Edgewise

Borrowed words

2012-01-30T10:19:00.000-08:00

Dearest Edglings: I've been remiss in posting. I confess it and I apologize. Life has been of the crazy sort the last few weeks. I've been in revision mode for the book that's coming out this fall (It's set in Florence. Anyone hungry for gelato?) And I am working hard to get a few of my out-of-print books ready for the e-world of digital downloads (Three formerly dearly departed books of mine will be on Kindle and Nook and iBook soon) AND plotting and researching a new idea for a future book, plus the day job, the house and the need for clean clothes and sheets. . . Okay, now I need not only gelato but a Venti with four shots.

I was going to post today (finally) some thoughts on a novel I just finished reading, but I am actually going to write about that on Friday and instead share a link with you today. It's a blog post from my good friend and fellow novelist, Jenny B. Jones. It's an opinion piece that I highly agree with and I would've written something similar at some point but why should I when it's already covered so well by the fab Miss Jen? If you're a Pinterest Pinner, you gotta read it. If you remember how much you hated selling cookies when you were a Girl Scout, you gotta read it. If you want sacred places in the cyber-universe that aren't driven by marketability and the almighty dollar left sacred you gotta read it.

I know promotion is everything in sales, but I also know that sales isn't everything. Do I hear an Amen?

Read and comment. . .

I'd Be a Hungry Used-Car Salesman

The Jubilee ends, the need does not

2012-01-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

The year that just passed, my 50th on the planet, has ended. Last week I turned fifty-one and the Jubilee that was my fiftieth had to necessarily come to an end. When I asked for a tally of the donations given to Oasis Haven in honor of my Jubilee, it was heartening to hear that one thousand dollars had been given to support these precious little ones in Johannesburg.

My aspirations had been high; I admit I had hoped for $5,000, but as the year progressed I knew that my marshmallow marketing persona would show up here just as it does with anything else I attempt to "sell." I am more like a cave dweller when it comes to hype and promotion. I am a better writer than a promoter, and I've always known this. Still, to think that my little birthday generated donations that totaled a thousand dollars is still something to celebrate. I am grateful to each one of you. And of course it's never too late to donate to Oasis Haven. The US address on my Jubilee for Joburg website is still the address to send US currency, and they still have the same needs they had a year ago when I began this quest.

HELP OASIS START THE NEW YEAR RIGHT:

There are many ways that you can get involved post-Jubilee and support the children in Oasis Family Homes. Here's a great link to show you how:
Oasis says, "We don’t want you to add more to your already busy life. Rather, take a look at what you are already doing, and make Oasis Haven a part of it. Let’s all do our part to change the lives of abandoned and orphaned children in our country."

The jubilee is over, but the needs are still there. If your 2012 plan doesn't include yet an outreach outlet, consider the little ones at Oasis Haven who want more than anything to have what you have had - a family.

Onward and forward!

Light Bulb Moment

2012-01-06T10:22:00.000-08:00

Today, the sixth of January, is known round the world as Epiphany. If you were raised in a liturgical church, you might remember this being the day to celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men at Bethlehem. Spell Epiphany with a capital E and it’s today, January 6. On other days, when it’s just spelled with a lower case e, epiphany is when you have had an amazing revelation – a light bulb moment when everything is clear to you.

I like etymology; I always have. Naturally I went to my etymology dictionary this morning to see that constructs give us this lovely word ‘epiphany.’ It comes from the late Greek epiphanes, which means "manifest, conspicuous," It’s a compound word. The front half is epi, which means "on, to" as in epitaph, and epitome and epidural, and its back half is, phainein, which means "to show,” as in phantom, and fantasy and fantastic. It’s the display unto of us something fantastic and supernatural. Something that changes everything.

It’s interesting to me that Epiphany with a big E has little to do with earthly presents like gold, frankinsence and myrrh. Its true meaning is lost in our contemplations of Eastern kings on camels who wore cool hats and knew how to outsmart Herod. Epiphany with a big E was and is about something more, I think. Something fantastical. Something too big for earthly minds.

Think about it a moment. What happened to Mary and Joseph and Jesus after the “presents” from the Wise Men were opened, and these new parents figuratively began their New Year? We don’t have to guess, actually. We can read it in the gospel of Matthew:

Matthew 2:11-15: “On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt.”

After the Wise Men left, things got very complicated for this little family. Instead of things getting better they got worse. They had to trust God for their future more than ever. This was their Epiphany. What do you think they learned about God in the glow of this bright and fantastic moment?

Some things that come to mind:

1. They learned that God was still with them, watching over them. He sent the angel to warn Joseph.

2. They learned that they still needed to listen to God’s voice. The angel had instructions from God for them. God didn’t thwart Herod’s plan, He let it play out for reasons we don’t know. God instructed Joseph and Mary to flee to Egypt, the very place where the Israelites had been in bondage centuries before.

3. They learned that God is bigger than any problem

4. They learned that life was going to continue to be different for them. They HAD to choose to trust.

Have you ever found yourself in a different place than you expected to be at the start of a new year?

I wonder if sometimes when things seem really dark, as it might have seemed to Joseph and Mary as they fled in the night to protect their infant son, that things are actually quite bright and we find ourselves shielding our eyes. When God is present in our dark times, He is Epiphany; a manifestation of Himself in our dark places. Brightness that causes us to shield our eyes can fool us into thinking all is dark. It’s actually the opposite.

And that’s my light bulb moment for day, on this sixth of January.

Epiphany.

Favorite Books of 2011

2011-12-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

I had two sad little moments as I mentally went back through the year to tally up the best books I'd read to list on my last post of 2011. The first sad moment? I hadn't read that many. Ouch. Just typing that makes me wince. I read lots of pages for research in 2011. Thousands of pages, actually. But that's "work" reading, and this traditional year-end Best Books Of is always about the books I've read for pleasure. (Note to self: In 2012, find more time to read for fun.)

The second sad moment? I was hard to please this year. I am sure it was me and not my favorite writers who had issues. I am usually dancing with joy while reading Geraldine Brooks and Kate Morton and Elizabeth Kostova. Cases in point: I loved Brooks' People of the Book and Morton's The Forgotten Garden and Kostova's The Swan Thieves. But I - gasp -didn't swoon over this year's Caleb's Crossing, or The Distant Hours, or The Historian. I languished. Fell asleep at the pages. Actually put The Historian down one-third the way in and picked up something else.

Sad, sad. I don't know what's wrong with me. Something's up, though, and I'm going to have to figure out what it is. In the meantime, here is the list of the books I really enjoyed in 2011, and that I highly recommend.

For an intriguing example of how to grab a reader utilizing a unique point-of-view, I recommend Room by Emma Donoghue. It's told from the vantage point of six-year-old Jack, a child born to a young woman kept hidden in a vault-like room by the man who abducted her years before. "Room" is his world, it's all he knows. He doesn't know there is more outside the Room and that he is kept hidden from it. The story is, thankfully, not truly about what his mother has had to endure, but how she managed to love him, care for him and educate him in the prison that is her world, without him knowing it's a prison. You have to suspend some believability when it comes to his language as a narrator. Overall, a fascinating read.

Catching Fire is Book Number Two in the Hunger Games Trilogy; a YA (that's Young Adult) series that a whole bunch of people my age devoured for reasons I am not quite sure of. I guess intriguing lit is intriguing no matter your age or the age of the protagonist. Not for the squeamish, Catching Fire is set in a dystopic future where cultural mores have gone to Hades in a handbasket. The stakes are high and the appeal to our deepest held moral values is strong. I wish I could say the third book in this series was a fantastic finish. But Mockingjay was one of the books in 2011 that disappointed me. The ending was satisfying but all that stuff in the middle (as in, plot for the number 3 book) failed to impress me.

For a much less graphic read than either Room or Catching Fire, I highly recommend Chris Fabry's June Bug. It has the same headlines-kind-of-story about a missing child but without the CSI-SVU-pick-your-initials graphic material unsuitable for tender eyes and ears. From the book's publisher-supplied description: "June Bug believed everything her daddy told her. That is, until she walked into Wal-Mart and saw her face on a list of missing children. The discovery begins a quest for the truth about her father, the mother he rarely speaks about, and ultimately herself. A modern interpretation of Les Miserables, the story follows a dilapidated RV rambling cross-country with June Bug and her father, a man running from a haunted past." Great book.

Crazy Love by Francis Chan is one of two non-fiction reads that made my list this year - a new thing for me. I usually just list novels as the fave reads. I've known for a long time that the way God loves us is unconventional and intense and amazing and perplexing. And that we're called to love him back the same way - and others, too. Love is an action, a verb, a perspective, a responsibility, a privilege. We think we know what it is, because we feel it. But love is more than a feeling, right? From the book's description: "Does something deep inside your heart long to break free from the status quo? Are you hungry for an authentic faith that addresses the problems of our world with tangible, even radical, solutions? God is calling you to a passionate love relationship with Himself. Because the answer to religious complacency isn’t working harder at a list of do’s and don’ts—it’s falling in love with God. And once you encounter His love, as Francis Chan describes it, you will never be the same. Because when you’re wildly in love with someone, it changes everything." Cool book.

Perhaps my favorite book - out of all the books I read this year - is Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. It's the most poetically packaged non-fiction book I think I've ever read. So lyrically written, I couldn't race through the pages; I had to read them slowly, sipping them like a glass of fine sherry. And it wasn't just the beauty of Ann's prose that wooed me, but the audacious concept of training my heart and mind to be thankful for a thousand little things. Gratitude is an attitude, but it's more than that. It's a lifestyle that, like love, changes everything. When you start to list all the little things you are thankful for, like thumbs and red-throated hummingbirds and warm socks and orange marmalade and misty mornings, you start to rewire your brain to be content with everything you already have - and everything you don't. A powerful, powerful read. Highly recommend. And do not read it in a hurry. Think glass of sherry, not cup of Tang.

So there you have it. My list of the best of 2011. Here's to a fine 2012, with many hours of pleasurable reading at its threshold. See you there...

Day 10 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

Fill out this simple {form} and enter for a chance to win a beautiful pearl necklace and earring set ($450 value). Contest runs 12/14 - 12/25 and the winner will be drawn on 1/1. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. You may enter once per day.

***

Inside Out Christmas

by Debora M. Coty

My veterinarian friend, Dr. Katie, tells the story about the December when a woman brought a very sick black lab into her clinic. The dog was only ten months old, so she was really just a big puppy, but she’d been vomiting incessantly and her worried owner didn’t know what was wrong.

“Why don’t you go on home?” Dr. Katie told the owner. “I’ll need to run tests for about four hours. We’ll give you a call when we’re finished.”

Dr. Katie’s assistant took x-rays and hung them on the light panel for Dr. Katie to examine. Something looked a little peculiar. Dr. Katie called her assistant over.

“Is it just me, or does that look like a … a camel to you?” she asked incredulously.

“Matter of fact, it does,” replied the astute assistant. “And look, there’s an angel here, a shepherd there, and down there in the colon, it’s Baby Jesus!”

At that moment the phone rang. It was the dog’s distraught owner. “I can’t believe this! I just got home and glanced at the coffee table where I put my manger scene yesterday. There’s nothing there but an empty stable!”

As I thought about this quite literal technique for internalizing the true meaning of Christmas, it occurred to me that sometimes I have the opposite problem. With all the bustling busyness, my inner joy in celebration of my savior’s birth never really makes it to the outside.

Oh, I have plenty of glittery, festive evidences of the holiday in decorations, baking galore, and gifts under my tree. But those things are for show. They’re merely the pretty wrappings, not the gift itself.

Can people really see the core-deep joy that radiates within me when I think of the true gift that Papa God sent the world in his son, Jesus? Is my immeasurable gratitude for eternal life evident as I dash through this hectic season?

I’m afraid all too often, the answer is no.

I’m just too preoccupied to allow my outside to reflect my inside so that nonbelievers recognize that I rejoice because of the hope that is within me. My joy is obscured by the mounds of clutter. Gratefulness is sucked out of my soul by the vacuum called urgency.

“But let the godly rejoice. Let them be glad in God’s presence. Let them be filled with joy” (Psalm 68:3, NLT).

This verse has become my prayer this Christmas season – that I would make the time to give priority to rejoicing, being glad in God’s presence, and letting my inner joy show for those who may be silently desperate to know the giver of true joy.

***

Debora M. Coty is a humorist, inspirational speaker, and award-winning author of twelve books, including Too Blessed to be Stressed, and coming in March, More Beauty, Less Beast: Transforming Your Inner Ogre. Debora would love to swap Christmas hugs with you at www.DeboraCoty.com.

These 12 Pearls of Christmas...
Enjoy these Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" from Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Sibella Giorello and more! Please follow the series through Christmas day as each contributor shares heartfelt stories of how God has touched a life during this most wonderful time of the year.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what they're all about. In short, Pearl Girls exists to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

Day 9 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

Fill out this simple {form} and enter for a chance to win a beautiful pearl necklace and earring set ($450 value). Contest runs 12/14 - 12/25 and the winner will on be drawn 1/1. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. You may enter once per day.

Simple Sparkle

by Tracey Eyster

It’s a simple ornament made of thin cheap metal and it looks quite out of place on our Christmas tree. But each year I lovingly and safely nestle it amongst its expensive and sparkly peers, without a care as to how unglamorous it appears.

Many of our Christmas ornaments have a story and an uncanny way of welling up emotion in me, but this certain one causes an intense stir.

You see the ornament is engraved with the name of my grandmother, Sara, and was given to me by my mother, who ordered it from Hospice, after Grandmama’s death. Yes, the months leading up to her death carry memories of a frail and failing grandmama, but that ornament carries my thoughts to sweet Christmas memories of the past.

Christmas Eve dinners in her home, laughing, singing, gathering and celebrating a year filled with blessings as we remembered the birth of our Savior. Christmas mornings, she was always there participating with glee, in our raucous Christmas happiness. Her gifts were always bank envelopes gently tucked into the pine needles of our Christmas tree, fresh cut from the property she grew up on.

All memories of my Grandmama make my heart swell. You see she was my Jesus with skin on. She lived her life full of joy, serving others and approached life selflessly with an attitude of, “What can I do for you?”

Just months before she left us, even as the Alzheimer’s was robbing her mind she shared her love of Jesus with a sweet little old lady friend, who came to know the Lord – a divine appointment. The very next day that little old lady silently slipped away to meet in person the One whom Sara introduced her to just the day before.

At the time I wept, realizing that regardless of our own frailties and failings, God can still use those of us who are willing to do His work and are well practiced at hearing His voice...no matter our lack of sparkle in comparison to others.

A simple life lived for Him, a simple ornament in memory of Sara...a simple truth for you to ponder.

Tracey Eyster wife, mom, relationship gatherer and Creator/Editor of FamilyLife’s MomLife Today is a media savvy mom making a difference where moms are, on-line. Through speaking, writing and video interviews Tracey is passionate about encouraging, equipping and advising moms on every facet of momlife. Her first book, Be The Mom will be released August 2012. You can connect with Tracey at www.momlifetoday.com, her personal site www.traceyster.com or www.twitter/momblog.com.

Day 8 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

Enjoy the Ride!

Susan May Warren

We sit poised on the top of a cliff, a near drop off before us, that falls to a rushing river. In the middle, a bridge of snow and ice hints at our destination. My husband guns the snowmobile engine. “Ready?”

Ready? For a face plant into a tree, maybe reconstructive surgery? To feel my stomach ripped from my body as we plummet down the mountain? Let’s do it!

We live on five acres of woods in northern Minnesota that butts up to a national forest. Hence, our backyard is about a hundred thousand acres. Aside from harboring deer, lynx, fox, cougar and bear, it also makes excellent snowmobile terrain. And not long ago, Mrs. Claus gave her Santa a snowmobile for two.

I love snowmobiling. Flying over the snow, catching air over drifts. I love to drive, to be at the helm of the beast as I weave around trees and over hill and dale, my husband sitting behind me. I also love riding behind my husband as he drives, feeling those powerful arms as he’s muscling the snowmobile into the wilds. We follow unknown trails, driven by a Magellan spirit, hoping that we have enough gas to get us back to civilization. I love hanging on, simply trusting him, knowing that wherever he’s taking me, he’s going first.

But there are times, when I see where he’s taking me, and I just have to bury my head in his back. Like straight down a cliff.

However, my heart cheers, despite the terror as we gun it down the hill, over the river, up the opposite side. And, if we hadn’t let ourselves go, we would have never discovered the beauty of a winter river, a hidden jewel buried deep in the forest. Nor the exhilaration of facing the challenge together.

Further on, we find an enchanted forest of towering white pine. Catch a view of Lake Superior, discover an old cabin in the woods.

It occurs to me that snowmobiling is much like my spiritual life. Occasionally, I drive, and it’s me setting our course, weaving through the trees, getting us hopelessly lost. But when God takes the “wheel” and I hang on, trusting Him for the speed and destination, I see the scenery. I trust him to keep me safe. I trust him to bring me home, where there is an eternal supply of hot chocolate.

As Christmas season becomes more hectic, what if I let God drive? Maybe everything doesn’t have to be perfect, and maybe I don’t have to control every tradition, every holiday nuance. What if I just held on for the ride?

I’ll bet I’ll still get there, and I might even enjoy the scenery along the way.

How have you let go, and “enjoyed” the scenery of this hectic, exhilarating Christmas season?

Merry Christmas!

***

Susan May Warren is the RITA award-winning author of thirty novels with Tyndale, Barbour, Steeple Hill and Summerside Press. A four-time Christy award finalist, a two-time RITA Finalist, she’s also a multi-winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice award, and the ACFW Carol Award. A seasoned women’s events speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder of www.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Day 7 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-20T17:48:00.000-08:00

Family Traditions: A Glimpse into Christmas Future

by Tricia Goyer

Have you ever thought about family traditions? As I helped my 1-year-old place ornaments on the Christmas tree this year I imagined her doing the same thing with her children—and maybe even grandchildren—one day. Traditions are beliefs and customs handed down through generations. By sharing meaningful moments with your kids you're sending yourself into the future. How amazing is that?

Sharing family traditions cause us to slow down from the busy, adult world for a while. We ignore the laundry to set out the nativity set with our kids. We set aside time in our schedules to drive around and look at Christmas lights.

Holiday traditions aren't only fun, they also help strength family bonds. Through traditions kids trust in the security of family unit. They think, “This is our family and this is what I do.” Of course, the most important thing to share isn't just what we do ... but why. Why do we put out a nativity? To remind us the real meaning of the season—Jesus coming to earth. What do the Christmas lights represent displayed on homes and on trees? They represent the Light of the World, Jesus.

Using traditions to bond our families and share our faith isn't new. I love these two Scriptures that talk about that very thing.

Exodus 12:25 says, “When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony.”

Psalm 78:4 says, “We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the LORD, his power, and the wonders he has done.”

What are you're traditions? Here are a few of ours:

Baking a Birthday cake for Jesus
Buying a new ornament every year for each child
Acting out the Christmas story (with props!)
Praying together before opening presents

What are your traditions? Write a list and appreciate them in a new way this year. Then ask, “If I could add one new tradition this holiday season, what would it be?” I'd love to hear what you choose! It also makes me smile to think of your children's grandchildren doing the same.

***

Tricia Goyer is a CBA best-selling author and the winner of two American Christian Fiction Writers’ Book of the Year Awards (Night Song and Dawn of a Thousand Nights). She co-wrote 3:16 Teen Edition with Max Lucado and contributed to the Women of Faith Study Bible. Also a noted marriage and parenting writer, she lives with her husband and children in Arkansas. www.triciagoyer.com

These 12 Pearls of Christmas...
Enjoy these Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" from Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Sibella Giorello and more! Please follow the series through Christmas day as each contributor shares heartfelt stories of how God has touched a life during this most wonderful time of the year.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what they're all about. In short, Pearl Girls exists to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

Day 6 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

By Shellie Tomlinson

When I was a little girl, Christmas seemed to take forever to make its way back to our little house on the end of a dirt road called Bull Run in northeast Louisiana. We kids started counting down the days before the leaves ever began turning. Sure, the adults said it came once a year but I wasn't so sure. Once Santa Claus left our humble abode it seemed like light years before he found his way back to the Delta.

That was a child's perspective. I imagine it hasn't changed all that much for today's kids. On the other hand, I'm operating under a completely different time frame these days. It seems like it was just yesterday when I pulled the boxes down from the attic and began pulling out the nativity scene, the miniature lights, and the keepsake ornaments. And now, just that fast— Christmas Day is right around the corner. Soon the tree will be striped naked and the piled up presents will all be distributed. After a few more day it'll be hard to remember who got what from whom, and once again, I'll start packing all the decorations away for another year.

I was thinking about how bare and cold the house always looks after the holidays when I realized that, sadly, this scene would play itself out in many hearts as well.

A lot of people will have had expectations that weren't filled and many of those same souls will be left with hurts that don't seem to heal. Unless this year is remarkably different from past seasons, my bet is, the New Year will bring magazines full of articles on combating depression and the talk shows will have experts on offering ways to fill the long days ahead and cure the winter blues.

I'm no expert, dear readers, but I'd like to offer you a suggestion that will go far beyond the creature comforts of a nice warm bath or a delicious bowl of hot soup. Your heart doesn't have to be bare and naked after the holidays. Do you want to know the real secret? It's simple, really. Don't pack up Christ with Christmas! As beautiful and special as the Christmas story is, it's only a part of heaven's miracle. The Christ child grew into a man and the man became a Savior.

This year, may we be determined to let the babe from Bethlehem live on in our hearts. If we'll allow Him to become the Messiah He was born to be, the joy of Christmas can be ours all year long.

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is an author, speaker, and radio host from Louisiana. Her latest release Sue Ellen's Girl Ain't Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy was endorsed by Jeff Foxworthy as "laugh out loud funny!" You can find Shellie's weekly southern features, podcasts, video chats and more at http://www.allthingssouthern.com/ Make sure to get by the blog and read about the Super Christmas Giveaway Shellie is hosting for her readers and secure your chance to win a Mort Kunstler print valued between $700 and $1400. www.allthingssouthern.com

Day 5 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

The Snowflake Party

By Deborah Raney

The first snow of winter hasn’t fallen yet, but in our kitchen tonight we’re doing a pretty good imitation. The whole family is circled around the huge old oak table. The snip, snip, snip of scissors is background music as tiny scraps of white paper float down, making our floor look like a giant brownie sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Tonight has turned out to be the night for our annual Snowflake Party, a tradition that began when our children were toddlers. There has never been a date blocked out in red on our calendar, but one day we wake up and the brisk autumn air has turned bitter cold. Naked tree branches trace their stark calligraphy on a dull grey sky and we need a taste of the joyful promises of Christmas and snow. It’s the perfect time for a party.

On such a day, one of the kids will fly in the back door, fresh home from school, and declare “Hey, Mom! Tonight would be a good night for the Snowflake Party!” First we round up every pair of scissors in the house. This is one time when sharing is not a virtue. While the kids search for scissors, I cut white paper into squares and fold them caddy-corner multiple times. The resulting triangles are artfully arranged in a basket, awaiting the beginning of the party.

Later, while the supper dishes dry on the counter, I recruit a volunteer to help me stir up a big pot of hot cocoa. For the next hour it will warm on the back burner, tantalizing us with its aroma.

Now the fun begins with careful cutting and snipping, shaping plain white paper into intricate works of art. Each snowflake we create seems as unique and spectacular as the genuine variety created by God himself. As each masterpiece is unfolded, collective oohs and aahs go up.

When the last dregs of our creative juices are drained, Dad oversees the vacuum patrol while I pour cocoa into generous mugs. We spread our handiwork on the floor around us and sit, quietly admiring our work while we dunk marshmallows and sip rich chocolate.

With empty mugs piled up in the sink, it’s time for the judging to begin. There will be awards for ‘prettiest’, ‘most unusual’, and as many other categories as we need for everyone to be a winner. Dad is the judge because he studied art in college. He also usually wins one of the top prizes––because he studied art in college.

Snowflakes deemed runners-up might be pasted in scrapbooks or hung on the refrigerator. A few even “melt” into the trash that very night. But the winners are taped proudly to the picture windows in the living room for passersby to enjoy while they long for the day when genuine snowflakes will color the world clean and white.

Our oldest daughter went away to college last September. She called just after Thanksgiving to tell me that her dorm window was covered with snowflakes. No, not the real thing, but the ones she remembers from her childhood––paper ones that she spent an entire evening cutting and snipping while sipping hot cocoa.

That’s the neat thing about traditions: They go with us no matter how far from home we travel.

***

DEBORAH RANEY's first novel, A Vow to Cherish, inspired the World Wide Pictures film of the same title. Her books have since won the RITA Award, ACFW Carol Award, HOLT Medallion, National Readers' Choice Award, Silver Angel, and have twice been Christy Award finalists. After All, third in her Hanover Falls Novels series will release next spring from Howard/Simon & Schuster. Deb and her husband, Ken Raney, enjoy small-town life in Kansas. Their four children are grown now and having snowflake parties with their own children––and they all live much too far away. Visit Deb on the web at www.deborahraney.com.

These 12 Pearls of Christmas...
Enjoy these Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" from Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Sibella Giorello and more! Please follow the series through Christmas day as each contributor shares heartfelt stories of how God has touched a life during this most wonderful time of the year.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what they're all about. In short, Pearl Girls exists to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

Day 4 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

Why I Decorate for Christmas

By Elizabeth Goldsmith Musser

An old cassette tape of Christmas carols—received in a package twenty years ago when we had first arrived in France as missionaries—fills our den with delightful piano music as I place one more ornament on the already over-laden Christmas tree. This one is a little white wooden rabbit with pink ears that move back and forth. It actually doesn’t look much like a Christmas ornament, but I bought it for our baby Andrew when my husband Paul was in seminary, and I was working for less than minimum wage in the library. This ornament was literally all I could afford.

As I hang it on the tree today, I get goose bumps and then a rush of warmth. And that’s why I decorate for Christmas. Not to impress but to remember. I remember those lean, lean years, and God’s faithful provision for us.

There are the cross-stitched ornaments I made our first year in Montpellier—for the boys (for by now we had two sons) and Paul and me. How I ever had time to do that, I don’t know. I remember our puny little tree—the kind they sold in France back then—in a pot so that it could be replanted later. We perched that tiny tree on a small table out of baby Christopher’s reach. I guess I watered it too much, because about halfway through December, it started smelling and then stinking, and it rotted there on Christmas Day!

I smile with these memories.

I look at the other ornaments on the tree. Many were purchased—one for each boy—when we attended conferences around Europe, and that makes me smile too. Getting to travel on a missionary’s budget to exotic places! There are the waxed red bear and red baby carriage from Wales, the brightly painted clay sun and moon from Portugal, the blue and white porcelain windmill and wooden shoes from Holland, the hand-blown glass Snoopys sitting on gondolas from Venice, and the delicately decorated eggs from Prague.

Other ornaments include the little pinkish shiny ball ornament with Paul’s name written in glitter—I think he made it when he was about six , and the little red velvet bows, bought at Michael’s after Christmas one year for a dollar. They bring a unifying theme to the tree. I say this, smiling, because our tree is, and has always been throughout the years, a hodge-podge of our life. And I like it that way. I don’t think I could ever have a ‘theme’ tree. Mine is a ‘memory’ tree.

The music plays softly in the background and I smile through tears, remembering God’s incredible faithfulness to call and keep us here in France for so many years. Heart-breakingly hard years, overwhelmingly joyful years—the same years, the same amazing God, our keeper.

Before we left for the mission field, I memorized Psalm 121 in English and in French, and over the years I have held on tight to those last beautiful words of the psalm: The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever. (NASB)

Of course He will. He is God with us.

We decorate to remember Christmases past, our lives, our legacy, and mostly, for those of us who have embraced Christ, we decorate to honor and praise Him for coming to us—Emmanuel! We make our homes ready to receive the Christ Child, with soft music and candles burning and the sweet flickering of angel wings on an over-laden evergreen.

ELIZABETH GOLDSMITH MUSSER, an Atlanta native and the bestselling author of The Swan House, is a novelist who writes what she calls ‘entertainment with a soul.’ For over twenty years, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have been involved in missions work with International Teams. They presently live near Lyon, France. The Mussers have two sons and a daughter-in-law. The Sweetest Thing (Bethany House, 2011) is Elizabeth’s eighth novel. To learn more about Elizabeth and her books, and to find discussion questions as well as photos of sites mentioned in the stories, please visit www.elizabethmusser.com and her Facebook Fan Page. www.elizabethmusser.com

These 12 Pearls of Christmas...

Enjoy these Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" from Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Sibella Giorello and more! Please follow the series through Christmas day as each contributor shares heartfelt stories of how God has touched a life during this most wonderful time of the year.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what they're all about. In short, Pearl Girls exists to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

Day 3 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

Fill out this simple {form} and enter for a chance to win a beautiful pearl necklace. Contest runs 12/14 - 12/25 and the winner will be announced on 1/1. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. You may enter once per day.

Where is Comfort and Joy Found?

By Sandy Ralya

The year 2006 ushered unwelcome emotions into my life. My husband was unhappy in his job, two of my grown children were making poor choices, my mother-in-law was showing signs of Alzheimer’s, extended-family issues were surfacing, and I was writing a book. Things only got worse. Much worse.

Early in 2007, I was asked to represent the mentoring ministry for wives I founded, Beautiful Womanhood, and lead a women’s conference in Uganda, Africa. My husband wasn’t sure if traveling to Africa was a good idea, so we committed it to prayer. While we were listening for an answer, I sensed God asking me to fast from spending, except for groceries, for thirty days. Sometimes you know that you’ve heard God’s voice because you’d never have come up with those words on your own. This was one of those times. I’d never heard of a fast from spending. Tom needed no convincing that a fast from spending came directly from the mouth of God. He still gets excited just thinking about it!

During the fast, it became clear I had used spending as a way to gain a comfort fix. When I was spending money, I felt carefree and lighthearted. Instead of dwelling on the unpleasantness in my life, I was thinking of my purchases and how they would bring me pleasure. Not until I stopped spending did I realize how short-lived the fix really was. During the fast, when I felt the urge to spend—to anesthetize my pain—I pictured myself running into the arms of Jesus, the Great Comforter. Oh, what comfort I received!

One night, I told good friends my experience of gaining comfort through the power of the Holy Spirit rather than money. I exclaimed that I had never felt so comforted. One friend then told us about a dream he’d had shortly after hearing about the invitation from Uganda. After the dream, he had awoken and recorded the following thoughts:

“. . . this is for Sandy. Christ’s redemption of women is beautiful. Beautiful Womanhood is a result of redemptive wholeness. The visuals the ministry uses on the books, etc., are like a piece of beautifully veneered furniture. There is something going on with the ministry to the brokenness of abused women. In Uganda, there are hurting, abused women, and something is connecting their need and Beautiful Womanhood. Though there is nothing wrong with veneer, it is only the topping—the covering, and without good structure it is shallow and will not hold up. It is time to add a new depth to the ministry.”

Then these verses came to my friend’s mind:

"All praise to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who comforts us. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. You can be sure that the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ." 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 NLT

When my friend was finished sharing, everyone in the room broke down in tears, praising God for His work in my life. I’d learned to listen and God had spoken. I’d obeyed, and He’d acted. When He acted, I was changed.

Needless to say, I packed my bags and experienced some of the best days of my life in Uganda—offering God’s comfort to His troubled women.

***

Sandy and her husband Tom have been married since 1980 and live near Grand Rapids, Michigan. They have three adult children and a growing number of grandchildren. When not writing and speaking, Sandy enjoys shopping at yard sales for vintage clothing, cooking, travelling, and drinking really good coffee (black is best) with her husband. For more information, contact Sandy at sandy@beautifulwomanhood.com. Subscribe to Sandy’s blog at www.beautifulwomanhood.com/blog. Find Sandy on Facebook at Beautiful Womanhood. Follow Sandy on Twitter @MentoringWives.

These 12 Pearls of Christmas...

Day 2 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

Fill out this simple {form} for a chance to win a beautiful pearl necklace and earring set. Contest runs 12/14 - 12/25 and the winner will be drawn on 1/1. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. You may enter once per day.

Advent
By Sibella Giorello

Consider the bride's walk down the aisle. We all know where that woman in the white is going but somehow waiting for her to arrive at the altar is an essential part of the ceremony. In fact, the waiting is so essential that even cheapskate Vegas chapels include wedding marches.

Why?

Because the wait adds meaning to the moment.

At Christmas time, we tend to forget this essential truth about anticipation. We're lost to shopping malls and checklists, rushing toward December 25th so quickly that we forget the quiet joy of the month's other 24 days -- and then we wonder why we feel so empty on the 26th, amid ribbons and wrapping paper and our best intentions.

Because the wait adds meaning to the moment.

And that is why Advent is so important to Christmas.

I'm as guilty as the next harried person. This Advent was particularly tricky because just six hours before it started, I was still trying to finish a 110,000-word novel that was written over the course of the year -- written while homeschooling my kids, keeping my hubby happy, and generally making sure the house didn't fall down around us.

It's an understatement to say my free time is limited. But waiting adds meaning, and Advent is crucial to Christmas, so I've devised several Advent traditions that are simple, powerful and easy to keep even amid the seasonal rush.

When my kids outgrew the simple Advent calendars around age 7, I stole an idea from my writer friend Shelly Ngo (as T.S. Eliot said, "Mediocre writers borrow. Great writers steal." Indulge me.)

Here's how it goes: Find 24 great Christmas books, wrap them individually and place then under the tree. On the first day of Advent, take turns picking which book to open. When we did this, we would cuddle under a blanket and read aloud -- oh, the wonder, the magic! We savored "The Polar Express," howled with "How Murray Saved Christmas," and fell silent at the end of "The Tale of The Three Trees" (note: some of the picture books I chose were not explicitly about Christmas but they always echoed the message that Jesus came to earth to save us from ourselves and to love us beyond our wildest imagination. In that category, Angela Hunt's retelling of The Three Trees definitely hits the Yuletide bull's eye).

This Advent tradition lasted for about five years. It gave us rich daily discussions about the season's real meaning, without being religious or legalistic, and it increased family couch time. But like the lift-the-flap calendars, my kids outgrew the picture books.

Because the wait adds meaning, and Advent is crucial, I prayed for another way to celebrate anticipation of Christmas. By the grace of God, last year I found an enormous Advent calendar on clearance at Pottery Barn. Made of burlap, it has large pockets big enough to hold some serious bounty.

But my husband and I didn't want the kids focusing only on the materialist stuff for Advent -- we already fight that on Christmas day. We decided to fill the daily pockets with simple necessities and small gift cards. We also printed out the nativity story from Luke 2:1-21 in a large-sized font and cut each verse out. From Day 1 to Day 21, there is one verse to read aloud. The kids memorize it, then get to open their present (again, on alternating days for each person). Then we tape the verse to the wall in order. By Day 22, all the verses are on the wall, in order, and the kids now try to recite the entire nativity story from memory. That's not as difficult as it sounds because they've been memorizing one verse each day. Still, the entire recitation -- verbatim -- usually requires Day 23 and Day 24. Whoever does memorize the entire thing -- without mistakes -- earns a bonus gift of $25.

Does that sounds extravagant?

It is.

Because we want our kids to understand that God came down and humbled himself and taught us about love right before He suffered and died on behalf of the undeserving -- which is every one of us.

"That's" extravagant.

And in the waiting, we find even more meaning.

***

Sibella Giorello writes the Raleigh Harmon mystery series which won the Christy Award with its first book "The Stones Cry Out." She lives in Washington state with her husband and children, and often wishes there were 36 hours in a day.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls™, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what they are all about. In short, they exist to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

Day 1 of the 12 Pearls of Christmas

2011-12-14T08:04:00.000-08:00

Pearl necklace giveaway!
Details at the end...

A Christmas of Kindness

By Suzanne Woods Fisher

"You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving." Amish proverb

I do it every year.

I plan for a simpler, less stressful Christmas season and, every year, by Christmas Eve I'm exhausted! After our delicious and very-time-consuming-to-make traditional Swedish meal to honor my husband¹s relatives (think: Vikings), it's time to head to church. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but the last few Christmas Eve's, I have sent my husband and kids head off without me. The pull to spend an hour of quiet in the house feels as strong as a magnet.

It's odd. My children are young adults now. Wouldn't you think that Christmas would be simpler? Instead, it's just the opposite. Jugging schedules to share the grandbaby with the in-laws, trying to include our elderly parents at the best time of day for them, dancing carefully around recently divorced family members whose children are impacted by the shards of broken relationships.

The thing is: you can simplify your to-do list, but you can't really simplify people. We are just a complicated bunch.

Here's where I borrow a lesson about simplicity from the Amish. It's easy to get distracted with the buggies and the bonnets and the beards, but there's so much more to learn from these gentle people if you're willing to look a little deeper.

Yes, they live with less "stuff" and that does make for a simpler, less cluttered life. But it's the reason behind it that is so compelling to me: they seek to create margin in their life. Not just empty space but space that is available to nourish family, community, and faith. Their Christmas is far less elaborate than yours or mine, but what they do fill it with is oh so right.

Christmas comes quietly on an Amish farmhouse. There is no outward sign of the holiday as we know it: no bright decorations, no big tree in the living room corner. A few modest gifts are waiting for children at their breakfast place settings, covered by a dishtowel. Waiting first for Dad to read the story of Christ's birth from the book of Luke. Waiting until after a special breakfast has been enjoyed. Waiting until Mom and Dad give the signal that the time has come for gifts.

Later, if Christmas doesn't fall on a Sunday, extended family and friends will gather for another big meal. If time and weather permits, the late afternoon will be filled with ice skating or sledding. And more food! Always, always an abundance of good food. Faith, family, and community. That is the focus of an Amish Christmas.

And it's also how the story begins for A Lancaster County Christmas, as a young family prepares for Christmas. A winter storm blows a non-Amish couple, Jaime and C.J. Fitzpatrick, off-course and into the Riehl farmhouse. An unlikely and tentative friendship develops, until the one thing Mattie and Sol hold most dear disappears and then. Ah, but you'll just have to read the story to find out what happens next. Without giving anything away, I will say that I want to create a Mattie-inspired margin this Christmas season. Mattie knew inconveniences and interruptions that come in the form of people (big ones and little ones!) are ordained by God. And blessed by God.

Creating margin probably means that I won't get Christmas cards out until the end of January, and my house won't be uber-decorated. After all, something has to give. But it will mean I make time for a leisurely visit with my dad at his Alzheimer's facility. And time to volunteer in the church nursery for a holiday-crowded event. And time to invite a new neighbor over for coffee. Hopefully, it will mean that my energy won't get diverted by a frantic, self-imposed agenda. Only by God's agenda the essence of true simplicity.

And that includes taking time to worship Christ's coming at the Christmas Eve service. You can hold me accountable! This year, I will be there.

***

Suzanne Woods Fisher is the bestselling author of The Choice, The Waiting, The Search, and The Keeper, as well as nonfiction books about the Amish, including Amish Peace. Her interest in the Anabaptist cultures can be directly traced to her grandfather, W. D. Benedict, who was raised in the Old Order German Baptist Brethren Church in Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Suzanne is a Christy Award nominee and is the host of an internet radio show called Amish Wisdom and her work has appeared in many magazines. She lives in California. www.suzannewoodsfisher.com.

***

These 12 Pearls of Christmas...

Enjoy these Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" from Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson, Sibella Giorello and more! Please follow the series through Christmas day as each contributor shares heartfelt stories of how God has touched a life during this most wonderful time of the year.
AND there's also a giveaway! Fill out this simple {form} and enter for a chance to win a beautiful pearl necklace and earring set ($450 value). Contest runs 12/14 - 12/25 and the winner will be announced on 1/1. Contest is only open to US and Canadian residents. You may enter once per day.

If you are unfamiliar with Pearl Girls, please visit www.pearlgirls.info and see what they're all about. In short, Pearl Girls exists to support the work of charities that help women and children in the US and around the globe. Consider purchasing a copy of Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace or one of the Pearl Girls products (all GREAT gifts!) to help support Pearl Girls.

Starting tomorrow

2011-12-13T07:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Edgewise Readers: Several of your favorite authors and dear friends of mine have gathered to share their Christmas "Pearls of Wisdom" and Edgewise is a great place to read them over the next twelve days. Please follow along beginning tomorrow (Wednesday, Dec. 14th) through Christmas day as Tricia Goyer, Suzanne Woods Fisher, Rachel Hauck, Sandy Ralya, Sibella Giorello, Susan May Warren and more, share their heartfelt stories of how God has touched their life during this most wonderful time of the year.

If you'd like to share the 12 Pearls of Christmas with your blog readers too, just email Christen and she'll send you the series.

And there is a giveaway! Beginning tomorrow you and your friends can enter to win a pearl necklace and earrings valued at $450! The winner will be announced on New Year's Day!

Just a quick note from Margaret McSweeney before the series begins:

As I write this, I imagine that we are sitting at my kitchen table and chatting over a cup of coffee while familiar Christmas carols celebrate the Season. My twelve year old Chihuahua, Pongo, barks for a pinch of pound cake while my Shih Tzu, Lilly, patiently sits by the chair and waits for a crumb to fall.

My name is not Martha Stewart, and I will never receive a neighborhood beautification award. Just look at my front stoop. Yes, my never-had-time-to-carve-the-pumpkin-that-now-suffers-from-frostbite slouches next to the front door which is decorated with a Christmas wreath. I plan to roll this large orange ornament to the garbage pile tomorrow. For now, however, I will pretend that my front stoop is a contemplative modern art exhibit capturing the essence of contrast.

Actually, I love the concept of juxtaposition – placing things together that don’t seem to belong together, yet somehow ultimately make sense being paired. A personal example for me this season is the phrase: “comfort and joy.” Having just completed my manuscript for New Hope Publishers about the aftermath of grief, I fully understand the contrast of those two words. How can comfort bring joy? How can one find joy in loss?

Perhaps, dear reader, you have experienced loss this year – loss of a loved one, loss of friendship, loss of health, loss of financial security, loss of trust, loss of love, or loss of direction. Even with the best intent, words of encouragement shared by others can somehow seem insufficient to address an inconsolable loss. A spoken word cannot fully restore joy to a broken heart; however the Word can. And that’s the bottom line message of Christmas! God gave us the most amazing gift: His Son - the Word of God, the Holy Comforter.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall have everlasting life.” (John 3:16).

You are not alone this Christmas, dear friend. Juxtaposed to the unexpected grit in life is the gift of God’s grace wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. This year I purposely placed a pearl in the Nativity scene as a metaphoric reminder. When we place our grit into the hands of the Lord, His grace transforms our pain into a pearl.

“Joy to the world!”

Thank you so very much for sharing the JOY of the Season with us this year.

God Bless,

Margaret

Margaret McSweeney lives with her husband, David and two teenage daughters in the Chicago suburbs. She is the founder and director of Pearl Girls. For more information please visit www.pearlgirls.info. Margaret is fast at work on several fiction manuscripts. Her book Pearl Girls: Encountering Grit, Experiencing Grace was written to help fund the Pearl Girl Charities. She is also the host of weekly radio show, Kitchen Chat. Connect with Margaret on Facebook or Twitter.

Easy isn't always better

2011-12-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

Last week I sent out the Christmas cards with the tiniest newsletter I've ever sent. Barely four lines of update per family member. (Apologies to my Meissners. I know you are worthy of so much more.) I included a photo card of the six of us lounging around giant clay pots of impatiens and skinny palm trees, and that was imprinted with a cheerful greeting in a cool font, and I sent them out with address labels I printed on my home printer. At nearly 50 cents per stamp, I did send less than in years previous. It was probably the least personal Christmas card I've ever sent; good thing maybe that I sent so few of them. And I admit I do feel a little guilty about that.

But, I rationalized, the two jobs are crazy busy, the husband is deployed, the yard is big. I had to make the sending easy or not send. That's what I told myself.

Easy is a soulless adjective. It really is. Lovely is lovely. Nasty is nasty. Dreamy is dreamy. Scary is scary. But easy has no soul. It doesn't describe the thing you are doing, only if you can do it without much pain or effort. And conventional wisdom tells me that whatever I've accomplished that cost me next to nothing is not much of an accomplishment.

When I was growing up, before the personal computer or home copier, no one sent newsletters in their Christmas cards. And back then, cards were cards. Mass-produced photos were not cards. A card was folded and had heft. Glitter, maybe. Texture. And the people who sent my parents those Christmas cards signed them by hand, jotted a personal note, they even licked the stamp with their own spit. The envelopes alone were amazing when they arrived, with the personal script of each sender right there in all its uniquey uniqueness. My mom would put the cards in the little wooden sleigh on the coffee table, still in their opened envelopes of course, for meaningful browsing.

I miss those days. They were never mine as an adult, only as a kid. I concede maybe that's why the Christmas cards of my childhood seem magical, because they were from my childhood. But you can't convince me that's why they were more personal. That equation won't work. They weren't even my cards; they were sent to my parents.

I think - and I know I am not the first person to think this - that ease has replaced personal effort and involvement. The very innovations that have allowed us to stay in touch while expending less energy and time have actually made it easy to be personally disconnected - all within the very act of connecting. Sounds convoluted, but I think you know what I mean.

Some future Christmas, maybe next, I will attempt to send cards that open and close, that bear my personal script, that include a note that is personal and meaningful, a photo that is actually a photo and not a throw-away card, and I will address them myself. I probably won't be able to lick the stamp - do they make those anymore? - but I can get cards where you have to lick the envelopes. I know they still make those. My DNA will be all over those cards. It won't be easy, but by golly it will be personal.

Somebody remind me of this worthy goal sometime in late summer, wouldja? If I put it off until November, the ease of my technologically-advanced life will preclude any hope of actually pulling it off. . .

A little goes a long way

2011-12-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

Oasis Haven staff had known Bryan and Leza for about a year. Newly married, they were one of four couples in their Journey to Adoption course at the beginning of the year.

Leza began volunteering her time in the office a few days a week and Bryan became a regular visitor to the Oasis Haven offices. Through their involvement, Bryan and Leza had heard about a little girl named Khanya. They knew that the Oasis team was praying very hard for an adoptive family for her. They also knew that with her age – seven – and being declared mentally retarded with no clear diagnosis, Khanya had little chance of being adopted and also little chance of realizing her full potential without an adoptive family.

When they came forward and told Oasis Haven that they knew that Khanya was their daughter and that they wanted to adopt her, the Oasis team was overjoyed. Since that day in July, Bryan and Leza steadily prepared for Khanya to come home—sharing with their family and friends, meeting with social workers, preparing her room—creating a home and a new life for Khanya. One step in this preparation was to make a special book for Khanya with photos of Bryan and Leza, their house and Khanya’s room, grandparents and extended family members, and special details about themselves. This book would help Khanya to get to know them and to a know little bit of what to expect. The book was beautifully handcrafted with loads of photos and activities for Khanya. On the very last page, Bryan and Leza made a special puzzle so Khanya could count the days until she met her new mommy and daddy.

When “Auntie” Bev gave Khanya the book, she took one look at it and said, “My new family.” As she looked through the pages, she literally glowed with joy and anticipation. This was her family, the one she had been praying for, the one she would be going home to.

These are the kinds of life events that are made possible by the amazing ministry of Oasis Haven. I've just one month left in my Jubilee year, one month left for my Jubilee for Joburg celebration. As the year draws to a close, would you consider one of your year-end giving destinations be the Oasis Haven kids in South Africa? Just look at what can happen when you do! Donate US dollars here:

Oasis Haven US

PO Box 28362

San Diego, CA 92198

WRITE JUBILEE FOR JOBURG in the check memo line. Gifts are tax deductible.

Thanks for making the dreams of little ones of a forever family come true. . .

Food for thought

2011-11-28T09:52:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across an article from the UK's The Independent this morning about a new book coming about in May 2012 and I do believe I am going to have to pre-order! Here's the premise: What if Virginia Woolf wrote a recipe for cherry dessert? Can you imagine it? Author Michael Crick did, and not only Ms. Woolf's take on a cherry classic, but Chaucer on onion tarts and many more. Here's a quote from Woolf's recipe from The Household Tips of the Great Writers:

"Little by little she added the milk, stopping only when the mixture was fluid and even, smooth and homogenous, lumpless and liquid, pausing to recall her notes on the iniquity of the English dairy system. She looked up: what demon possessed him, her youngest, playing on the lawn, demons and angels? Why should it change, why could they not stay as they were, never ageing?"

Isn't that delish?
Or how about Chaucer's instructions for adding the spices to the onion tart:

Strewe thereto nutmeg grated, tho keep some by,
And grounde gyngere, and return to the fyre.
Lightly beat the eggs and zolkes together,
And season wiv both salt and black pepper.
Heat the crème till just warme with saffron rich,
Then adde the eggs for to mix.

And Raymond Chandler's take on Lamb with Dill:

I took hold of the joint. It felt cold and damp, like a coroner's handshake. I took out a knife and cut the lamb into pieces. Feeling the blade in my hand I sliced an onion, and before I knew what I was doing a carrot lay in pieces on the slab...

I love the idea of pairing authors with food. What a grand idea. Wish I had thought of it.

May sure seems like a long ways off.

And now I am hungry. . .

More than words we say...

2011-11-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

(A devotional thought I wrote for the Lifeway Fiction Blog:)

From the moment my kids were old enough to express themselves, my husband and I endeavored, as all parents must, to teach them to say “thank you.” Saying this is part of the code of conduct that we call “good manners,” and it’s expected of everyone on the planet. But it’s also something that we had to teach them. When one of my kids was given something and shy silence followed, I had to lean down— as a million other mothers have had to do— and whisper, “What do you say?”

We all know the answer to that four-word question, don’t we? It’s not, “Have a nice day,” or “Excellent choice!” or “Better luck next time.” The answer to “What do you say?” is always, “Thank you.” Expose a child often enough to situations where she is obligated to say thanks and eventually it will become ingrained. She will learn that gratitude doesn’t have oxygen unless it’s expressed.

As Thanksgiving approaches with the busy Christmas season already nipping at its heels, this time of concentrated gratitude can easily morph into just a yummy precursor to the rest of the holiday season.

Giving thanks, however, is as intentional – and as meaningful – as giving gifts. Thanksgiving is more than just a fabulous turkey dinner and college football and loved ones around the table eating pumpkin pie. Giving thanks is an act of parting with something. Thanks is something I give, not take. I don’t eat it. I don’t watch it. I don’t pass it around. I give it.

To give something is to offer something of value to someone; something that’s completely mine to give, and means something to me. Usually it means a sacrifice of some kind on my part, because giving something to someone is rather meaningless if the thing meant nothing to me.

Truly giving thanks is a sacrifice of praise to God for all that He has given us; the wonderful and the hard; the mysterious and the amazing; the abundance and the scarce. And if I’m truly to mean it, then I must consider that my gratitude to God has no oxygen unless it’s expressed.

This Thanksgiving, gather those whom you love and spend some moments sharing with each other what it means to give thanks. Not just say thanks, but truly give it, part with it, and offer it to God as a gift. It is in God’s nature to be generous with us. When we pause to offer words of gratitude back to God we breathe life into our relationship with Him each other, and we find ourselves changed by two simple words, “Thank you.”

“Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NLT)

Stop before zebras get involved? I don't think so...

2011-11-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this darling trailer for the upcoming Matt Damon movie, "We Bought a Zoo," tells us way too much. I can already tell how the movie will begin, what the story goal will be, what the obstacles will be and even how it will end. Matt will get the girl, the zoo, the son, the peace that eludes. But still. I am in the mood for a feel-good movie that probably won't pack any surprises. I really am. I think I'm gonna like this one. It's based on a true story, after all. And I do think zebras are pretty cool. Thoughts anyone?

Hungry for Hunger Games

2011-11-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

It's not often that I find myself engrossed in a book where young adults are being killed right and left in ways you couldn't possibly imagine. But I have mentioned before what a compelling read Hunger Games was; a surprise not just because there's enough violence in its pages to shock my socks off but because it's a YA novel - written for Young Adults. I am an adult but I'm not young. And I am not the only Not Young Adult who read it and was moved by it. I've got boatloads of friends my age who also read it and came away wide-eyed with strange delight. The thing is, the story is not about violence, blood and the chase. It's really about sacrificial love, the most beautiful thing there is. Here is the trailer for the movie, which debuts in the spring. I can't wait to see it... Listen to how Katniss says "I volunteer. I volunteer as tribute." That kind of love is what makes this story great. It is the bit of the divine that smolders in us and makes us stand back in awe. . .

And the winner is. . .

2011-11-11T09:28:00.000-08:00

Congrats to Brandi of Faith in Fiction Book Club! Thanks to the random number generator at www.random.org, you and your book club are the lucky winners of eight copies of A Sound Among the Trees, Pearl's Caramel Cake (made by yours truly) and a phone-in convo at your book club when you gather to discuss the book! Thanks to all who entered; it was so much fun to read about your clubs and the books you have read. My club - we call ourselves the Zip Its - is gathering for lunch today at Soup Plantation (no meeting without eating!) so it's a good day to award the winner! Have a great weekend, everyone! And Brandi, we need to chat, so I will be emailing you :)

Now we're cookin'!

2011-11-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of cooking and even bigger fan of eating good cooking. I was thrilled to be a part of the Novel Morsels project, which just debuted this week, and which features recipes borne out of novels and the novelists who wrote them.

This e-book is the yummy creation of Nicole O’Dell; a writer, radio host, teen advocate, and a good friend. Sixty-some authors contributed to this collection of more than 120 recipes. As my fellow contributor and author friend Carla Stewart said, “Some [of these recipes] are found between the covers of our books and have our character’s fingerprints on them. Some are from authors who cope with the rigors of writing by escaping into the kitchen.”

Just looking at the pages makes me hungry! If you've read A Sound Among the Trees, you will know why I have included Pearl's Caramel Cake in this cookbook. I also included Esperanza's Bifana from The Shape of Mercy and Lucy Day's Syllabub from Lady In Waiting. Read the complete list of contributing authors right here!

Novel Morsels is available as an e-book on Nicole’s website at the delicious price of just $2.99 and will soon be available for the Kindle, Nook, and iPad. But as a thank you to you,, my lovely blog readers, I will send a secret coupon code to anyone who leaves a comment on this blog post from now until the day before Thanksgiving and you will get the cookbook FREE! Make sure you include your email info in your comment. You can protect your email from bots by putting brackets spelling the word AT and DOT in your email address.

Don't forget to post your comment between now and Nov 23 right here on this blog post!
Bon Appetit and all that!

Calling all book clubs!

2011-10-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the release of A Sound Among the Trees, (still under $10 bucks at Christianbook.com!) I am giving away a set of EIGHT copies of the book to one lucky book club! I will also Skype or phone in to the club the night (or day) they discuss the book. And because my own book club’s mantra is No Meeting Without Eating, I will even make and send Pearl's Caramel Cake (when you read the book, you will know who Pearl is!) as a yummy edible gift to the winning club. Here’s what you need to know to enter the drawing:

Post a comment to this blog and tell me 1. How long your book club has been together AND 2. What your favorite book club book has been to date.
You don’t have to be the leader of your club to enter and your other club members can post a comment, too, to increase your club’s chances of winning. (Just one comment per person, though, and I must limit this giveaway to US dwellers. My profound apologies, international friends...)
The contest will run from now until Friday, Nov 11 at 9 AM Pacific, which is the day my fabulous book club will meet. Your comment will be given a number (based on when you enter your comment) and At 9 AM on November 11, I will let random.com choose the winner by number!
Make sure that you check back on November 11 to see who the winner is, because it could be you!
I will pack up the eight books and send them to the winner, and I will sign them based on the names the winner gives me. It will be the winner’s joy to pass out the books to their other club members.
After you’ve read the book and are ready to discuss it, I will send you Pearl’s Caramel Cake to arrive in time for your meeting. And we can decide then if you would like a phone call or a Skype session with your group!

If you aren't in a book club, this would be a great way to start one. All you need are six or seven people who live near enough to meet, and who enjoy books and talking about them. Start a club! You have ten days to gather some reading friends together before the November 11 deadline. And I bet you will want to stay together after you’ve read this book and found out how wonderful it is to read a book with friends and then talk about it. And eat something fun.

I love my book club gals. I've been in this club for four years and our favorite book to date is probably Kathryn Stockett's The Help. Other faves have been The Art of Racing in the Rain, The Thirteenth Tale and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. We call ourselves the Zip It Book Club because when we get together we have a very hard time NOT talking to each other and our leader is forever having to tell pairs of us to “zip it” so that we can all participate in the same conversation! No joke. If she didn’t tell us to zip it we would never actually get to the book. . . We are discussing A Sound Among the Trees on November 11. Guess what I am bringing to the food table? Hint: There's caramel in it . . .

Let the giveaway begin!! Start posting to this post!!

Still a fan

2011-10-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

As much as I love my Kindle, when an author I absolutely love comes out with a new book, I plunk down the cash for the hardcover version with nary a tremor of apprehension. I'm already convinced I will love it and therefore I must have its colored spine to gaze at - from one of my many bookshelves - for the next forty years. Kindle books are convenient but they've no colored spines for gazing or pages for smelling or heft for holding.

So when I recently scurried down to my fave indie bookstore, Warwicks, to hear Geraldine Brooks speak and to get her new book, Caleb's Crossing, I wanted to drop everything I was reading at the moment to devour it, the minute I got home. I was hoping for the magnetic pull of Year of Wonders and the dreadful pathos of March (for which she won the Pulitzer) and sheer mastery of People of the Book, and I guess you can already tell, that's not exactly what happened.

I liked this book. A lot. But it didn't capture me like her other books have. I can't see reading it again anytime soon. And I don't know why. It must be me. She's a brilliant wordsmith, so I am thinking it must just be me. I loved hearing her talk about this book - she's a delight to listen to - and I am in awe of her ability to capture a story with pinpoint accuracy. She based this tale on an actual event, and I'm sure she stuck to the facts, and in that awe I must remember that a true historian doesn't mess with the truth to make the story more interesting. But I found Caleb's story sad, and the narrator Bethia's story sad. And not in the way I was moved to tears by Brooks' other protagonists in other novels. There is a sadness that pulls me to the heart of a character and then there's a sadness that makes me want to back away. I didn't emotionally connect with the characters in this book. My fault, I'm sure.

And the most ridiculous thing? I wanted Caleb (the first Native American to attend Harvard) and Bethia (a young Colonial woman with no rights and a giving heart no one respects) to run away and elope. That didn't happen in real life, so it couldn't happen here.

But I wish it had.

I will still buy Geraldine Brooks' books in hardcover. I will keep this one she signed for me. And maybe I will read it again. I've read Year of Wonders three or four times. Perhaps a second reading will give me the insight I lack at this moment in my life to appreciate Bethia's and Caleb's choices.

Anyone out there ever read a book where you'd change the ending if you could?

Tell me.

p.s. Got something really fun starting on Monday. Hope to see you then. . .

Kindled Tree Limbs

2011-10-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

My good friend Mary DeMuth has just released her critically acclaimed debut novel, Watching the Tree Limbs onto the Kindle format. I've been getting my out-of-print novels onto Kindle as well, and I can say I am thankful to have a place for books like these to find new readers. (My Blue Heart Blessed made it to e-book form just last month) I thought we'd catch up with Mary today on what was transpired in her writing life since Watching the Tree Limbs made its inaugural appearance.

Here's the story in a nutshell: Amid the red dirt and pecan trees of East Texas, nine-year-old Mara struggles to find her way through a painful and mysterious family situation. Who were her parents? Is her aunt Elma really her aunt-and does Elma really have a tumor? What will happen to her if her aunt dies? The pain in Mara's life multiplies when she meets General, the teenage neighbor who repeatedly abuses her, threatening her life if she tells anyone. DeMuth captures the horrific situation-from Mara's inability to keep her body from shaking to her determination to watch the tree limbs to keep her mind off of what is going on-while providing hope of redemption and healing.

EDGE: What has been the most amazing thing that has happened because Watching the Tree Limbs is out there in the world?

MARY: It’s been heartening to see lives changed as a result, mostly folks realizing that they were no longer alone. And seeing Mara walk through a semblance of healing and rescue helped them see their abuse in a new light, I think. Plus Tree Limbs was my very first novel to be published, so it opened up doors for me to write The Defiance series which is also very dear to my heart.

EDGE: What has been the most challenging thing?
MARY: I felt far more exposed when I published Tree Limbs than most any other book (with the exception of Thin Places, my memoir). After the first draft, my editor said I didn’t allow the main character, Mara, to have emotions as a little girl while chaos and pain swirled around her. The problem was, when I was young, I wasn’t allowed the luxury or emotions either. So I had to assign the emotions to my character I hadn’t been allowed to show. Quite cathartic, actually.

EDGE: Do you feel the same way about these characters that you did when you first
wrote it?

MARY: I have a distance from them now, but I still really love Denim the radio man so much. He is flawed but a hero.

EDGE: How did writing this book influence or affect the novels you wrote after it?
MARY: I overwrote Tree Limbs (too much description, too much flower), so I didn’t (thankfully) take that into my next novels, but I did take with me my narrative voice, my love for flawed characters, and difficult subject matters.

EDGE: Tell us about the new cover for the e-book version.
MARY: My friend George at Tekeme Studios designed it for me. The girl is actually my youngest daughter that I took from above in a tree. I worried a bit about having my daughter as a model, but she was happy to do it, and I believe she did a great job of looking haunted.

Watching the Tree Limbs as an e-book is a great buy at just $2.99. It was nominated for the Christy Award in 2007 in the category of First Novel and Publishers Weekly says it's a "thoughtful, powerful reflection on a difficult topic and... a compelling story."

Highly recommended, Edglings! Hope you have a great week. See you Friday. . .

A new way to tout a book!

2011-10-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am back from a much-needed vacay (finishing a book turns my brain into oatmeal) and am back at the worktable. Thought we'd start the week with some visual candy. A book trailer! (Think movie trailer with the "In theaters now!" line replaced with "In bookstores now!") I have to say I really like the trailer my publisher came up with for A Sound Among the Trees, out on shelves now for about two weeks. It's clever and cool and I like the music in the background. Makes me think of Hogwarts a little bit, which is totally not Civil Warish but is so inviting nonetheless.

What do you think? Have you ever bought a book based on its trailer?? If you want to see a few others to gauge your appreciation for book trailers, check out this blog post by publishing guru Michael Hyatt. Do you think book trailers have the power to sway you as a buyer? Would love to hear your thoughts!

A Sound Among the Trees - It's HERE!

2011-10-04T06:43:00.000-07:00

On a historic Fredericksburg street, Holly Oak stands in quiet elegance. The cannonball wedged between stone and timber is a silent reminder of what the house endured in the War Between the States; and a dot on the timeline of the women who lived there then and live there still.

When Marielle Bishop, an Arizona native, marries into the Holly Oak family she soon hears rumors that the ghost of Susannah Page, a Yankee spy, haunts Holly Oak’s halls, longing for pardon. But Holly Oak’s 83-year-old matriarch, Adelaide, tells Marielle that it is not her great-grandmother that is the ghost, but the house itself that is caught in a limbo of regret, like a needle on a scratched record, unable to reinvent itself as a place of refuge.

As Marielle struggles to fit into her new role as wife and stepmother, far from the desert she loves, she must reconcile her belief that it is people - not houses - that hang onto the past, with the strange aura of sorrow she feels inside Holly Oak’s walls and within the rustling of the trees that surround it.

The Civil War comprises four years of intense human drama and human drama is always the backdrop of a compelling story. I chose to set this book in Fredericksburg because of the particular events that occurred there, including its occupation and the insanely horrific battle in December 1862. We often talk about what houses would say if the walls could talk, and In A Sound Among the Trees, one of the main characters imagines that the house she lives in, which was her great-grandmother’s house during the Civil War, is aware of its past, that it aches over what happened inside it. Houses are supposed to be places of safety and refuge. This house was unable to be what it was designed to be. And in that respect, the house is its own ghost, at least to my main character and everyone she comes into contact with. What I hope to convey to readers is that the house is not the one unable to accept the past for what it was, it is the people inside it, namely my main character. She, though alive haunts the house, insomuch that she is tethered to the past.

Everyone in this house needs to be reminded, or perhaps told for the first time, that your past is not just what happened TO you, it is also what you responded to. You made choices, you made adjustments, you survived. And sometimes you do not see the whole picture until many years later. You were meant to see the whole picture. It is part of the picture of your changed life.

Read the first chapter here:
Buy A Sound Among the Trees here:
Tell me what you think so far right here!

I like the letter E

2011-10-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

I was a Kindle hold-out for a couple years, I confess.

I had a debilitating devotion to paper and ink and I just didn't want to give them up. I only wanted books with pages, thank you very much, and I ardently rubbed away any interest in an e-reader the moment it popped up.

But when you are in the book industry, you simply cannot ignore the signs of the industry's times. You can ignore it if you are a reader, but not if you are a writer. And the fact is, e-books are the way in which we are headed. Just like cave drawings gave way to papyrus and papyrus gave way to paper, paper is giving way to digital. You can still read books on cave walls if you want to, but you can't write one on a cave wall and expect anyone will read it.

All that is to say, I got a Kindle for Christmas last year, after hinting that I was ready to give it a try, and am flabbergasted by how much I love it. I can take fifty books with me wherever I go. I can get a book in seconds, if I need it. Case in point: When I finished reading Catching Fire, the second in the Hunger Games trilogy, at midnight, I nearly hyperventilated as I frantically clicked buttons on my Kindle to buy the third one so I could begin reading it at 12:01. Which I did.

I can fit my Kindle in my purse. I can make notes. I can highlight. I can do everything I did with paper books except loan them to friends - and I think the day is coming when that will change, too.

And the really wonderful thing about e-books for me personally is, my Out-Of-Print early books are finding new life in the electronic book format. Blue Heart Blessed, a fun romantic sorta-comedy that I loved writing and which has been out of print for more than a year, is now back in circulation as an e-book with Greenbrier Books. Three more of my OOP books will be available in the coming months via Greenbrier. And that's happy news for me.

If you haven't bought an e-reader yet, I totally get why you haven't. If you have, may I suggest Blue Heart Blessed (the e-book) for the incredibly low, everyday price of $2.99? If you haven't read it, and you love a love story, I think you will enjoy it.

I plan to blog again tomorrow. Yes, on a Tuesday! Something big is happening tomorrow...

See you then.

Cat bathing

2011-09-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

My cat

I am working this week to get data files ready for some of my old out-of-print books to be available on e-book format so am feeling a little stretched for time as there really is just one week left in September. But I found this little lesson on how to properly bathe a cat - on the Ever Wise Internet of course - my thanks to Anonymous to writing it, and I just had to share it here to both enlighten you and lighten me. Much to do. Enjoy as always. . .

How To Clean A Cat

Thoroughly clean the toilet.
Add the required amount of shampoo to the toilet water, and have both lids lifted.
Obtain the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.
In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids. Note: You may need to stand on the lid so that he cannot escape. CAUTION: Do not get any part of your body too close to the edge, as his paws will be reaching out for any surface they can find.
Flush the toilet three or four times. This provides a "power wash and rinse" which I have found to be quite effective.
Have someone to open the door to the outside and ensure that there are no people between the toilet and the outside door.
Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.
The now-clean cat will rocket out of the toilet, and run outside where he will dry himself.


This beloved dog, gone now, would've written this...

Sincerely,
the Dog

Writing What You Know

2011-09-23T10:41:00.000-07:00

If you're a Star Wars fan - and even if you're not - you will enjoy this little 8-minute film called George Lucas in Love. Sometimes when you're a writer you just need to hear you're not meant to write agricultural space tragedies, you're meant to write what you already know and care about. Enjoy:

I am back from the Dead Zone

2011-09-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

I finished the book today. At a few minutes after 10 a.m. It was too dang early in the morning for champagne and only the dog and the cat were there to congratulate me, which they totally did not do.

Ninety-three thousand words were extracted from my head and heart and soul over the last four months for this novel and by-golly them words were snarky about it. This book, which is set partially here right in Sandy Eggo and partially in the magical city of Florence, Italy, is called The Girl in The Glass. There's a cool historical thread in it involving the uber-audacious Medici family. They about wore me out. You will see it on bookstore shelves in 2012.

With The Girl in the Glass done I am no longer The Girl in the Dining Room Tapping Away at Her Laptop While the Rest of the House Sleeps. It's good to be back. And because I am not so keen on writing today (you figger it out) I have here for your viewing pleasure a fun, fun video by author Maureen Johnson which aptly explains this thing I do in chair all day long. Enjoy. I might see you Monday. . .

So, the silence

2011-09-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you've noticed I haven't been hanging around the Edge the last couple weeks. I am in the home stretch of a manuscript and a deadline. The manuscript is almost done and the deadline is almost here. I've eighteen thousand words to go and the end of the month to capture them with my butterfly net.

This novel, which has my protagonist on the loverly streets of Florence, Italy, has been a bugger to write. Not because Florence isn't grand, 'cause she is. But my historical thread this go-around is the Italian Renaissance (wow and more wow) but also the Medici family (gasp and more gasp).

They are a tough family to write about, those Medicis. They loved the arts, supported the arts, gave us the genius of Michelangelo, Raphael, Da Vinci, Brunelleschi. The jaw-dropping masterpieces that assault the senses all over Florence are there because the Medicis paid for them or comissioned them.

But they weren't the kind of people to write home about. It's crazy that they adored beauty and lived lives of ugliness. Not all of them, but most. I've come across a couple here and there who didn't rock heaven with their choices. . .

Hence, my dilemma.

Wait.

Dilemma in a novel is GOOD.

Dilemma equals conflict. Conflict equals tension. Tension equals emotional investment. Emotional investment equals great story.

Sigh.

Back to the salt mines I go...

Room: A review

2011-08-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

I knew when I first heard the premise for the novel 'Room' that I wanted to read it. I am always up for a first-person point-of-view story from an unconventional point of view. That's why I read - and loved - The Art of Racing in the Rain, written from the point of view of a dog named Enzo. It was an unforgettable story with a plot that kept me riveted.

I found the same thing happening to me when I began to read Emma Donoghue's Room. I was sucked into the highly dysfunctional world of of the five-year-old narrator, Jack. So drawn in, in fact, that I read the book in two days, something I hardly ever to do anymore because life is so crammed full. But I couldn't put it down. I HAD to know what would happen next to this little boy and his brave mother.

The premise is this: "To five-year-old Jack, Room is his entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work."

In her interactive website for the book (which is very cool) Emma writes: "In my experience, the bond between mother and newborn is a tiny, cozy world that gradually relaxes its magic to let the rest of the world in. But motherhood — even under ideal circumstances — also has elements of nightmare as well as fairy tale, sci-fi as well as realism: it’s a trip like no other, and it can occasionally feel like (let’s admit it, shall we, mothers of the world?) a locked room."

Couple that insight with the spectre of the Room actually being a prison mom can't escape from and the idea that Room is all the world her son knows, and you have the backdrop for a page-turner. I can't say much more without spoiling the plot for you. Suffice it to say that as a mother, I was challenged to question what I would be willing to do to keep my child safe, not just in the physical sense, but in every sense.

So how about if I give you a link to read the first chapter so that you can check it out for yourself. Just click on the link at the right where it says "Read first chapter free"

And if you've read it, let's chat in the comments section where we won't spoil anything for those who've yet to read it. . .

2011-08-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Gina Holmes, my sweet guest today on Edgewise, is the bestselling author of Crossing Oceans and the newly released novel, DRY AS RAIN. She's the founder of Novel Rocket, (formerly Novel Journey), a registered nurse, wife and mother who makes her home in Southern Virginia. You can learn more about her at www.ginaholmes.com

Edgewise: Welcome Gina! Your debut novel, Crossing Oceans - which I loved! - hit ECPA, Amazon, PW and CBA bestsellers lists and was a finalist in every major Christian book award, including Christy, ECPA, Retailer’s Choice, Carol Awards, and won RWA’s Inspirational Reader’s Choice. Does having that kind of success put the pressure on for your second book?

Gina: I try not to think too much about it. I didn’t expect that kind of success but am very grateful for it. I had a lot of pressure on me on this releasing novel, not because of the success of the first book, but because, unlike the first, I didn’t have all the time in the world to write it. Some books flow smoothly, this one I had to yank out like a bad tooth. I faced multiple rewrites, some of them pretty major, all while trying to promote my all important first novel. I was still working full time, mothering, running Novel Journey (now Novel Rocket) and all of that, so this was a tough tough book for me to produce.

Edgewise: What you can you tell us about your latest release, Dry as Rain:

Gina: I'm a really bad pitchman so I'll just repeat the back of the book copy:

Behind every broken vow lies a broken heart.

When Eric and Kyra Yoshida first met, they thought their love would last forever. But like many marriages, theirs has gradually crumbled, one thoughtless comment and misunderstanding at a time, until the ultimate betrayal pushes them beyond reconciliation. Though Eric longs to reunite with Kyra, the only woman he has truly loved, he has no idea how to repair the damage that’s been done.

Then a car accident erases part of Kyra’s memory—including her separation from Eric—and a glimmer of hope rises from the wreckage. Is this a precious opportunity for the fresh start Eric has longed for? Does he even deserve the chance to find forgiveness and win back Kyra’s heart . . . or will the truth blow up in his face, shattering their last hope for happiness? A richly engaging story of betrayal and redemption, Dry as Rain illuminates with striking emotional intensity the surprising truth of what it means to forgive.

You can read the first chapter HERE.

Edgewise: This novel feels different than Crossing Oceans and yet I sense the same emotional pull.

Gina: I didn’t intent to write something completely different and I think it feels that way because of the characters telling the story. In Crossing Oceans, Jenny was our narrator and she was a melancholy, all woman sort.

In Dry as Rain, we have Eric, who is a man’s man and doesn’t think in flowery language and descriptions so it would have been wrong to write him that way. While both books have a heavy subject matter, Crossing Oceans was much more so. You can’t get heavier than dying, so it was bound to be more emotional, no matter how I wrote the next book.

But, my genre seems to be relational drama which both are and I like to pepper in a quirky cast and that’s true of both books.

Edgewise: Wow. First writing first person from a male’s perspective and having a protagonist who does a lot of things that aren’t very cool, like cheating on his wife, lying, etc. is kind of a gutsy move in the Christian market. Are you afraid this might hurt your sales in the Christian market?

Gina: The thing is Eric’s a nominal Christian at the beginning of the book, lukewarm about his faith like many who call themselves followers of Christ. This is his journey though and he doesn’t end up where he begins. I wanted to tell the story as truthfully as I could and at the end of the day let the chips fall where they may.

Edgewise: Applauding here. I totally get that. So tell us What happened to your long time website, Novel Journey?

Gina: www.noveljourney.blogspot.com is now www.novelrocket.com You can get to it by either address but we decided on an overhaul because we wanted to drop the blogspot address and just have a dot com. The guy who owned Novel Journey didn’t return our emails to sell so we had to do something a little different. This turned out to be a good thing maybe because we’d been chewing on broadening the site for some time. We’ve got some exciting changes now, the most notable is the addition of “Rocket Pages” a sort of Craig’s List for writers to find the services they need to launch and sustain their career.

Edgewise: I LOVE the Rocket! Well done. What’s going on with you personally?

Gina: Well, I’m blissfully married, mom to two, stepmom to three, and owner of 2 dogs and a fish. I bought a guitar and hope to start fiddling with that soon and just writing a lot. Nothing too exciting over here but that’s the way I like it. I’m the happiest I’ve been in my life. I’ve accomplished many of the dreams and goals I’d hoped to and I always tell my husband, if I died today, I’d feel I lived and full and rewarding life. Not that I’m looking to die just yet.

Edgewise. More applause! What are you working on now?

Gina: I can’t give the title yet as that’s a work in progress but it’s a story very close to my heart. I’m more excited about this one than anything I’ve ever written. Hopefully my publisher agrees and you see it on the stands in the next year or so. That’s really all I can say for now.

Edgewise. Well, okay. So tell us something we don’t know about you.

Gina: I’ll tell you a few. I thought I was afraid of heights until I bungee-jumped and loved it. I’d love to skydive for the first time in the next year, white water raft and get at least a little skill on the guitar. My husband is a talented songwriter. My kids are the sweetest in the world, (yes, the world!), and I love to get my hands dirty. That should do it. Thanks for having me!

Edgewise. Pleasure was all mine. See you in the marketplace, but not the bungee-jumping cliffs, cutie. . .

Prickly outside, sweet inside

2011-08-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

My son the gourmet decided to pick a prickly pear from the cactus growing in our yard.

He knew inside the I-dare-you-to-touch-me globe was sweetness.

They stood at the ready like soldiers with lances.

Bristled and brave.

"Do not trifle with us," they seemed to say. "We are warriors. We stand our ground. You are doomed."

But it was obvious a squirrel or rabbit or coyote had found a way - without gloves - to empty the prickly pears of their treasure.

And so, properly attired and most respectful, my son exposed the fruit inside, and we all tasted, mindful of the spines that wanted to cling to the slices.

"Kiwi," we said. With a hint of melon."
A delicate taste, subtle and squishy.

Outside a warrior, inside a tender-heart, life-giving and sweet, as so many outwardly stoic souls are.

Heroes unmasked.

Hope in a basket

2011-08-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a random thought will strike me and I will head to Facebook - the uber-depository of all random thoughts - to fling it out into cyberspace and see what comes back by way of comment. A couple days ago, after walking past the overflowing Missing in Action Sock Basket, I wondered aloud on Facebook what would happen if I just chucked the whole thing. I mean, really. Why do I keep those unpartnered socks month after month after endless month? What law is written in the heavens that demands I keep bachelored socks forevermore? What cataclysmic event do I hold at bay by keeping Unmatched Socks?

This is what I posted, expecting maybe one comment from my mother and perhaps one or two facebook friends:

What would happen if I just dumped the missing socks basket into the trash and didn't look back? How long do you let a mateless sock pine away after its AWOL partner? I think I've been too generous. . .

That post is now at 46 comments. This staggering amount of opinions knocked my socks off, if you get my drift. I was unprepared for so many kindred hearts out there who struggle with the weighty moral issue of what to do with lonely socks. And amazed by those who'd thrown caution to the wind and tossed them, fates be darned, into the Abyss. Here are some of the most telling responses, warnings and woe-is-mes:

From Cynthia: When you dump the missing sock basket in the trash, the others will turn up.
From Marcia: I'm sure the world would stop spinning on its axis. That's why I have a pile of them still in my drawer!
From Leslie: Let 'em go, Susan. Let 'em go. It'll feel so freeing, I promise!
From Brett: I actually have some in storage. But I am a firm believer in what Cynthia says...
From Kris: Use them as dust rags before you throw them away.
From:Bill: Don't do it!!!! You'll unleash forces beyond your knowledge! Save them! You MUST SAVE THEMMMMMM....
From Sean: Maybe their match is lying in our basket?
From Tim: I used to sit for hrs every Monday, after doing the laundry on the weekends, matching socks while watching evening TV. I found a few mates, had a sock war with my kids, and put the lonesome soldiers back in a bag for next week. Finally through most of them away, and purchased matching white socks for my three teen ge boys and myself. Made life simpler, but I missed the sock fights.
From Julie: Do it!
From Nora: Where do the socks go??? I took two off and put them in the hamper and then where do they go?? Do I really want to know??
From Amy: I think about doing this ALL the time!!!!!
From Donna: Get rid of them, don't look back!
From Leah: I have tempted fate oh so many times. I throw socks away like candy wrappers.. . Somehow I don't have the heart to tell them they don't have a chance at finding a sole mate . . .
From Bob, my husband: Wait, I put all my singles in my sock drawer until I find it's partner...we have a basket?

Do you sense what I sense here? What's the deal with so many passionate opinions about socks that have lost their mates and therefore their purpose? Socks are forever being stripped of their usefulness by The Evil Twins (washer and dryer, of course) and yet we keep them, long after we've learned to get along just fine without them. .

We keep them because we have a vision of restored usefulness. We can imagine a day when what was lost is found. That's called hope.

It's not such bad thing to have one little nook in your life where hope rests. I walk past that basket every day. My little basket of hope. . .

I might keep the sock basket after all to remind myself ala Churchillian optimism that the day you give up on hope is a sad day.

Might.

Remarkable Rhubarb

2011-08-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

Rhubarb Upside Down cake. Mmmmmm

Sometimes I wonder how kitchen delectables come about, especially when the raw materials aren't so tasty on their own. Taste a raw cacao bean and you've got to ponder who had the genius to suppose that if you mash it up with sugar and butter and milk you get awesome chocolate. Same with rhubarb. Someone had to imagine those gorgeous stalks that look like celery on its way to Cinderella's ball but taste like her fireplace could be redeemed with massive amounts of sugar and strawberries.

I didn't grow up with rhubarb in my backyard - don't think it grows too well in SoCal's Mediterranean climate - but I was around it a lot during my fourteen year-sojourn in the Midwest. Minnesota rhubarb defies elements that would kill an orange tree in one day flat, coming back hale and hearty every year out of a frozen, 6-month-long coma. Amazing stuff.

Its leaves are elephantine-large and its stalks are a lovely ballet-pink that turn crimson in the long days of summer. My kids had free range to the neighbors' rhubarb plants when they were little. They would break off a stalk, come into the house to pour a saucer of sugar to dip it in and manage to sprinkle most of the kitchen with crunchy granules. Ah, summer memories!

We ate a lot of strawberry-rhubarb pie - my favorite - and rhubarb slush - omigosh so good - and I do miss it now that we are back in San Diego.

This weekend, I went to the grocery store and bought several batons of rhubarb, very pretty though not fresh from the ground, and made rhubarb upside down cake. Yum yummy.

I am glad there are kitchen wizards who look at a thing that tastes pretty snarky on its own and who wonder, "What if?"

Keep the magic coming. . .

Always learning

2011-07-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

Spent the better part of the day at UCSD yesterday, as a guest of my retired high school English teacher, Frank Barone, watching as he awakened the imaginations of daycampers at writing camp. I have some pictures to share with you and an awesome quote from one of his students, but first things first, we need to announce the winner of Broken Wings by Carla Stewart. Thanks to random.org, the lucky recipient is Stephany! Dear Stephany, email me at susan [at] susanlmeissner [dot] com so we chat about a mailing address. Thanks to all who commented. If you didn't win, do get your hands on the book. Carla is a gifted storyteller. And now for the pictures.

Back in 1975, when he was Mr. Barone to me,
Frank affirmed me as a young writer capable of being
published one day.
He honestly thought it was possible.
Good thing I believed him.
It took twenty-five years to truly take him at his word,
but his remembered faith in me propelled me.
Here he is addressing young writers
who reminded me of me.

The students are writing a poem.
First, Frank held up a purple balloon
and asked them what they saw.
Not a purple balloon, but what the purple balloon
wooed them to see.
A sunset. A giant grape. A happy raindrop.

Here he is coaxing creativity out of them.
When he asked the students to share what poetry is like,
one girl said (and I love this)
"Poetry is like music. It is not a song, but it sings to you."
Love that.

Writing a poem with his grandson, Charlie. Cool kid.

Frank and I. Student and teacher.
Mentor and mentee. Writer and writer.
Friend and friend.

Monday chat with Carla Stewart

2011-07-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

Today at Edgewise I am happy to have as my guest a good friend and fellow writer, Carla Stewart. Her second book, Broken Wings has just hit the streets to great reviews. Carla's debut novel, Chasing Lilacs, was stunning. Truly. When I read it I knew she was on her way to a great career in fiction. I encourage you to read them both! You won't be disappointed. And I encourage you to read to the end of this blog post.
Because you don't be disappointed there, either.

Broken Wings centers around two women. Mitzi Steiner is the second half of a singing duo that captured America's heart for more than two decades. But now Mitzi's beloved husband is disappearing into the nether world of Alzheimers, leaving Mitzi alone and pondering. On the other side of Tulsa, Brooke Woodson has met the outwardly perfect man — a handsome lawyer with sights on becoming Tulsa's next District Attorney. But his drive for success comes with a nasty side effect. He channels all his anger over his own disappointments onto Brooke. Onto her heart and onto her body. An accident lands Brooke in the hospital where Mitzi volunteers, and the two women develop an unlikely friendship. With Mitzi's kindness and insights, Brooke learns how to pick up the broken pieces of her life.
So let's get right to the heart of Broken Wings.

Edgewise: Where did this story spring from?

Carla: It began with a short story I wrote a number of years ago based on my own family’s tales about the Great Depression and Black Sunday in particular. In “Sand Plum Summer,” three orphans were taken in by a farm family when their mother perished in the worst dust storm in history.

I loved this story and thought of the characters from time to time. It was almost like they were waiting backstage for their cue to make an entrance. It kept coming back to me that the oldest of those three orphans surely had a story to tell. Then one day I read a newspaper article about the possible renovation of Tulsa’s Big Ten Ballroom, a jazz hall in the forties and fifties. I knew at once my little orphan had grown up to become a jazz singer. She would be quite elderly now, of course, but perhaps she needed to tell her story. Once I had a starting place and Mitzi in mind, the plotting and story took off from there.

Edgewise: Who are you most like in the story, Mitzi or Brooke? Carla: Definitely Mitzi who made mistakes, sometimes foolish ones, but kept pushing forward. Being rooted in faith from an early age gave Mitzi a compass for her life, and I’ve had the same. Even when I veer from the path, God is always on the shoulder of the road guiding me back.

I do have a bit of Brooke in me—striving to please people and afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing.

Edgewise: What did you learn about yourself in writing Broken Wings?
Carla: That I’m not always the kind of friend I would like to be. I know there are those who might have welcomed a meal when I was wrapped up in edits or marketing. I have a neighbor who I used to have coffee with regularly, and now that writing demands more of my time, we go out only once in a while. I’ve been examining some of the restraints that writing has put on my relationships and resetting priorities. Words shouldn’t take precedence over people.

Edgewise: Did you learn anything new about God?
Carla: I came to this story with only a glimpse of how I could make the scenes from the past intersect with the contemporary ones. And even as I wrote each new section, I felt the hand of God guiding my fingers, giving me just the right words and characters to tell this story, not only of friendship, but also grace. His grace became new to me all over again, and I was reminded that He is sufficient in all things.

Edgewise: What was it like doing research for this one?
Carla: I visited the Jazz Depot in Tulsa which is home to the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. I attended concerts there and read articles and books about the rich jazz culture that is part of Tulsa’s heritage. Very fun! I already had a folder of material on Alzheimer’s so I reviewed it, researched current articles, and relied on my past experience as a nurse to bring the character to life. The Alzheimer’s research became very personal when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with mid-stage Alzheimer’s less than a month after Broken Wings was contracted. She’s a beautiful lady, and it’s been sad to see her spiral deeper into the tangles of this dreadful disease.

But the most challenging part of the research was learning about abuse which, thankfully, didn’t come from such a personal connection. I studied the personality types of victims and abusers and read a lot of personal stories and case studies. I also found the DSM-III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) helpful in understanding the personality of an abuser.

Edgewise: I struggle to understand women who stay in abusive relationships because I just would not do it! Did you have to work through any preconceived notions of your own in the writing?
Carla: That’s a tough question because I came to the writing knowing it would be a struggle, but I also knew that, for me, abuse is intolerable. What I didn’t expect, though, was how angry it made me toward abusers, and I had a bit of anger, too, at the victim (Brooke in the story) for being so naive and willing to deny that the abuse was going on. While I knew that abuse is often passed down or learned, every individual can choose the behaviors they exhibit. Abusers are frequently respected and get along in many areas of life and choose those who they can intimidate. They can also choose to seek professional help. Sadly, many don’t.

It was not a comfortable story to write, but I don’t know that I’m excused from writing about hard things just because they make me squirm.

Edgewise: What do people need to know about domestic abuse that you discovered while writing this book?
Carla: It is much more common than I ever imagined, but there are usually warning signs that begin before actual abuse takes center stage—irrational behavior, disdain for authorities, getting hot tempered over trivial things, blaming others for their behavior, wanting to be in control of the relationship. The most alarming statistic that I read was that 40% of teens age 14-17 had either been abused or knew someone who had while in a dating relationship. If anything, I hope Broken Wings gives courage to women who are in abusive relationships, that they will realize that it’s not their fault nor their responsibility to stay with an abuser because he “needs” her. Victims, too, have a choice. Help is available, and I included resources at the end of the book as a place to start.

Edgewise: What's next on the horizon for you?
Carla: Stardust (FaithWords) will be out early next summer. It’s lighter in tone, but still has some knotty issues. I’ve returned to a nostalgic time and found some real characters in the bayou country of East Texas. The year is 1952 at the height of the polio epidemic. Here’s a thumbnail sketch:

The Stardust Tourist Court beckons an East Texas widow to a new life, but when her dead husband’s mistress arrives and polio strikes, Georgia Peyton’s dreams are crippled.

Thanks for having me at the Edge, Susan!

Susan here. It's been a pleasure to have Carla here! And now for a giveaway!! Post a comment here on the blog or on the Facebook post where this link appears and your name will be in the mix for a copy of Broken Wings! A random winner will be drawn at 9 a.m. Pacific on Friday, July 29!

Have a great week, everyone!

We have a winner!

2011-07-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Thanks to random.org, we have a winner for Mary DeMuth's new book, The Muir House! Congrats to musingsnprint. You are the lucky winner! Send me a shout-out at susan [at] susanlmeissner [dot] com and we will get the House into the mail for you. Thanks to all who commented. If you didn't win, be sure to get the book another way. You will be glad you did.

I am headed out to North Carolina in the a.m. to teach on the secrets of an unforgettable story at the SheSpeaks conference. I am so looking forward to sharing with a roomful of storytellers what makes a story stay with us long after we've turned the last page.

I won't be blogging on Friday, but I have a treat for you on Monday. Another interview with another amazing novelist and another book giveaway! Come back to the Edge on Monday to see who it is!

Cheers . . .

Friday chat with Mary DeMuth

2011-07-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

Today I welcome to the Edge the dearest of friends, Mary DeMuth, so that we can chat about her new novel, The Muir House. Mary is a gift to me; she is a master wordsmith, wise about so many things, and truly loves God with all her heart. It is always a pleasure to welcome her here. Her latest work of fiction, The Muir House, is set in her current hometown, Rockwall, Texas, and centers around a house and woman with memories hidden inside it. (Stay tuned! Giveaway details at the end of the post!)

The main character, Willa, returns to Rockwall, Texas, after turning down a marriage proposal to a great guy. Something in her past prevents her from being able to say yes and she is compelled to find out what it is. She journeys to Muir House Bed and Breakfast, a former funeral home. From the publisher’s description: “But the old place holds her empty memory close to itself. Willa's mother utters unintelligible clues from her deathbed, and the caretaker of the house keeps coveted answers carefully protected. Throw in an old flame, and Willa careens farther away from ever knowing the truth. Set in a growing suburb of Texas, The Muir House explores trauma, healing, love new and old, and the life-changing choices people make to keep their reputations intact.”

Edgewise: Where does the name Muir House come from?
Mary: From my brain. Actually I did a little research on the word “wall” and found Muir to be a variation of that. Le mur is a French word, meaning The Wall. There is a house redecoration metaphor throughout the book, and Willa, the main character, has many internal walls guarding her heart.

Edgewise: Oooh, I love that. Tell me, who are you in the story?
Mary: I have tried and tried to uncover a mystery from my past to no avail. Here’s a post about it: http://www.marydemuth.com/2011/07/no-matter-your-past-you-can-still-leap-into-life/ But along the way, I learned the hard way that no matter what you do or don’t uncover, that’s no excuse to stop living or withdraw from relationships.

Edgewise: Very good advice, that. What does Willa want and how did you discover how to give it to her?
Mary: She wants to be whole, but she’s pretty confused and needy. I took the journey with her, and found that the steady love of some surprising people in her life helped her find wholeness.

Edgewise: Steady love always moves us into restoration, doesn't it? What did you learn about yourself in writing Muir House?
Mary: Actually, that I love a good love story.

Edgewise: Ditto, sister!! Did you learn anything new about God?
Mary: He is very, very, very patient with humanity.

Edgewise: Double ditto. What was it like using the city you are living in as your setting?
Mary: It was a blast. Just yesterday I walked around the downtown square and gave the book to several merchants. I love my town, so this was my way of giving back.

Edgewise: Did any of these characters surprise you?
Mary: Blake, Willa’s other love interest, had a lot of surprises up his sleeves.

Edgewise: I love it when a character knows how to make good use of his sleeves. Is there a common thread between Muir House, a stand-alone, and your two trilogies?
Mary: Yes, I always seem to write a mystery with some suspense built in, and I tend to focus on outcasts, so those elements are certainly there. The setting continues to be southern.

Edgewise: I love it that you have a heart for the outcast. My oldest son is like that. And it's very Jesus of you. That was what people in Jesus' day understood the least about him; that he offered grace to people like the promiscuous Samaritan woman, the hated tax collector, a demon-possessed prostitute, a Roman centurion. What was it like writing a stand-alone story?
Mary: Liberating. Joyful. Fun.

Edgewise: Tres magnifique! I do believe that's French for "Awesome!"What's next on the horizon for you?
Mary: I need a vacation! I think I need to come to San Diego to Cher Meissner and look for hidden treasures at the beach.
In terms of writing, I’ll be writing a nonfiction book that might just kick my behind. And I’ll continue to promote The Muir House (Link: http://amzn.to/lQUf0x ) and my first ebook, The 11 Secrets of Getting Published (link: http://bit.ly/jvgGsi)

Edgewise: I am going to wash the guest towels in preparation for your visit!! And yes, you and I both know God likes to use the beach, that sandy, steady place that is touched by the temporary every morning and later afternoon. You never know what the tide will bring you!

And lovely reader, you can be the lucky recipient of a copy of The Muir House! Just include a comment here or on the Facebook page where this post appears! A random winner will be drawn at 9 a.m. Pacific on Wednesday, July 20!!

Thanks for being here, Mary!

Departure

2011-07-08T10:19:00.000-07:00

I have always been an addict of etymology - please note that it is not entymology that I crave - and I run to my online etymology dictionary several times a week for a fix. I will see a word, even one that I know and use all the time, and suddenly I must know where it sprang from. There is usually an event surrounding the word that sends me to plumb its origin, as was the case recently.

A woman named Susan Meissner died last week. Her obituary ran in the paper of her Southern town and because I have Google Alerts for mentions of my name on the Internet (that's a story for another time), the link to the notice of her passing landed in my inbox. I probably don't need to tell you how odd it was to see my name listed in the obituaries of city far from me. My name. But not my life, and definitely not my death. I stopped to whisper a prayer of blessing over the family of this woman who shared my name, and moved on with my day, but she kept coming back to me, reminding me that we are all so very mortal.

Her obituary and her foggy presence on my day sent me to the etymology dictionary. I had to know where the word "obituary" came from. I have written hundreds of obituaries. Ten years as a journalist at a weekly newspaper provided me ample opportunities to become familiar with what an obituary is. But why is it called that? That, I suddenly HAD to know.

It comes from the Latin root word obitus, my friends, which means "departure." An obituary is a record of your departure. You were here among us, and then Death took you to a different place. You departed. Such a heady thought. And of course, you can guess what I did next. I looked up "depart." It is a compound word of French origin that means 'to part from each other.' de = from and partiere = divide. That is why the beloved dead are called the "dearly departed." They have been divided from us.

You can't read an obituary with your name at the top of it without thinking of your own mortality, your own impending departure. We can estimate the day someone will be born. There's always a due date for the arrival. But for must of us, the due date for our departure is withheld from us. A few will know when it is coming, at least within days or even hours, but the moment of our departure? I would guess very few know that.

I am reminded of a poem by Linda Ellis that was read at my grandfather's funeral in 2002. I have always loved it. Click on the link to read it. It speaks of the dash in between the date we are born and the date we die. The dash represents the life we lived in between those two dates, between the date we arrive and the date we depart. The dash is us; how we lived between those two moments in time. Not only is it how we lived, it is also how we will be remembered.

Rest in peace, Susan Meissner. I hope your dash was a lovely one. . .

What every child needs to hear

2011-07-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

A few months before Kathryn Stockett's debut novel The Help came out, I was at my favorite indie bookstore, Warwicks, and they were abuzz about an advance reading copy they had of this new book by a new voice. You will love it, they told me. And she's coming here when the book releases!

When your favorite indie bookstore is that excited about a new book, you listen! I went to hear Kathryn Stockett speak at Warwicks in 2009 before I had even read the book. She charmed and wooed us, the throngs of us packed inside the book store. I bought her book, she signed it to me, and I sent home and devoured it. It was my favorite read of 2009. And I blogged about then, of course.

So I was more than ready for the movie version, and near to hyperventilating when my husband and I got pre-screening tickets to see it this week, before it is released into the wild. I left the theater spellbound. I loved it. Can't wait to see it again.

It's incredibly difficult, I would imagine, to smush a 500+ page book into a 2½-hour movie. There have to be things in the pages of the book that can't show up in the screenshots in the movie. But I have to say, I was amazed at how respectful the screenwriters were to Ms. Stockett's story and her unforgettable characters. They had a fabulous story to work with, and characters bursting with originality, but still, to capture the story and characters we loved into the arena of the visual so well is a wonder.

I was drawn in at the get-go with the fictive world Dreamworks created. Maybe it's because I was already in love with these characters, but honestly, wouldn't that make me more critical of someone else's interpretation of what they looked and sounded like? I loved the attention to detail, the camera angles, the costuming, the sets, the sound track, the way you could almost taste Minny's fried chicken - and maybe even her chocolate pie, if you know what I mean.

Aside from the movie's artistic gifts, the moral takeaway was soundly woven in every minute of film. Someone asked me after I had seen it if it was family-friendly. It depends on the age of the child, I said. The occasional use of the S word is integral to the story. It is not there for ratings. It is the story. But I wouldn't hesitate to take a 12-year-old. In fact, every 12-year-old and older should see it. Children are the adults of tomorrow. They bring into their adulthood what they were taught in in their childhood.

The part of the movie that will stay with me the longest is Abileen cuddling the toddler child of the white woman she works for, assuring this blossoming human that she is kind, smart, and important. Every child needs to hear that. Every child. That's where the end of racial prejudice will begin.

Every child needs to hear they are kind, smart, and important. They become what we tell them they are.

Pi Squared, Marshmallow Squared, too.

2011-06-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

NOTE: You will want to read to the end, I promise you. You could win something fun. . .

Walk down the aisles of any major grocery store these days and every special display is heralding the all-American summer pasttitme of eating something you've grilled outside on your patio. I dare anyone to show me an endcap right now of pumpkin pie filling or cranberry sauce. Right now it's all about hot dog buns and kettle chips and baked beans and marshmallows for S'mores.

The basics don't change shape from year to year; that's usually something you can count on. Hot dogs are perennially tubular, baked beans come in cans, chips come in bags not boxes. So imagine my surprise when I saw yesterday (while buying hamburger buns which are unquestionably round) that marshmallows for S'Mores are now square. The plugs are still available, but they are in the baking aisle for making Rice Krispie treats. The marshmallows in the BBQ aisle are square! I get it, of course. Graham crackers are square, Hersheys are square. Why not square marshmallows? But it kinda messed with my sense of nostalgia, looking at those foursided confections. I bet they look stoopid on a skewer, I thought to myself, angry that retailers trifled with cherised objects of my childhood.

I came home a bit disillusioned and commented on Facebook that the sky was falling, I mean, that marshmallows are now square. I was comforted by FB friends who assured me they do not look stupid on the skewers, they make a nice S'More and more importantly, that homemade marshmallows have always been square. Homemade marshmallows? Is there such a thing?

Yes, a good friend told me and reminded me that I have her recipe for them in the cookbook she gave me. So to the cookbook I went and there they were!! I hear once you've had a homemade marshmallow you will never want a store-bought one again. So now of course, I must try them. I need to go shopping though. Hey ! Let's all try them and share the love here. Yes! KEEP READING! Here's my friend Linda Letellier's Homemade Marshmallows:

4 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cups water, divided
3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
powdered sugar

Oil a 9x13 baking dish. Line with file and lightly coat with more oil. In a large mixer bowl sprinkle the gelatin onto 3/4 cup of the water. Let stand to soften.

Place the sugar, corn syrup, 3/4 water and salt into large heavy saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook until the syrup reaches 240 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Add the vanilla.

With beaters at full speed, beat the syrup slowly into the gelatin and continue beating until mixture is stiff, about 15 minutes. Pour and push the mixture onto the foil-lined pan and smooth the top. Allow the mixture to rest, uncovered, at room temperature, 10-12 hours.

Sprinkle a board with powdered sugar. Turn the stiffened marshmallow mixture out onto the sugar. Remove the foil. Sprinkle with more powdered sugar. Cut into squares, roll each surface in more powdered sugar and put into airtight container. They keep only a few days at room temperature, but you can keep them frozen for months. Also, instead of just cutting them into squares, you can cut them into shapes with oiled cookie cutters.

I feel a contest coming on! Make Linda's marshmallows. Send me a JPG at susan [at] susanlmeissner [dot] com. I will post the pictures to the blog, unnamed, on July 4. The winner with the most amazing square or non-plug shaped marshmallows - voted by you fine people - will win an advance reading copy of my next book, A Sound Among The Trees, which doesn't even hit shelves until October!

(The book is rectangular by the way, just like all the rest.)

Let's have your picures to me by midnight July 3, Pacific time. Go for it. I have the advance reading copies in my possession. You could be reading the new book by mid-July if you win.

Now if you'll pardon me, I need to go buy a candy thermometer. I am thinking the one I used for grilling pork loin (which is tubular, in case you are interested) won't work. . .

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

2011-06-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Last night my husband and the sons and I watched a movie about The Black Death (not a cheery movie, by the way - nearly everyone dies, and those who don't, live as though they had). I knew going into it that the dramatization of something so horrible would be horribly dramatic, but I was reminded, each time I turned my eyes away from the horrors on screen, that when the planet seems to turn on us, all eyes to turn to the planet's Maker. Even those who never cast a reverent thought toward God on an ordinary day want an explanation when calamity falls like a divine sledge hammer.

Live long enough and you will discover there are some questions so big that the answers are surely bigger still, and likely less understandable than even the questions. I don't think that means we need to stop asking big questions. That's what writers like me do all day long. The thought of asking little questions that no one really cares about is a sad one. Asking implies a quest for knowledge; reveals that we know that we do not know it all.

The unfortunates who suffered the Plague didn't know what we know now about fleas and rats and airborne bacteria. The answers they demanded of their Maker were right in front of them but they lacked the knowledge to see them. I find that highly revelatory. If there were answers to our deepest questions seven hundred years ago, obscured only by our limitations, surely there are answers to our deepest questions now, hidden from us not by a vengeful and capricious Maker but because we do not know all that He knows.

Last night's movie reminded me of a book by Geraldine Brooks that I love and have read three times. A Year of Wonders is Ms. Brooks' exploration of one woman's humanity as she grappled with the calamity of plague. The main character realizes the limitations that send us scrabbling for guidance. She says this on page 62: 'If God saw fit to send this scourge, I believe it would be His will that one face it where one is, with courage, and thus contain this evil."

I love that. It is the asking of a Big Question. I like it that she begins the question with "If God," because we don't always know what He sends over what He allows. This speaks to our limitations, not God's. And I like that somehow she wishes to extract something noble - the exercise of courage - out of adversity.

All that we didn't know in the Middle Ages explains why the Plague could do what it did. All that we don't know right now - and wish we did - will one day explain something, too. We just don't know what it is yet. I doubt the survivors of the Plague comforted themselves by saying, "Someday we will understand why this happened." But the truth is, we do understand why it happened. The knowledge we've attained regarding fleas, rats, and airborne bacteria tells us why. The infinitely bigger question of why God let it happen I know I haven't the knowledge to address.

So in the meantime, courage keeps us from shaking an angry fist at God, walking away from Him and turning our backs on wisdom.

We all fall down at one point or another. It is the nature of gravity to do that to us when circumstances topple us. I am very glad we figured THAT out. It is likewise the nature of humanity to get back up when we've fallen and seek the answers to what made us fall. Glad we figured that out, too.

Interestingly enough, that's how we learn what we did not know before.

Pretend it's Friday. . .

2011-06-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

Today is Photo Phriday on Monday. These are the pictures I was going to post on Friday but then I had that mind-bending encounter at the Fair and the photos were pre-empted. I am a big fan of cactii and succulents.They are the most amazing plants. Hearty and delicate, impressive and stoic, ready to defend, ready to nourish. My husband and I planted a new garden behind the house recently and here are the new friends who make their home there. Enjoy . . .

Rules that are golden

2011-06-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

I was with my parents at the San Diego County Fair on Wednesday (did NOT try the fried stick of butter, fried Kool-Aid or the bacon doughnut) and had one of those experiences that left me speechless. The encounter was worthy of a comment or response from me but I had none to give. And even now, three days later, I am at a loss as to how I might've responded. Perhaps you Edglings will have some advice for me in case the situation ever presents itself again.

So we are coming out of one of the exhibit halls, it is fifteen minutes before noon and we are ready for Something On A Stick. We're hungry. We walk to the rows of picnic tables set up on the food midway and my dad starts to sit down at one. My mom and I have just set our purses on the table when a woman comes up to us. With her is another woman and maybe four or five little kids. The woman plops down her own bag.

"We need this table," she says, like a librarian might say say to noisy children, "You need to keep your voices down." Not, "Hey would you mind if we took this table? I know you were here first, but would you mind? The kids are really hungry." Not, "Would it be all right if we shared your table?"

Just an unapologetic commandeering with all those little future adults watching.

"We need this table."

As in "Go away now. We are taking this table."

My mouth dropped open, as did my mom's. My dad, a quiet philosophical soul, just looked around, saw a table behind us that was also available and got up and walked over to it. My mom and I, usually mavens of conversation, followed him without a word.

"Did that just happen?" I asked them.

We laughed quietly, because, yes, it had. But it really wasn't exactly funny. It was very strange. The more the day wore on, the more it bothered me that this woman had so little respect for anyone but herself and her own agenda. And those children are watching her and learning from her.

Six or seven hours later, I thought of something I could've said but probably wouldn't have. When she said "We need this table," I could have replied very kindly with, "Actually, fellow citizen, what you need are manners. Your children are watching you. They are learning how to be an adult by watching you. But I will give you this table. I want you to have it because your need for a big table exceeds my own. And because right now your kids are watching me."

And then we would have left to enjoy our lunch amid the sea of humanity all around us at the fair.

What would you have done? Tell me. . .

Time unfolded

2011-06-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

I love time travel stories. I don't know why. Maybe it's the crazy idea that we could possibly change the past or impact the future that appeals to me - it's audaciously amazing. Thrilling. Mystifying.

I loved the movie Somewhere in Time with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour - I've probably seen it a hundred times - as well as Guy Pearce in H.G. Wells' Time Machine. I grew up reading L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and as an adult, The Time-Traveler's Wife left me pondering the notion of how frustrating it would be if time were not constant.

So when I read in the San Diego Union Tribune this morning the headline that there will a series of lectures at USD to discuss "provocative science,' and among the topics, "Reversing Time," I had to read on. First, I simply had to know what provocative science was. Don't you want to know? I Googled "provocative science" and was unhappy with the results. Even Dame Wiki doesn't seem to have a page on it. About.com doesn't either. It appears from cursory glances at my hodge podge of search results that 'provocative science" - and please someone correct me if I am wrong - is purposeful pondering on hypotheses we can't yet prove. Such a definition doesn't exactly make it science but undoubtedly has the potential to provoke some interesting conversations, dontcha think?

Some of the lectures are free and open to the public, but not the one on reversing time, dangnabbit. The UT says that not only do some scientists believe it is possible to reverse time, "they're trying to develop experiments that would prove their theory, undermining the Second Law of Thermodynamics, one of the most important principles in science and engineering. " Yikes. The lecturer believes the future can influence the past. Yikes yikes. There are a great many things in human history I would love to see undone. The Holocaust, the sinking of the Titanic, the terrorist attacks on 9/11, just to name a few. It is heady to think there might be a way through human endeavor to thwart past undesirable human endeavor. I am not even sure if this what these scientists believe.

But if it is. we have ask ourselves the great line from Jurassic Park (a fine Hollywood example of what happens when you to try to fix something that should've stayed broken) spoken by the annoyingly dear Dr. Ian Malcom: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

It's interesting that if you look up the word "provocative" on dictionary.com, this adjective is defined first as stimulating and then degrades from there to irritating to vexing.

I think we might possibly be vexed with our results if we found a way to change the past. We might be smart enough to find a way to do it but I don't think we are smart enough to make the past perfectly suited for the future that awaits it. Plus, sooner or later someone in the future would look at the past which we had manipulated and declare it deficient. And so on and so on.

God has granted some people tremendous intellect. Physicists who can imagine the imaginable amaze and, at times, astound me. But with knowledge there must also be wisdom. They are two different things. I don't see God manipulating the past and He could do it with a mere word. Seems to me there is wisdom in that, along with knowledge.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience. ~ George Washington

Friday gifts from Ann

2011-06-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

I adore the way Ann Voskamp speaks sentences into art. Her blog is the sweetest confection of words to be found and I love getting drunk on prose whenever I visit there. For your reading pleasure today, I send you to her farmhouse in Canada and her blog post for today, as she pens a love note to the Farmer, her husband.

She makes me glad I am a writer. . .

No experts here

2011-06-06T10:26:00.000-07:00

A reviewer recently described me as a veteran, as in "veteran author Susan Meissner yada yada yada. . ." My first reaction was surprise, followed by a warm, fuzzy feeling, followed quickly by utter terror. Here's why: If you are a veteran of the armed forces you are a hero. If you are a veteran of a trade, however, you are expected to know it all. You don't make the mistakes a novice would make because you are a veteran. You have seen it all, experienced it all and vanquished all. When someone is an expert at marketing or brain surgery or astro physics, they have risen to the top of their skill. They are veterans. I seriously doubt there is a question about competitive swimming that Michael Phelps couldn't answer. He's a veteran of the sport.

Here's the thing. The more I write, the harder it gets. I demand more from myself each time I start a new book. I don't have the Phelpsian feeling that I know exactly what I am doing. In fact, there have been many days where I've sat down with my current book-in-progress, acknowledged my characters in the frozen state I left them in the day before, and I honestly haven't known the best place to send them next. To complicate matters, there is this instinctual pulse every novelist has of what needs to happen next: an escalation of the conflict at hand, a deeper connection to the protagonist's quest, a tightening of the tension that is keeping her from having what she must must have.

Knowing what must be done is different than knowing how it should be done. And even the veteran must admit he or she can never stop learning new ways to execute a master plan. Sometimes the veteran needs to hole up in the situation room and reconstruct a new battle plan. I don't know it all. I am no expert.

This past weekend I attended my friend James Scott Bell's fiction intensive in Los Angeles. Jim is a gifted writer, a brilliant writing teacher and totally understands what needs to fall in place for a Story to catapult a reader into the fictive dream without feeling even a hint of motion sickness. I went because I am in the midst of writing my 14th book, a story which I have begun three times. That has bothered me. My own fictive world has seemed elusive to me, the veteran.

But here's what I learned this weekend. Every veteran of every discipline runs the risk of getting stuck in the ruts of their craft. Push a wheelbarrow enough times down the same dirt path and you will never be able to choose a different route. You will be in a rut. Even if you are a veteran wheelbarrow pusher. You may not even know that you are stuck in a rut. Chances are you won't. All you will know is, you want to take a left and you can't and you don't know why.

Knowing the ingredients of a great story - which every veteran surely knows - is one skill that sets the veteran apart from the novice. But the novice has a huge advantage we veterans need to take note of. They are still making a path with their wheelbarrow. Sure, they get stuck from time to time and will probably take a turn too sharp, spill the thing and have to start over. The veteran's rut doesn't pose a threat because for the novice there is no rut. They are still learning what works and what doesn't.

I came into the weekend with a dozen titles on my backlist but feeling plateaued with the current book. It's not a great feeling to have. I felt like someone had taken the wheel off my wheelbarrow, leaving me with a bucket of story details I couldn't move. But the more I listened and internalized, the more I realized there was nothing wrong with my wheelbarrow. It was the rut I was pushing it in that was the problem.

So here's my advice to other veteran wheelbarrow pushers out there. There might come a day when you feel like you are exerting the same energy you always have and you aren't making any progress at all. You might think your wheelbarrow has become a dud, or worse, that you have. It's not the wheelbarrow that's a dud. And it's not you. It's just the rut you are in. Re-enter the world of the novice and learn a new way of doing an old thing. The ingredients of a great story don''t change that much from year to year, and even how to execute the telling doesn't change. What changes is the storyteller. You can become rut-ified.

If you are a veteran writer feeling like you've lost your edge, take a class on the art of storytelling and learn a new way of doing what you've always done. I recommend Jim Bell's intensive, of course, but if you can't wait for the next one then start with his The Art of War for Writers or Donald Maass' breakout novelist's workbook. Do something different. Change it up. Climb out of the rut of your old writing routines. You'll be glad you did.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with my wheelbarrow and an unbroken path. The sun is shining, I can't wait to break some new ground.

A Daisy by Any Other Identifier

2011-05-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

Wanna know a really great way not to get anything done? Just sit around skewing titles of great books to make them sound less interesting. Death of Pie. Or A Trolley Car Named Who Cares? Or Bananas of Wrath. Doesn't that sound like fun?

A couple days ago, a writer/blogger/tweeter named Nicola Morgan posted a harmless tweet with the hashtag #lessinterestingbooks. In less time than it takes to drive from my house to Disneyland, her hashtag was the number 1 tweet in the UK. A few hours later it was the number one Twitter hashtag in all English-speaking countries. This is exactly how it happened, in her own words:

"I was on Twitter during my coffee break (in answer to my husband, who said, "Why weren't you working?") and someone mentioned reading Lord of the Flies. But I briefly misread that as Lord of the Files. And I thought how much less interesting the book would have been if it had been called Lord of the Files. Such is the incredible profundity of this creative mind. Not that I didn't have a lot more important things to do than becoming No 1 on Twitter, of course. So, I tweeted: Lord of the Files #lessinterestingbooks."

That's all it took. Mutant morphisms of beloved and not-so-beloved books began to crowd the Twitter wire and then blogs, including this one, via a post by good friend James Scott Bell. The comments on this blog alone number over 100. Now I can procrastinate as much as the next writer, but I actually did not have the time to read the thousands of lessinterestingbooks on Twitter. But I did read these on Jim Bell's post. And omigoodness, they are funny. What a way to waste some valuable writing time. Here are my favorites with their creators in parantheses:

"Boysenberry Finn" (Katherine Hyde)
"The Girl With the Hello Kitty Tattoo (bjmuntain)
"That Bourne Guy That Can't Remember Anything" (John Hagenson)
"The Sit" (James Scott Bell)
"Paws" (Joe Moore)
"In Room Temperature Blood" (Mike Dennis)
"Ambivalent George" (mine! for the kiddos!)

So how about you? Want to give it a whirl? Think of a favorite book. Mess with the title a bit but definitely make it less interesting. Post it in the comments. I will start with one of my own books.

"Man in a Hurry."

GO!

Waiting for the voice

2011-05-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

The first fifty pages of a novel are always the hardest for me to write. I keep thinking surely as I become more experienced at this the first five chapters will become easier to write, not harder. An experienced marathon runner doesn't struggle with those pesky first five miles, does he? No. Does the prima ballerina bite her nails over the first five minutes of Swan Lake? No. Does the mason lose sleep over the first fifty bricks of a new bridge? I seriously doubt it.

But there's something vast and bottomless about the novelist's blank page. And since I do much of the research and big-picture-plotting before I start, I begin each new book with a brain congested with facts and possibilities and no confidence in the best way to expel them onto the page. The release must be perfectly timed, expertly sifted. The blank page is terribly blank. The full head is terribly full. Full head and blank page should be perfect partners. But they are not. Not for me.

Over the last two months I have started the New Book three times. I have three files in my computer: Girl in the Glass, Girl in the Glass2 and Girl in the Glass3. All three have been edited and massaged over many cups of java and cans of Diet Coke. Lest you summon too much awe, you should know 2 and 3 are actually morphisms of the first. But all are a superhuman attempt to grasp the thinnest of things: the unwritten story. The characters aren't dimensional yet, they don't trust me, they don't reveal all to me. Not yet. And the place where they live, even if it is the very place where I was born- the place I know better than any other place in the world, is not quite the same place for them as it is for me. It is almost like the geography of dreams: When you dream of your house, but it is not quite your house. Everything is just a little off.

And it's this way every time I begin a new book. I have finally come to expect it. Expecting something nasty doesn't change the nastiness but it does remove some of the fear factor.

I think I have at last have figured out what the secret is to finally having the reins of the story and why it takes so many attempts to finally have them in my hands. I have to hear my main character talk to me. Yes, I need to hear voices in my head before I am sane enough to begin writing. And dash it all, she will not speak to me until I pound out those first fifty pages without her.

This is how it goes. I study her. I interview her. I clothe her and give her backstory and childhood trauma and joy, and a high school diploma and her best friend and her favorite dessert and a few quirks and talents and habits, good and bad. And then I concoct a life for her that is to be tested and I toss her into this carnival of choices and I follow behind her with my little note pad.

But the story does not begin until she turns around and speaks to me. And she will not speak to me until I begin the story.

It's as simple as that.

And as spectacularly hard.

So now I know. Get ready to write. Get ready to listen. Write. Keep writing in the silence. Keep listening. Keep writing. She will speak. But only when you are already writing.

Maybe now that I know this it won't take fifty pages to hear her speak.

I'd be happy with twenty-five. . .

My someday words

2011-05-20T09:42:00.000-07:00

I've been playing Scrabble since I was a little kid. My grandmother, a Scrabble queen, always had her board out by the pool. Summer days in San Diego were spent in her backyard, with our warm skin smelling of chlorine and Coppertone, eating nectarine cobbler right out of the oven, and communing with those little smooth tiles made of pine that we'd move about with pruned fingertips that had been in the water too long.

It amazes me - all these years later - that she stooped to play with us and our impoverished vocabulary. We got smarter, of course, as the years went by. But there were a lot of summers my grandmother was forced to play off words like hat, toe, and bun. My sisters and I had no idea you could play ZA and QI and XU and get away with it. Grammary probably did but she never slapped down any of those words. She played it our way, bless her heart.

Now you can play Scrabble just about anywhere - I see the board on people's smart phones all the time - and no one has to worry about those slippery tiles sliding off into gibberish when someone bumps the board. There is no board to bump. There are even apps and websites that will keep track of your game and tell you what word to play - I refuse to use those. Scrabble is cool again.

I play Facebook Scrabble with my mom and sisters, my daughter, a very good friend and writing colleague and not looking for more games to play, but I DO have a little list of words I am longing to plunk down - on good Scrabble real estate of course. Here's my list:

Phlox - Love the flower, love the word in all its Seussian sass. Would bring in some good points if played well, too. I won't lay it down without a double-word score at least.

Moxie - Okay, so yes, I like the letter X. But isn't this a great word for verve? You don't see moxie much these days. It has morphed into snark - also a good word. But not sure if it's in the dictionary yet. Anyone know?

Savvy - Speaking of verve and double Vs (I don't like to draw a V despite the 4-point value. They are snarky without an E), I would gladly allow the versatile S the start-up to play "savvy" if given the chance, just to plunk down those twin Vs without their Es and tell them to take that. I usually save my S to pluralize a meaty word and create a second meaty plural. But I would give it up to play "savvy."

Quinoa - I just love that word. I love the way it looks and the way it sounds and I even love the way it tastes. I would play this without prime points if I had all the letters and could just lay it down. And in case you are wondering how to say it, it's Keen Wha. And it's yummy with fresh cucumber and Asian ginger salad dressing.

Bucolic - I actually don't like the sound of this word. It doesn't sound like what it is and if a word should do anything, it should make us think of what it is. Noodle works for noodles. Tart works for tart. Smooth works for smooth. Vibrant works for vibrant. But bucolic makes me think of vomiting buffalo. And that is NOT what this word means. Still, I would like to play it. Not really sure why. . .

How about you? Got a favorite word you are just dying to play on Scrabble? Do tell. . .

We have a winner!

2011-05-13T12:27:00.000-07:00

Congrats to screen name pinkdaisyjane! She has won the signed copy of Meg Moseley's When Sparrows Fall. Thanks to all who entered.

For your reading pleasure today, I'd like to suggest a nutty, fruited brie on crunchy baguette slices and paired with this interview of notsolongago — insights into my brain regarding the writing of Lady in Waiting at Christianbook.com

On Monday I will share with you all the words I am longing to play on a Scrabble board sometime. . .

When Sparrows Fall giveaway

2011-05-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

Happy Monday morning, everyone! Let's start the week off with a book-giveaway, shall we? On Friday I had as my guest fellow WaterBrook author Meg Moseley and we chatted about her debut novel, When Sparrows Fall. She had some very thoughtful answers to my questions. Take a look.

If you would like to enter a drawing for a signed copy of Meg's book, just drop a note here in the comments section. A winner will be drawn on Friday at 9.a.m Pacific. Have a great week!

Chattin' it up with Meg

2011-05-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

Today my guest is fellow WaterBrook author Meg Moseley, whose novel When Sparrows Fall debuted this week. It's been a good week for us WaterBrookians. Also in the news today, The Christy Awards 2011 nominations were announced. I am happy to say Lady in Waiting is on the short list for contemporary standalone. Pretty cool. I share this joy with many fabulous authors, including WaterBrook colleagues Kirstin Heitzmann, David Gregory, and Jonathan Rogers.

Meg grew up in California, loves vintage bungalows, twisted oaks on rolling hills, and the rocky beaches of the Central Coast. As a young adult, she worked at a variety of jobs, from candle-maker in a tourist town to administrative assistant at a Christian college. She married a Michigan man and lived north of Detroit for seventeen years. That's where she started homeschooling her three children, a journey that she finished in Georgia when her youngest graduated from high school in 2009. She and her husband live near Atlanta, close to the foothills of the Southern Appalachians.

Susan: When Sparrows Fall is your debut novel, but you’ve been writing for awhile, right?

Meg: When I was six or so, I sometimes played in the office of my father’s menswear store while he worked. He often gave me blank sheets of paper to staple into miniature books. The empty pages begged to be filled, but it was an exercise in futility because I couldn’t spell many words. Sometimes I banged away at his late mother’s old typewriter instead. That was frustrating too, but it made me feel connected to “Gran.”

I never knew Gran, but even as a child I knew I wanted to be like her. She was a writer whose magazine articles, poetry, and children’s stories helped keep food on her table during the Great Depression. My dad was the keeper of Gran’s unpublished family stories, in which she made her ancestors live again as pioneers, circuit riders, and gold miners. She made me feel the sway of her grandfather’s Conestoga wagon, see gold flakes glimmering in the pan, and taste the juicy peaches her father raised near Los Angeles before it became a metropolis.

But as a young adult I fell prey to the warped belief that if a novel wasn’t overtly Christian, it had no redeeming qualities. For years, I avoided general market fiction. It wasn’t until I was homeschooling my children that I knew I was starving for good stories. Classic children’s books wooed me back into reading a broad range of novels for adults.

Susan: You were in your forties when you wrote your first book – so was I! What has the process been like?

Meg: I didn’t know the first thing about the process. Happily deluded at first, I thought my first novel was pretty good. Nobody agreed with me, but I kept writing. One of my best learning experiences was my stint as a “community columnist” for a suburban section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I received the promised pay of “all the newsprint you can eat” plus an occasional dinner with the other columnists. The experience gave me confidence, if nothing else. I kept writing fiction too, but with growing frustration. Like my six-year-old self, I knew what I longed to do but I didn’t know how to do it.

That began to change when I discovered writers’ groups and critique partners who helped me learn the craft. I wrote six novels before I produced one worthy of publication, but the ones that didn’t sell weren’t a waste of time. Each one brought me closer to knowing what I wanted to write. Not just boy-meets-girl stories, although they’re fun, but woman-meets-patriarchy stories, or man-meets-racism stories. Now, instead of filling homemade books with first-grade words, I fill a blank computer screen with words that I pray will matter. It’s really all I’ve ever wanted to do.

Susan: So tell us where your main character, Miranda, emerged from:

Meg: Although I didn’t name Miranda after the heroine of Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest, I soon saw the parallels. Shakespeare’s Miranda lives on an isolated island where she’s controlled by a manipulator, much like my Miranda lives in isolation under the thumb of a conniving clergyman. I scoured The Tempest for appropriate lines for Jack to quote to Miranda, but none of them worked so I scrapped that idea. Jack does quote a variety of playwrights, poets, and songwriters, though. If you pay attention, you’ll find tidbits from Robert Burns, Stephen Sondheim, and many more. I had a lot of fun with that, and—dare I say it?—I think Jack enjoyed it as much as I did.

I liked Jack right away, but I didn’t like Miranda in the early drafts of the story. Because her marriage had made her not just submissive but subservient, she had all the backbone of a wet dishrag. As I revised the story, though, she turned into a fighter with opinions and nerve and a sense of humor, which she needed for her dealings with the sometimes difficult Jack.

Susan: I’ve long been in awe of friends who’ve homeschooled their children into amazingly smart and socially-adjusted adults, but in When Sparrows Fall, you paint a picture of a church/homeschool subculture that perhaps many people aren’t aware of. Does your plot stem from personal experience?

Meg: Anyone who reads When Sparrows Fall might wonder if the story is drawn from my own experiences. Am I like Miranda, a homeschooling mother whose six children have never heard of the Beatles or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer? Am I like Miranda, whose husband taught her that fiction is frivolous, if not downright wicked?

Well, no. Although my husband and I homeschooled our three children, we backed away from extremist views before we got in over our heads.

Most of our homeschooling experiences were positive, and we treasure the friendships we made during those years. I loved homeschooling. I’ll always be a defender of the many positive aspects of the movement, but I also want to point out the negative extremes. I’m using a specific, fictional situation to make people think about the real-life teachings and practices that bring harm to lovely, sincere Christian homeschoolers. Most homeschoolers are beautifully normal and admirably stubborn non-conformists who think for themselves, but I worry about the ones who’ve been sucked into fear-driven legalism.

Unlike Miranda, though, I don’t see the government as my adversary, I’ve never been married to an abusive man, and I certainly don’t have Miranda’s qualms about enjoying fiction. Like her, though, and like parents everywhere, I want my children to be safe and happy, no matter how old they are.

My fictional characters are my children too, in a sense, birthed in my imagination. I daydreamed Miranda into existence by asking myself, “What if?”

What if a homeschool mom is a single parent, raising a large family on her own? What if she has a secret that someone uses against her? What if she encounters spiritual abuse in her church but isn’t free to leave?

Yes, I’m like Miranda in some ways. From the day I started playing with her story until the day I typed “The End,” I learned lessons with Jack and Miranda. One of them is that it’s all right to admit that you don’t have all the answers and you never will.

Susan: I learn from my characters all the time! So, what’s next on the horizon for you?

Meg: I’m working on a novel about a young woman who lost her father to a deep mountain lake when she was a teenager. His body was never recovered. Now it seems he might have faked his drowning and fled to the wilderness. As she and her longtime friends search for answers, they uncover memories of a mysterious event in their childhood that might explain everything but might break all their hearts.

Glad to have had Meg here on Edgewise. Hope you all have a lovely weekend, and if there is someone here on the planet who mothered you, tell that person how much they mean to you. . .

A Dozen Lessons from Jane Austen

2011-05-02T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today Literary Critic Bill Deresiewicz has a lovely summary of the 12 life lessons Jane Austen reveals to us in her collection of novels (which you can read right here and you surely should), including this one:

#5 Don't believe everything you think
"We do not come to things with open minds, we come with all the ideas we've already acquired, and we can't wait to project them onto everything we encounter. Instead of discovering the truth, we end up with a very elaborate theory that bears no relationship to what's actually going on in front of us."

And this one:

#7 Too much money makes you miserable
"Being able to get whatever you want makes you awfully unhappy when you can't get what you want. And if everything is easy, then nothing really matters."

Missed the link? Here it is again:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-deresiewicz/jane-austen-life-lessons_b_854579.html#s270254&title=You_arent_nearly

Enjoy . . .

Fascinating Fascinators

2011-04-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Forgive me in advance if I make no sense this morning - it is morning, isn't it? - but I was up at 2 a.m. to watch the Royal Wedding. No one made me, I wanted to. I became a bit of an anglophile two decades ago when I lived in the UK during my Air Force husband's tour of duty there. One of our sons was born just outside Oxford. I've a bunch of fruity dinner plates from Stoke-on-Trent I use every chance I get. And I keep a British pound in my dress-up purse just because it never left that purse when we moved away when the three-year-tour was up.

I loved the wedding. I did. I loved the trees in the Abbey, Kate's dress, the heavenly tones of the choir, the Archbishop's groomed and tamed eyebrows, the lovely reading of Romans 12, the stirring message by the Bishop Richard Chartres, and of course, the hats.

Oh, the hats.

As I lounged in my pjs in the dark, sipping tea and eating an English muffin, I wondered what was it about those audacious hats that so intrigued me. I figured it out sometime around 3:30 a.m. They are characters in a story. They want to tell a story. From the tops of their prim and proper British heads, they are shouting a story. Everything else about this day's activities in London were all pompy and circumstancy - even the public's dignified and polite march down the mall to Buckingham Palace - but the hats trumpeted their audacious audacity. Beautiful incongruence. I do believe I shall write a children's book - dibs, everyone - about British wedding hats that talk. I mean, really, what do you think Princess Beatrice's hat would say if given lips to speak?? I shall get to work straightaway.

In the meantime, I so would like your opinion on your favorite hat from this gallery of hopefuls. Tell me, which is favorite. And why?

And hey, while you're at it, suggest a name for it. . .

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/sns-royal-wedding-hats-pictures,0,2465632.photogallery

There's a good lass and lad. . .

Three Cups of Disappointment

2011-04-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

On my lofty, tottering pile of To Be Read books is a copy of Three Cups of Tea, loved by so many when it came out a few years ago and which called to me sweetly whenever I would run my fingers on the spines of the Towering Titles to pull out a new book to read.

I don't know now that I will bother to pull it out. I love the idea that there are schools where girls are learning to read and write, and I am glad that my reading or not reading this book won't change that. But I am quite disenchanted with the news of late that the author wasn't telling us the truth about how he made those schools a reality. Call it fabrication, call it embellishment - at the end of the day, it's still deception. And I don't have the inclination or the time to peek past the facade to see what is true about this book and what is not.

If you're not in the know, it has been discovered that author Greg Mortenson told his story with his fingers crossed. 60 Minutes revealed the subtle ruse not too many days ago. Mortenson told his story of building schools in Afghanistan as an invitation to view his life in rewind. This is what a memoir should be, right? Here is my life as it happened, and here is how it changed me. A memoir is the retelling of the events that gave us our memories not a repackaging of the events to manufacture memories we wish we had.

That would be fiction. Nice stuff, fiction. I love it, of course. But everyone knows my books are the stuff of my imagination. I didn't write them with my fingers crossed.

As I have said before, life is short and there are too many books. I don't know that I will carve out the time to read Mortenson's book now. But I do hope all this chatter over his deceptive cups of tea won't spoil the notion that there are Afghan girls in school as I write this, learning to read. . .

Thoughts, anyone?

Stages of the cross

2011-04-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 1989, my husband and I took a trip to the bit of earth and air where our faith begins. We boarded a plane at Heathrow and flew as far East as I have ever been - to Israel. Over the next nine days we stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, broke bread on an ancient hilltop, touched the gilded floor where it is said a manger once rested, pondered the gnarled - nearly pained -olive trees in a garden still called Gethsemane and walked the Way of Suffering. Some call a trip like that a pilgrimage. But to be honest, I didn't feel like a pilgrim, especially on that day we walked the Via Dolorosa. I felt more like the inquisitive child desperate to know how the magician can make a white dove appear out of nowhere.

The child is mesmerized, transfixed by the notion that something can appear in a blink of of an eye where nothing was. It defies what she knows of the world. She wants to know how it can be done. She is a child learning about her world and this is how she learns, by exposure to truth. It is how she learned the stove is hot, knives are sharp, and what goes up comes down.

So as I walked the Way of Suffering, the closest one can get to the physical truth of the Cross of Christ, I was the child desperate to know how it works. Was there no other way to save me? Really? No other way?

A pilgrim probably does not ask a question like that. But a child does.

And the simple answer - that is not simple at all - is, no there wasn't. Jesus asked the same question in that grove of hideously twisted olive trees. Is there another way?

No.

And so He went the way of the Cross.

The child in me still ponders this. Not that there was no other way but that He went. This is what makes a Friday like today, good. It doesn't seem good, not to the child. She wants to wrap her mind around it. But there are some things a child cannot fully understand. She cannot explain why the stove is hot, but she simply must accept that it is. There are stages to her understanding. There always will be. . .

"We may say that on the first Good Friday afternoon was completed that great act by which light conquered darkness and goodness conquered sin. That is the wonder of our Saviour’s crucifixion. There have been victories all over the world, but wherever we look for the victor we expect to find him with his heel upon the neck of the vanquished. The wonder of Good Friday is that the victor lies vanquished by the vanquished one. We have to look deeper into the very heart and essence of things before we can see how real the victory is that thus hides itself under the guise of defeat."

Phillips Brooks

Tribute to a Good Dog

2011-04-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today I share a few photos of our dog, Luke, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 14½. He was what many dogs spend their lives being - supremely devoted, unwilling to carry a grudge, happy to see you at any moment of the day or night, uncritical of your faults, content to lie at your feet at the end of the day, ready at a moment's notice to go Outside.

He was there for the lion's share of the parenting years, he played a lot of Frisbee, barked at a lot of snow shovels, sniffed many a tree, claimed even more, opened Christmas presents - his own and those belonging to other "people" - with reckless abandon. He deftly played a game we called Mysterious Banana (if you insist on an explanation, I will give you one), he chased lizards and squirrels (obviously undaunted by the knowledge that in his lifetime he never caught one), loved apples and carrots, and stole the cat's food whenever we weren't looking. He stepped in paint once and left his paw print in the driveway and it is there still, dear to me now. He loved to chase and chew empty milk jugs and he once tried to stuff three tennis balls in his mouth. If you threw a dirt clod he'd retrieve it. His paws twitched when he dreamed and his ears felt like velvet. No matter what I had done or didn't do - he always wagged his tail at my approach. Always.

The only fault good dogs have is they don't live long enough, though I suppose this is one reason it is forgivable that they don't; so that we would be reminded of how wonderful they are and how we should aim to be a little more like them: Loyal, nonjudgmental, forgiving, compassionate, ready to drop everything and just go Outside . . .

"Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of Man, without his Vices. This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human ashes is but a just tribute to the Memory of Boatswain, a Dog.
~ Lord Byron

Monday Marvels

2011-04-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

If you are one to be mindful of dates and anniversaries then you will no doubt be aware that 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War.

As you may recall from your junior year American History class, the first shots were fired before dawn upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861.

From Eyewitness to History: "The firing of the mortar woke the echoes from every nook and corner of the harbor, and in this the dead hour of the night, before dawn, that shot was a sound of alarm that brought every soldier in the harbor to his feet, and every man, woman and child in the city of Charleston from their beds. A thrill went through the whole city. It was felt that the Rubicon was passed. No one thought of going home; unused as their ears were to the appalling sounds, or the vivid flashes from the batteries, they stood for hours fascinated with horror."

Having just finished the fourth rounds of edits on my next book, A Sound Among the Trees - which has its historical thread this terrible War Between the States - this anniversary is especially haunting to me. If I had $125 to toss around, I'd buy hese bookends, pictured above - the Monday Marvel for this week.

Look for more musings on the Civil War throughout this year, especially as the release date for A Sound Among the Trees draws near.

And for a great article on the subject, check out this week's Time Magazine and this thoughtful piece by David Von Drehle. The photographs created for this article need to be seen to be appreciated. Using reenactors in period uniforms and contemporary city scapes, the photographer captured an eerie sense of what it must've been like to be in a war in your own backyard.

"History is not just about the past. It also reveals the present." - David Von Drehle

If you're a writer or screenwriter. . .

2011-04-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

. . .or if you know someone who is, you will want to make note of a great seminar coming up the first weekend in June in Los Angeles. It's the Novel and Screenwriting Intensive, taught by writer and teacher extraordinaire, James Scott Bell. Jim is a gifted writer and writer's mentor- and a good friend. And I can't wait to go.

The thing about writing is, you never stop learning how to pull it off better. There's a lot to putting a great story down on paper. And I am finding that the more times I do it, the harder it gets, not easier. Each time I write a book, I set the bar higher for the next one and yet I still start at the same place when I begin it. A blank screen and whole lot of nothin'. A daunting place to start from, actually. Plus, the market for stories is always in a state of flux. While I am writing I have to be aware that I am not just telling a story, I am telling a story that needs to sell so that I can write the next one! There is an art to writing a story (or screenplay) that is irresistible. My friend Jim is going to share his paintbrushes and tell us how it's done.

Here are just a few things Jim says (right from the website, folks) we will learn:

• The single most important secret to selling your work to Hollywood or big publishers.

• The one plot element most writers miss, dooming their chances of selling. (Note: this applies to every genre, from comedy to tragedy and everything in between).

• How a misunderstanding of “character arc” might actually be hurting your story . . . and what you can do about it.

• Why “inciting incident” is confusing, and the more powerful concept that replaces it.

• An actual process for mining irresistible stories out of your writer’s mind.

• Why dialogue is the fastest way to improve your story instantly, and specific tools to take yours to the highest level of conflict and tension.

Writing seminars are wonderful investments into your writer's toolbox, especially when you consider they are far more intimate than conferences. The experience is much more individualized. Even after writing a dozen novels, I can't wait to be refreshed and re-energized to write the next one.

Check it out here: http://novelandscreenplayintensive.wordpress.com/the-seminar/
Hope to see you there. . .

If we could talk to the animals

2011-04-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week while watching the Today show I learned about the now famous Bronx Zoo cobra who'd gone missing from his warm abode in the reptile house. Newsworthy though that was, that wasn't what was making the headlines that morning. Instead it was the Bronx Zoo's Cobra's tweets.

Someone with audacious brilliance realized this snake on the loose was the perfect writer for a Twitter account. Said genius opened an account for the roving reptile and began posting the snake's daily treks as she explored New York City, with just the right amount of quirky class and cleverness. If animals could write, this is definitely how they would write. Intelligent, smartly satirical, insightful and savvy. Nothing that smacked of elephant jokes - and I definitely intend no pun.

After the Today show spot, I considered becoming a follower of the Bronx Zoo's Cobra but when Random House, the parent company of my publisher, tweeted not long after that that the Bronx Zoo Cobra had been sighted in their lobby reading one of their books, I jumped right in. The BZC's tweets for the next couple days were the highlight of my day. I laughed out loud when she tweeted that she sure did love the poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty -' your coiled masses yearning to be free.' - and "Indiana Jones! Why did it have to be Indiana Jones!" And from the top of the Empire State Building, tweeting that the people on the ground below looked like tiny mice. Delicious tiny mice. And this one yesterday: "Got a bagel at H & H Bagels on upper west side. When I ordered I said, "I'll have the snakes on a PLAIN." He did not laugh. Tough crowd."

I had tweeted right after that: "I don't want the Bronx Zoo's Cobra to be found and sent back to the reptile house where there is no Wifi. Hisss possssts amusssse me ssssso..." (Didn't know at the time she was a girl. . . my apologies)

So you can imagine my sadness when one of my kids told me the snake had been found that afternoon - in a dark corner of the the reptile house - and the fun was over. Or so I thought. I should have guessed the clever writer behind the snake would find a way to keep writing from within the glass confines of the reptile house.

Her Twitter geographical location, which had until yesterday read "Not at the Bronx Zoo" now reads "I'm at the Bronx Zoo - For now." And there is a new hashtag for her tweets - #freethebronxzooscobra.

So the muse of the ruse of will continue to enlighten and entertain, and that makes me smile. In a world where there is much that is sad and disappointing, it is nice to have a literate nonhuman providing colorful commentary on life among humans.

Makes me want to read the amazing The Art of Racing in the Rain a second time. . .