my third time donating, but for whatever reason this is the first time it’s ever occurred to me that some poor person has to open my hair envelope.
GROSS.
Maybe you get desensitized to the whole thing, but opening envelope after envelope of hair surprises does not seem like a desirable position.
What are some other icky, Mike-Rowe-worthy jobs you can think of?
Book Friday - Sense and Sensibility, Insight Edition
23 September 2010
Been awhile since we’ve had a Book Friday on here. Want to know why? BECAUSE IT’S BEEN SO STINKING LONG SINCE I FINISHED A BOOK.
And while I haven’t technically finished the insight edition of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, I’ve read plain, no insights, no frills S&S a couple times and feel safe declaring my judgment. Which is:
Love it.
You know what it’s like? It’s like reading the book with a couple good girlfriends. Who are well educated in all things Jane. And for someone like me who doesn’t have a lot of Jane loving friends, this feature is awesome.
The “insights” are written in the margins of the books and they cover a range of topics. Some are explanatory, others talk about film and book adaptations, and others are just for fun. Here’s some sample comments:
“This scene is only in the 1981 miniseries. It’s hard to film and not make Marianne look like a loon.”
“Propriety insisted that ladies not dance too many times with the same gentleman. At Sir John’s private party, etiquette was perhaps a little more lax, but they still were flouting customs.”
“Good for Edward. Marianne’s certainly given him enough grief.”
“No photographs yet. They arrived 15 years after S&S was published.”
But my favorites are the “ranking our dislike” comments from the editors. They look like this:
Ranking our dislikes: 1. Fanny; 2. Edward – did you forget to mention you are engaged?! 3. John; 4. Lady Middleton; 5. Lucy Steele – because we think she knows Elinor and Edward liked each other.
It’s tremendous fun, and an excellent gift idea for the Jane Austen fan in your life. As is this. Oh yeah. It’s a Jane Austen action figure and it’s 100% awesome.
Have a great weekend!
Cara Putman and a Giveaway! - CONTEST CLOSED
26 September 2010
“Well, well, Audra. I do believe you’re ready to take this matter to trial.”
Audra Schaeffer soaked in the atypical praise. While Roger Clarion was a good man and fair boss, he did not toss praise around for any and all to hear. Satisfaction pulsed through her. After seven years of school and two years where the only job she could find after law school required her to serve as a paralegal, Mr. Clarion had given her a chance. If everything went well, she’d litigate her first case in Superior Court Two in one month. A simple case, but it was hers.”
Cara Putman is here this week, and I’m super excited. She’s the first of many authors who will be here to talk about their books, and also how they achieved their dream of getting published.
Not only is Cara a super sweet lady, her latest release, Stars in the Night, a historical romantic suspense set in Hollywood in 1942, looks amazing:
When Audra Schaeffer’s sister disappears in Hollywood, Audra flies there to find her, but has to identify her body instead. Determined to find the killer and bring him to justice, Audra takes a job with the second Hollywood Victory Caravan. Together with Robert Garfield and other stars, she crisscrosses the southern United States as the stars sell war bonds. When Robert’s ex-wife and another woman are found dead on the train, Audra knows the deaths are tied to her sister’s. Is the killer is the man she’s falling in love with? And can she identify the killer before he targets her?
Doesn’t it sound great?
When I said to Cara, “Lots of people have big dreams. What’s something you did to help you achieve your dream of being published?” this was her answer:
Big Dreams are a good thing…they just require a big God and a willingness to dare big. I’m blessed that from the moment I got serious about being published, my husband was 110% behind me. He allowed me to attend ACFW’s annual conference even when I didn’t have a complete manuscript. Colleen Coble had told me I needed to attend, so he never questioned my need to be there. Fortunately, I received my first contract at my second conference, so he didn’t have to wait years to see fruit like so many spouses do.
But I also had to be willing to say that I was going to chase writing. I committed hours every week to writing. I made sure my behind was in a chair, my fingers poised over a keyboard, so that I was in a place where I could reach a point I had stories to take to publishers. I also committed to doing the hard work of improving. One thing I love about writing is that I can get better with each book. That means I take editorial letters seriously and try to learn all I can from my editors with each book.
I’ve been blessed, but I’ve also been very serious about chasing this dream. To anyone else who is thinking about writing fiction, join ACFW, learn all you can, and then commit the time to writing that it requires. Most people don’t have their dreams come true as quickly as I did, but discipline over the long haul will allow you to learn and grow to the point of being ready when God says run!
This is really great advice that Cara has to offer. I especially love how she says she had to be committed to doing the hard work of improving. That’s hard work indeed.
And Cara has definitely seen fruit. Stars in the Night is her ninth novel and tenth book. She’s also an attorney and sometimes lecturer at a Big Ten University, She lives in Indiana with her husband and three children.
She has also graciously offered a free copy of Stars in the Night to one lucky commenter. In your comment, please either ask Cara a question or tell us who your favorite actor/actress is and why. (Contest closes on Friday. U.S. Residents only, please.)
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P.A. Baines and a Giveaway! - CONTEST CLOSED
29 September 2010
“The ship loomed overhead, its shadow engulfing them. Its smooth white skin filled the window, slowly obscuring their view of the Earth as the elevator rose.”
That’s the first sentence from P.A. Baines’ latest release, Alpha Redemption.
From despair he fled, through tragedy he lived on,
and journeyed to innocence.
His trajectory: the stars.
His companion: a computer poised at the brink of sentience.
An unlikely friendship on a prototype spaceship at lightspeed towards Alpha Centauri, and redemption.I’m super excited about featuring Paul and Alpha Redemption for three big reasons:
1. First international author I’ve ever interviewed.
2. First dude author I’ve ever interviewed.
3. First Sci-Fi book I’ve ever given away.I love diversifying.
Paul was educated in Africa. He works as an analyst/programmer and is studying towards a degree in Creative Writing through the Open College of the Arts in England. He currently lives in a small corner of the Netherlands with his wife and two children, and various wildlife.
When I asked Paul about what it took to achieve his dreams of being published, this is what he had to say:
Getting the dreaded rejection slip is one of the hardest things for an aspiring writer to endure. We pour our hearts and souls into something we believe in, only to have it returned with a maddeningly polite “thank you, but no thank you”. I collected many such replies over the years and the pain that came with each was almost unbearable. I told myself it didn’t matter, but it did matter. I told myself that publication wasn’t important but, deep down inside, I knew it was, even if only as a means of proving that I could write to a reasonable standard.
I contemplated giving up many times. In fact, I probably seriously considered quitting after every stock rejection slip, but a day or a week or a month later I would be back at my keyboard, doing what I felt called to do. So if you ask me what I did that helped me to accomplish my goal, I would have to say that there was very little I could do, except picking myself back up and carrying on, even when it seemed as if the publishing industry would never want anything to do with me or my writing.
If you want to be published you have to write and you have to submit. You can’t win the lottery if you don’t pick the numbers, so send your stuff out. And while you’re waiting, don’t just sit staring at the letter box. Get busy improving your skills. Maybe one day that magical letter will arrive. Hopefully it will come while you are busy working on your next project.
I love that answer. I get frustrated when people suggest that me getting published at such a young age was just a stroke of good luck. Um, no. Like Paul talks about, I spent a lot of time writing, submitting, rewriting, submitting again, and so on. As scary as it is, you’ve got to keep putting yourself out there.
Paul and his publisher, Splashdown Books, have offered a free book to one lucky commenter. Often, we choose the winner randomly. Not so today, my friends. This time around, Paul will be choosing his favorite comment and bestowing them with the free book. So wield your powers… (Contest closes Tuesday, October 5th.)
For more information on Paul, check out his author site and blog. To order an ebook version of Alpha Redemption, click here, or if you’re a traditionalist and think all those e-reader types are nuts, you can click here to order a paperback.
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