Okay, so the picture has nothing to do with today's blog, but I wanted something pretty, and something that wasn't cold and white like the MN landscape for the past 10 weeks or so.
In Sunday School, since the study on Respectable Sins didn't quite do me in entirely, we're studying The Pursuit of Holiness. How riddled with sin can one person be??? Where is this holiness to be found, and what do you do with it once you've seen it?God promises that if we seek Him, He will be found. That it is through His power that we are able to know Him at all, and He will sustain us on this journey. All we have to do is seek...follow hard...after Him.
I've come to the conclusion that I am spiritually ADD. Rather than following hard after God, clinging to Him and His holy ways, my pursuit of holiness more closely resembles one of the kids from the Family Circus on his way to get the mail. I mean to follow hard after God and pursue holiness but then I wind up chasing butterflies, or playing hopscotch, or kicking an empty can, or following an inchworm and trying to measure if they really do move one inch at a time. Or perhaps I'm just trying to see how slow I can walk without actually falling over...oh wait, that's a whole other story from my childhood. See how easily distracted I am?
Have I ever followed hard after God? If so, for how long? I can't even pray for 5 minutes without some little sparkly idea leading me off task. And I find myself having to really concentrate to read Scripture, lest the study notes or the cross references or the cool rustly sound of the pages distract me.
My mind pounces on distractions like a monkey on a cupcake.
Am I alone in this?
A little poem my dad sent me.
Today is my son's 13th birthday. That's right, I now have two teens in the house. I thought I would interview James for today's Friday Five: Five things about James
The good stuff I meant to do I did not. The puttering around I did not intend to do, well, that's what I did.
This month marks the release of the debut novel of my former crit partner Kaye Dacus.
Welcome to the world of Skylar Hoyt, a high school senior whose exotic Hawaiian looks have propelled her to the height of the “in” crowd, but who’s no longer sure that’s where she really fits. New friends, old friends, a reluctant romance, and a family crisis swirl around Skylar as she tries to keep it together and figure out who she really wants to be.
This past couple weeks I've been a big chicken. I've puttered around, read books, watched tv, played video games, and all sorts of things that weren't editing my NaNo novel.
I wanted to let it lie fallow for a month, but that month stretched into six weeks because I was reluctant to dive into the major revisions I knew that ms needed.
But Saturday, I decided enough was enough. I would go to the library away from distractions like email, blogging, email, chatting on the IM, email, tv, email, video games, email, books, email...you get the picture. I would spend half a day reading and taking notes on what should be changed in the novel.
The library opened at 9:30 am. By 9:45 I was at a table in the stacks, opening the document and ready to get down to work. With trepidation I began reading. When next I looked up, it was 11 am. I was many pages in, and the editing was going well. My major task in this first edit was to cull 6K words from the document to bring it in under the word count. This sounds worse than it was because when writing it in the NaNo frenzy, I wrote two chapters that didn't feel right, that I ended up rewriting during that crazy month. But I kept the old chapters in there because no words are wasted words during NaNo. I knew I could go in and remove those chapters and thousands of words would fall to my editor's pen.
When next I looked up, it was almost 4 pm! I had spent all day editing and was within 25 pages of the end of the book. WOW! I was so tired and didn't realize it until that moment. I decided to leave the last 25 pages (loaded with action and with some things I knew would need serious revision based on things I'd changed in earlier chapters) until Monday when I would be fresher.
Lesson learned here? Nothing is so tyrannical as fear. It blows things out of proportion and keeps you from doing what you know you need to do. This story wasn't nearly as mangled as I made it out in my head. I had plotted it out beforehand and stayed true to that plot (except the two chapters I had to rewrite...that should teach me the value of my plot board, huh?) and the story holds together well. I will polish it up further this week and hopefully send it out for crit by Friday.
Then it is on to a proposal for a series that's been tickling my brain for awhile.
Do you have anything that has held you hostage lately that you just need to dig into?
I'm a self-confessed book addict. And I don't even want to be cured. :) When we were at the Minnesota History Museum, I went into the bookstore there and browsed. Because everything in the store is related to history, this is heaven for me. I thumb through books I would love to own, like the four volume set of Minnesota history by Folwell, or the biography of James J. Hill that retails for sixty bucks...sigh...maybe someday. Peter always gets a little nervous when I head into that bookstore...or any bookstore for that matter. :)
But I did find one gem, and on the clearance cart no less. To Live and Die in the West: The American Indian Wars by Jason Hook and Martin Pegler. This book isn't a history of Indian warfare in the American West, but rather a volume describing daily life and conditions of military service on the plains. Invaluable for a writer. Everything from clothing to daily chores to the menus of both the US Army and the plains Indians is covered. Maps, photographs, artists cut-away drawings of equipment, it's all in there.
About the Authors:
Jason Hook is a senior editor of Wayland Publishing and has written extensively on the subject of American Indians. He holds a degree in English and American Literature with First Class Honors.
Martin Pegler is a Senior Curator of weapons at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds UK. He has a long-standing interest in the history of the US Cavalry.
In an aside, one of my pet peeves is when people interchange the words Cavalry with Calvary. There is an immense difference. Christ did not die at Cavalry. Though I suppose saying "Calvary to the rescue" is more true than people realize.
One of the things I've learned this winter is that as a diabetic, I have to take good care of my feet. Though I don't have any numbness or tingling, my feet do get cold. My family will be shocked to know that I've even worn socks to bed a couple times this winter. As someone who has never been able to sleep with even the covers on my feet, wearing socks to bed is akin to wearing a straitjacket.
This past Saturday, the family and I went to see Vatican Splendors at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. The exhibition has been extended for a week due to the popularity. When we arrived at the museum at around 11 am, the place was packed and tickets were sold out through 3:45. I ran inside and got tickets for 4:15, then we hopped into the van and headed to the Jackson Street Roundhouse to see some trains.
At the beginning of a new year, one of the best things you can do to help your writing career is to purchase the newest Christian Writers' Market Guide.
This guide is invaluable to the Christian writer. Inside you will find contact information for agents, book publishers, magazine publishers, fiction guidelines, non-fiction guidelines, writing groups, writing conferences, and so much more.
An added bonus is that the book comes with a searchable CD with over 1000 markets for your writing.
It was through the Christian Writers' Market Guide that I found my agent, the first step on my way to publication.
Click HERE to purchase your copy today!
Pirates of the Seven Seas: Four movies on one disk. The Black Pirate, Captain Calamity, Wallaby Jim of the Islands, and Jamaica Inn. Starring George Houston, Douglas Fairbanks, and Sid Sailor.
Alexander McDougall's Whalebacks were once a common sight on the Great Lakes. Join the Out of the Blue Dive Team as they explore examples of these now extinct oddities. Learn about their tragic tales and see rare, historical footage of life aboard the 'whale.'
This disk, World War Two Movies, Collector's Series, has three movies. Corregidor ( Otto Kruger and Donald Woods), The Immortal Batalion (David Niven, Stanley Holloway and Peter Ustinov), and The Big Lift (Montgomery Clift and Paul Douglas).
This fall I purchased SILKS by Dick Francis and his son Felix Francis. As frequent readers of this blog can attest, I am a bigtime Dick Francis fan. I have all of his fiction. (43 novels)
The story was most interesting, but the ending left me with a feeling of disappointment. Not because it wasn't action-packed enough, but because the hero made a decision that I felt crossed a line I wouldn't have. I've read the book twice now (told you I was a fan) and on the second readthrough, I realized that the hero didn't cross a line that violated his own code of ethics, just mine.
I've been thinking a lot about endings lately. I tend to rush my endings, building up to a major KAPOW ending, but quite often leaving the story not quite finished. I also need to make sure that the story ends in a way that is both logical and doesn't violate my code of ethics just because it is expedient.
My daughter is starting a new semester of school on Monday. New books in the mail, new professors, new course requirements, etc.
I am dusting off a ms I wrote last year and re-reading it, massaging it, and getting it ready to submit. While she is diving into new material, I'll be rediscovering old things. But each of us will face similar challenges, mastering material, presenting ideas in the best way, discovering our strengths and working on our weaknesses.
How about you? Do you have new challenges you're diving into? A new semester, a new job, a new project?
I put a couple new widgets on the blog. One is a countdown to the ACFW Denver conference. I really want to go. I had thought after the last conference that maybe I would sit Denver out and wait for Indy in 2010, but the more I think about it, listening to the workshops from the past conference, corresponding with people I shared the 07 conference with, I don't want to miss 09 in Denver.
I like widgets like the countdown, especially if they motivate me to do more, do better, make progress. By far, my favorite widget is the word counter.
Do you have a favorite widget, motivator, or gadget?
Five games I've played this year:
1. Quelf. This game is nuts.
2. Imagine If... This one was a lot of fun, and there's no wrong answer. I love that in a game.
3. Apples to Apples. Love this one too. The answers are so funny, and we tend to play marathon games where we go through ALL the cards.
4. 500. In Peter's family, you need to know how to play this game. When I first joined the family 19 years ago, it was the only game they played together. I learned in self-defense.
5. Zoo Tycoon. I love playing this game with my daughter. We design zoos and try to beat the challenges.
There's one game I want to try with the family, Settlers of Cataan. I've heard good things and think it would suit my strategists very well. Have to look into acquiring it.
Today we're partying at the Vetsch house. Wish you were here!
Have a blessed New Year!
