A good idea…

One of the standard things I say when Jim and Jesse leave for the day is “Have a good day.” I really do mean it every day, but sometimes we can say routine things without really thinking about it.

One day as Jesse left for school, I absent-mindedly said, “Have a good idea!”

He responded, “Ooookay?”

Then I caught my mistake. “DAY! Have a good day!”

Sometimes a good idea can make for a good day. At least we started the day with a laugh, and had another when Jim later quipped that that’s how Steve Jobs’ mom used to send him off to school.

Then a while back I was using Jim’s car and the keyless remote wasn’t working, probably needing a new battery. I was trying to figure out how to get in the car and asked Jesse if he remembered the code. He did, but he looked pointedly at the keys in my hand.

I don’t know where my mind is lately. I do have several “stray thoughts” I’d love to take time to untangle and sort through. Writing is the best way for me to do that, where I can pull them out and lay them side by side and then think about them some more, whereas when I’m just thinking them through they stay jumbled. Maybe next week…

In the meantime, have a good day…and if you have a good idea while you’re at it, all the better.

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Book Review: Unless It Moves the Human Heart

I’ve hadn’t read anything of Roger Rosenblatt’s before, but somehow the name sounded a little familiar when I first saw the book Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing. The title grabbed me. Anyone who has any aspirations to write has, I think, the desire to touch someone else in some way; otherwise we’d just keep private journals.

Rosenblatt has written and won awards for columns, essays, books, and novels. He styled this book as one of his writing classes. These particular students and conversations are fictitious, but I am sure they are drawn from classes he has taught over the years. Neither the book nor the classes are very systematic: he says later in the book what I had already figured out, that he will come to class with a plan but a question from a student will carry the lesson into another direction. The interchanges do seem more like conversations than lessons, but that probably keeps them more interesting. “I may permanently forget whatever it was I originally planned to say. But it is much more exciting to allow oneself to be swung into a new and foreign path, just as in writing when you find yourself in the midst of the strangest sentence, and wonder how you got there” (p. 116).

He does work various principles into the conversations, the main one being restraint (“if you have the goods, there’s no need to dress them up,” p. 88) and “the preference of the noun to the adjective and the verb to the adverb” (p. 148), but even there he admits that “if I had foisted my preference on Keats, there would have been no Keats. And ‘rosy-fingered dawn’ is a …lot more beautiful than ‘dawn’” (p. 131).

The first part of the book had me thinking, “Wow, this is neat! I’d love to attend a class like this.” The second part had me disagreeing with him in spots.

Some of the parts I especially liked:

In a section on short stories, he says, “You know the character and his or her situation from the opening. You even know what’s likely to happen. The story is about why what you know matters” (p. 12). It struck me that in a sense that’s true of even longer stories and books. Something may be completely predictable and yet still be enjoyed because of what matters in the story.

“If we look like we’re trying to change the world, the writing will sink from the weight of its own piety. But in the best of our work, the idealism is there, like trout below the surface of the water. Of course you want to try to change the world. You just don’t want to show your cards. But look at the world. Who would not want to change it? Books count. They disturb people” (p. 59).

“There’s no purpose to writing unless you believe in significant things — right over wrong, good over evil. Your writing may deal with the gray areas between the absolutes, and all the relativities that life requires. But you still need to acknowledge that the absolutes exist, and that you are on the side of the angels” (p. 60).

“Writing is the cure for the disease of living. Doing it may sometimes feel like an escape from the world, but at its best moments it is an act of rescue. Each of you has his own way of seeing into suffering and error. But you share the desire to save the world from its blights by going deeper into them until they lie exposed. You show up the imperfections of living for what they are. You hope to write them out of existence” (p. 60).

Reading good writers “is like hanging around with a superior mind. You can never equal that mind, but you strive to do your best, and not to embarrass yourself in his presence” (p. 92).

Then there were things I wasn’t sure that I agreed with, like the following:

In contrasting writers to journalists, who have to clearly communicate, the author says “There’s a mystery to the art of writing. You write, yet you don’t always understand what you’ve written. And you’re not always understood. And you’re never fully understood. And this is a good thing– dwelling in and creating mysteries” (p. 74). I can see that to some extent, but I’d think even fiction writers want readers to understand what they’re trying to convey. Some of this kind of philosophizing got a little too metaphysical for me.

Likewise he says of a memoir, “A pure memoir meanders without achieving meaning. It avoids meaning — more like fiction that is real” (p. 88). If he means there’s no symbolism, ulterior motives or infused meaning of the writer, etc., I can agree with that. Yet I wouldn’t say there is no meaning, else no one would read it. There has to be some meaning to the life written about, the things the character did and learned. Personally I’ve drawn a lot of meaning — or maybe a better word would be inspiration — from reading biographies.

“A poet tries to identify a situation or an emotion as accurately as possible…At the same time, the poet knows that perfect identification is impossible, I think that’s where imperfection is the same thing as divine” (p. 129-130). Saying that imperfection is divine seems oxymoronic to me.

This a short book at 155 pages and reads easily. I liked the banter between Rosenblatt and his students and the fact that his representative students were a variety of ages, some even older than myself, rather than just college age. It is a secular book, so there are a few words and illustrations that I would personally find offensive but understand their being in a book like this. I enjoyed the variety of other writings that he referred to, some of which I want to explore further. Overall I found some good instruction and a lot of inspiration and food for thought in this book.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

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The Week in Words

Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.

Here are a few quotes gleaned from last week’s reading:

From Diane‘s Facebook:

“Our divine Lord spent six times as long working at the carpenter’s bench as He did in His world-shaking ministry. He did not shrink from the hidden years of preparation.” ~ J. Oswald Sanders

It’s easy to balk at the “hidden years” while eager to serve, but it seems many, if not all, of the people God used most had some time hidden away — Moses in the desert before being called to Egypt, Paul between his conversion and first missionary journey, Joseph in prison, David with his sheep. Who knows why, in the mysteries of God, it’s that way, but we can trust Him even when “hidden” that He is preparing us and using us for His glory.

Seen at Mama Bear’s:

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Real love is essentially others-focused, not self-focused.

Janet penned this here:

Sometimes it’s our most deeply held ideals that seem to emerge most falteringly in our lives. (Why is that?) We need authors who breathe life into them by going before us and putting them into words more eloquent than any we could come up with ourselves, and taking them farther than we can currently see.

I’ve read good authors who have done just that for me.

You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.

I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And I hope you’ll leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.

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Book Review: A Novel Idea

Those of you who read here regularly know I’ve been working on reading A Novel Idea: Everything You Need to Know about Writing Inspirational Fiction a bit at a time in-between other books. I felt I’d get more out of it that way than reading it all at once. I finally finished it this week!

This book is a treasure trove for anyone considering writing Christian fiction. A multitude of published authors, from well-known names like Karen Kingsbury, Francine Rivers, Robin Lee Hatcher, and Randy Alcorn, to authors I’ve heard of but haven’t read yet, to some I’ve not heard of at all, have all contributed chapters that make up this book.

The chapters cover just about everything you might like to know, like how to map out the plot, how to develop characters, point of view, finding your own “voice,” the characteristics and nuances of Christian fiction, how not to make it “preachy,” all the way down to writing proposals and networking.

If you click on either the linked title or the book above, then click “Additional views” and then “Next,” you’ll see a list of the table of contents along with the author who contributed each chapter.

It would be impossible in one little review to give you an overall flavor of the book since it covers so much material by so many authors, but I wanted to bring out just a couple of morsels that particularly stood out to me.

In Robin Lee Hatcher’s chapter “How I Felt God Calling Me to Write For Him,” she shares that she had a career in the secular market, but as she contemplated writing Christian fiction, she wondered, “Can’t I reach more lost people with a Christian worldview in my secular books than I can writing for those who are already Christians? Isn’t writing for the Christian market preaching to the choir?”

The answer she sensed from the Lord was, “Yes. And the choir is sick.”

Very true. I know in my own life, not only do I read for fun and enrichment, but Christian fiction has convicted and instructed me as well.

Ron Benrey has some great thoughts in his chapter “Distinctives of Christian Fiction,” especially a section about unrealistic Christianity and Christian characters.

An especially intriguing chapter is Athol Dickson’s “Evil in Fiction.” One charge I’ve heard against Christian fiction is it’s not being gritty or edgy enough (though I think most of it that I have read does well enough), but Athol reminds us “of the novelist’s most powerful tool, the reader’s imagination” (p. 221) and the need to avoid “[becoming] part of the problem we set out to solve” (p. 225) by including too much evil or too much detail. Yet evil must be included both to be real and to provide plot and motivation. But Athol advises:

To the extent that evil titillates or revolts his readers, the author has failed. Titillation makes his readers a friend of the very thing the author wants them to oppose alongside Christ. Revulsion shuts down readers’ imaginations, because when they look away, the novelist has lost them (p. 224).

Instead, he advises, aim for “hatred of the evil and a deep desire to see it vanquished ” (p. 223). And remember “A writer shows the deeper truth of evil best by shining light most brightly on what is good, while never letting readers forget what waits within the shadows” (p. 222).

Good stuff.

This book is filled with good stuff, and it is going on my shelf to be referred to often.

If you have any inclination toward writing Christian fiction, this book is an invaluable tool. And some of the chapters, like that on evil, might even be enlightening to those who read Christian fiction without a desire to write it.

(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

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Looking Up

Quilly has started a once a month Quilldancing Writing Assignment. She gives a prompt and we come up with a story based on it in 500 words or less.

I’ve had to sit out the last couple of months. My first attempt back in January was way over the word limit, and even with cutting out over 200 words, it was still over the word count. This one is a bit under — I had started it a while back and then forgot about it, so I hadn’t developed it any further until this morning. But I like it as is, so I think I am going to pronounce last time’s overage and this one’s lower count as balanced.

The prompt for today is:

As we all know, “April showers bring May flowers”. This month’s story should include a sudden rain fall and a recalcitrant umbrella. And, since this is National Poetry Month, your story should include a bit of poetry. You can write it yourself or use somebody else’s (be sure to give credit where credit is due); it can rhyme or not; as you wish. See you on the 15th!

My story:

Susan awoke with a start and looked with bleary eyes at her alarm clock. “Oh, no! That thing failed to go off again!” She needed a more reliable clock, but no time to think about that now: she flew into high gear trying to get ready for work.

Along the way, a series of small calamities multiplied her frustrations. The blouse she wanted to wear had a spot on it. In her haste making breakfast her sausage biscuit wasn’t quite warm enough before she had to wolf it down on the go. A train crossing the street out of her neighborhood delayed her even more. She couldn’t miss her boss’s scowl as she scurried to her place. She discovered they were shorthanded, and she ended up having to work through her lunch hour. Her customers seemed particularly demanding and impatient. 5:00 could not come soon enough.

When she finally clocked out, she dashed over to the electronics store to find a new alarm clock. Purchase in hand, she exited the store to discover the clouds that had been threatening all day had finally erupted into a sudden storm. As she unfolded her umbrella, she commented to herself, “I’m glad I brought this thing. At least something went right today.” She had had to park her car quite a ways away, and less than halfway there a gust of wind blew her umbrella inside out.  Cradling her purchase in her elbow, she tried to reach the mechanism on her umbrella to close it while simultaneously trying to jiggle the thing back into its proper form, all to no avail.

Soaked from her struggles, she was on the verge of either screaming or crying when she became aware that a shadow had passed over and she wasn’t feeling the rain any more. She looked up to see a large black umbrella over her. She turned around to look up into the face of its owner. Tall. Handsome. Smiling brown eyes. Crooked grin.

“You know how it is with an April day,” he said.

Her wet bangs were plastered to her forehead and dripping into her eyes. “What?”

“You know that old poem by Robert Frost? “ He quoted with a flourish:

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

She smiled. “Well, that certainly does sound like April.”

He handed her a handkerchief and asked, “Bad day?”

“It’s starting to get better.”

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Laudable Linkage

It’s been a while since I posted a round-up of interesting reads on the web. Hope you find some of these useful.

Marriage:

Whose Wife Are You? Tim Challies discusses two different blog posts on what it means to be submissive to one’s own husband. Both original posts are linked there, but Tim does a nice job in pulling out the main elements and pointing out that there is much in marriage and home life which is not delineated in Scripture, so each may not follow exactly a particular book’s view of what the marriage relationship “should” look like.

Are you sure you want a husband who…?

Writing:

50 of the Best Websites for Writers.

Six Elements to a Writer’s Style.

Crafts/Sewing:

A variety of ideas for Organizing Fabric.

Edible Valentine’s treats.

Fabric Flower Tutorial.

Others:

Returning to Your First Love: Bible Memorization: Make a Commitment Booklet.

Four Women I Would Like to Thank on the 38th Anniversary of Roe vs Wade. Beautiful.

Spiritual Care of the Elderly.

Star Wars Meets The Princess Bride:

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Magic Skates

Quilly has started something fun — a once a month Quilldancing Writing Assignment. She gives a prompt and we come up with a story based on it in 500 words or less.

If this were for a grade, I would automatically be marked off. I read the prompt, tucked it away in my mind, had a great idea for it in the shower, and as soon as I could pounded out the story at the computer. But I hadn’t reread the prompt and wrote a story about ice skates instead of roller skates. She said that was okay. Then my original attempt was over 800 words! I whittled it down to 558, and I can’t think any more and it’s “due,” so I’ll go ahead and post it. Hopefully I’ll do better next time. I really enjoyed it, even cutting down the words and tightening up the writing. One of my purposes for starting a blog was to work on my writing, and I don’t often write fiction, so this was a great exercise. Thanks, Quilly! The stories for this prompt are all here.

The Prompt:

You received a set of clunky, old-fashioned roller skates from the oldest, most eccentric member of your family. The skates appear to be too small, so you try to return them. S/he insists you try them on. You decide to humor him/her. To your amazement the skates fit. Suddenly you are overcome with the urge to skate and … (tell us what happens next in 500 words or less).

My Story:

Magic Skates

As Gran looked on excitedly, Jenny opened the Christmas present she had been savoring for last. The small box held — child-sized ice skates. She looked at Gran, confused.

“Those are your magic skates, honey. Put them on!” Gran exclaimed.

“But Gran, they’re too small. I’m 18 now.”

“Nonsense! They’re magic! Put them on.”

Gran wasn’t senile, but she didn’t always make sense. So Jenny tried to put them on to humor her or else show her that they really were too small. But as she slid her foot in — they did fit! Perfectly!

“Let’s go to the pond, Honey. I want to see you glide like a swan.”

Jenny didn’t understand, but she followed Gran to the pond. She wobbled on the ice and then found her footing. How exhilarating to sail across the pond!

“Glide, honey, glide!”

Jenny was skating as if she had done so all her life — spins, jumps, everything came naturally. As much as she liked the thrill of the jumps, what she loved most was just…gliding. Especially in a circle, leaning slightly back, arms outstretched. She could glide for hours.

But then she became aware of something beeping in the distance. She slowed and saw through fog a red light flashing in time to the incessant beeping  Had someone lost a cell phone?

She skated closer, the mist cleared, and she saw…not a cell phone, but an IV machine. Suddenly aware of dormant pain that now threatened to take over, she blinked: she was not on the pond but in a hospital bed, and memories crashed over her like waves….the accident, a broken ankle, ribs,  a fractured vertebra. She became aware of Gran’s voice..

“I’m so sorry, honey, that IV ran out before they changed it. I’ve been calling for the nurse.”

Just then a nurse bustled in to change the IV bag. She made small talk without really listening for an answer: “How are you today? I’m sorry about the bag — it’s been so busy. You’ll be feeling better in a few minutes. Such a shame, and so close to the Olympics.”

Jenny’s eyelids squeezed shut lest she cry in front of this stranger. The Olympics. She’d forgotten for just a few blissful moments that her dreams were as shattered as her bones.

As the medicine took effect, Jenny relaxed. Gran whispered, “Before the IV ran out, you had such a peaceful smile on your face.”

“I dreamed you’d given me magic skates. I was gliding on the pond.”

Gran smiled. “That’s what you called the first skates I ever gave you. You took to skating like a swan takes to water. I can’t wait to see you back on the ice.”

Jenny laughed bitterly. “I’ll be doing good to walk, much less skate.”

“Nonsense!” Gran was uncharacteristically stern.

“But Gran…I’ll only be able to glide in my dreams.”

“Dreams are nice to visit, but real life dreams take effort, sweat, and time. You do everything these doctors tell you, and you keep hope alive, young lady.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Gran was right. Jenny knew she wouldn’t skate if she never tried. It would be as hard…no, harder than training for the Olympics. But she would try.

As she drifted to sleep, she noticed her first child-sized skates hung on her IV pole. Jenny smiled. She would hope, dream..glide.

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Laudable Linkage

Just a few things to share from my reading this week:

Shall We Sing of Mary? Chris Anderson shares balanced, perceptive thoughts about this famous song.

Melted snowman cookies, HT to Lizzie. So cute!

Skip to My Lou‘s readers shared a plethora of handmade gifts.

If you’re thinking about someday attending a writer’s conference, some guidelines are here and tips about assembling a writer’s “one sheet” are here.

Senior Olympic Not-Quite-Synchronized Swimming:

Several years ago I posted “If I Were a Goose” — I think I had received it in an e-mail. Earlier this week I heard Paul Harvey reading a slightly different version of the story on th radio, so I looked it up and found it on Youtube as “The Man and the Birds.” Wonderful story, wonderfully told: enjoy!

On my agenda today: getting the Christmas cards out in the mail (after being delayed by the printer running out of four of its six ink cartridges right in the middle of printing out my Christmas letter yesterday!), wrapping presents, a trip to the grocery store, and hopefully starting on a sewing project…intended for Christmas. If I don’t finish it for Christmas, the recipient has a later December birthday, so I’ve got a little breathing room! Have a good weekend.

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Laudable Linkage and Videos

A weekly compendium of commendable sites to see

A Blogger’s Prayer. I need to read this regularly.

Teacher Gift Ideas for that last day of school before Christmas break. Or — for anyone if adapted a little bit. Skip To My Lou always comes up with great ideas for these.

The advice in Riding Out the Writer’s Storm by Laura could apply to bloggers as well.

How a writer can write a letter of inquiry.

3-D star ornament with a link to the pattern.

How to use Glossy Accents.

And, HT to Lisa, National Geography’s Photography Contest 2010. Warning — there is a nude one near the bottom. But other than that, some of these are awesome. This one particularly:

I wish I could get this Ducks vs. the Wind video to embed here. It’s very short, cute, and a little sad as a mama duck and her ducklings get literally bowled over by the wind. It just embodied the way we feel sometimes when circumstances are too much for us. I love the way she picked herself up and carried on afterward, though her feathers were more than a little ruffled.

It’s hard to wake up sometimes:

We’ve had Dancing With the Stars — why not Dancing With the Dogs? (HT to Susanne). This one has a lot of talent!

Hope you have a good day! We were planning to get our Christmas tree today, but it is raining a little bit — hope it dries up enough to get one!

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Laudable Linkage

Here’s my weekly round-up of riveting recommendations from ’round the Web.

How to Encourage Missionaries During the Holiday Season.

From It was the best of NaNo; it was the worst of NaNo by Johnnie at Kindred Heart Writers I saw a link to the 100 Best First Lines from Novels as listed by the American Book Review. It was pretty interesting — I wonder how long some of these writers had to work to craft a compelling first sentence. Some of them, though, weren’t so compelling to me. Johnnie notes that eight of them start out with “It was…” — considered a major no-no these days because of its passivity, but to me, if what comes just after “It was…” captures your interest and attention, it’s fine. Most of the “It was..” openers were intensely more interesting than the first line to Robinson Crusoe and a few of the others.

Another on writing from Kindred Heart Writers: Self-Editing Tips from Jerry Jenkins.

I must try Chewy Peanut Butter Brownies, recommended by a friend on Facebook. Sounds right up my ally.

How to transfer an image to fabric with gel medium from How About Orange.

Some fall decorating ideas:

How to make leaf trivets from Martha Stewart

Leaf motifs for table linens from Martha Stewart

Maple leaf coasters by the long thread.

And for Christmas, awesomely cute Festive Felt Christmas Trees from allsorts.

And this was sent to me by my oldest son and made me smile for a long time. You can only use a play like this once, though!

Have a great Saturday! I have some mending and cleaning to do.

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