I have a new book out this month, a sweet Christmas romance titled, Their First Noel.
It's a story about a southern baker and a New England builder with totally different outlooks on life who work together to help her enter a gingerbread house contest, as a means for her to spend time in Vermont in hopes of finding her birth father and seeing her first real snow fall.
The Bible verse: Proverbs 16:9 In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.
I had no idea the steps God had in mind for this book, that they would include great sadness and a humble gift, that God would take these things and use them to help others hear about something - someone - important.
The First and most important thing you have to know about this book and story is that it is not about me. I love this book. I love the story and characters. Love them. But then I could say the same about all my characters. I have always done my best with each book (though sometimes it wasn't THE best result). Being a series book, it's as much about distribution and cover and publisher and many other things as it is about my name/writing. What has happened with this book is about the power of love.
That love takes many forms. A mother's love for a child, a writer's love for the dream of having your voice heard, the love of God for the broken hearted.
In short, while writing this book I reconnected with someone who's friendship went back all the way to grade school. We caught up on line, talked about our sons and our lives and through that I learned that her son had begun writing. Through Facebook and his blog, I got to read his work and catch up with his mom and it was through Facebook that I learned of Theo's untimely passing last November. He was just 18.
Theo Anderson had the kind of talent that comes when a writer is bold enough to open their heart and write the truth. His work is raw and emotional and good.
Nothing seemed adequate to offer comfort but there was something I could offer that all writers long for -- a place to be heard. So began the journey of getting a few lines of Theo's poetry in the dedication to Their First Noel. From that point everything was out of my hands - each step with the book seemed to have it's own energy. Schedules worked out to allow for timing to get things in order. The book then began to be highlighted when the Steeple Hill used the cover on their catalog (a first for me with Love Inspired) then many people began contacting me to guest blog and do online and radio interviews. Romantic Times Book Review Magazine made it a Top Pick with 4.5 stars (first they've given me in my career) Both of these mean more people will be exposed to the book than usual. Library Journal also gave it a wonderful review (yet another first for one of my series romances)- meaning that some libraries will be ordering it and giving it an even longer reader life.
This isn't my doing. This is about a blessing that gives Theo a voice and a way to share his talent with others.
People make plans but God orders our steps. How cool is that?
Even if you don't buy the book in a store, you can pick it up and read Theo's poem facing Chapter One (another first for me in a book - but it means that anyone who picks up the book to read or even just to check out will see his words). If you want to read more of his work or hear his story:
http://theodoreanderson.blogspot.com/
http://www.ryanlichtsangbipolarfoundation.org/site/c.ltJZJ8MMIsE/b.2107363/k.973C/Your_Stories.htm (scroll down, it's the second story)
Memorials may be made to
Theo Anderson Memorial Fund for adolescent bipolar research
200 First Street
Rochester, MN 55905
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
The Work
Someone has been sharing pieces written by a long time writer about 'protecting the work' preaching the importance of making others take your writing time seriously. I get that. Honest. I began writing when my kids were in diapers. I wrote through every stage from colic to college, 6 moves through, family crisis and health issues, through part time jobs and full time job loss and while I always took my writing seriously (and raised my kids to do the same) the thing that taught me was just the opposite.
The work is not your life. Protect the stuff that isn't the work.
Protect the joy. Protect the fun. Protect your health. Protect your relationships. Protect the adventure. Yes, even protect the heartbreak. Don't subvert all that to 'the work'. Get your priorities straight. If you are always in the business of protecting the work, in this case, writing, then you are never in the moment, never fully experiencing life.
I can still remember making the choice to leave a party early to go home and write. I wondered at the time where my joy had gone and promised not to let 'the work' take over to that extent again. It doesn't happen, says the person who took notes during her emergency room visit (causing the monitors to go off when my pressing the pen in my fingers cut off the tubing).
This fall I was so focused on 'the work' but 'the work' wasn't cooperating. Still, I did that 'put work first' thing and pressed on writing. What I've ended up with is page after page I've had to delete because I didn't have perspective.
The truth was that the end of the last chapter was a weak foundation. That's not the issue here, though. It's that I'd have seen that a lot sooner if I had remembered to protect the stuff that matters, to stop spinning my wheels, to set the laptop on the tabletop and take my lap out for a walk.
Writing - or whatever your passion or hobby or work - should be taken seriously. It does take time and commitment and focus, but then so does anything worthwhile. Your life is worthwhile. Protect it.
The work is not your life. Protect the stuff that isn't the work.
Protect the joy. Protect the fun. Protect your health. Protect your relationships. Protect the adventure. Yes, even protect the heartbreak. Don't subvert all that to 'the work'. Get your priorities straight. If you are always in the business of protecting the work, in this case, writing, then you are never in the moment, never fully experiencing life.
I can still remember making the choice to leave a party early to go home and write. I wondered at the time where my joy had gone and promised not to let 'the work' take over to that extent again. It doesn't happen, says the person who took notes during her emergency room visit (causing the monitors to go off when my pressing the pen in my fingers cut off the tubing).
This fall I was so focused on 'the work' but 'the work' wasn't cooperating. Still, I did that 'put work first' thing and pressed on writing. What I've ended up with is page after page I've had to delete because I didn't have perspective.
The truth was that the end of the last chapter was a weak foundation. That's not the issue here, though. It's that I'd have seen that a lot sooner if I had remembered to protect the stuff that matters, to stop spinning my wheels, to set the laptop on the tabletop and take my lap out for a walk.
Writing - or whatever your passion or hobby or work - should be taken seriously. It does take time and commitment and focus, but then so does anything worthwhile. Your life is worthwhile. Protect it.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
If you get writer's block, build on it.
I used to say I didn't believe in writer's block but with age and experience comes the wisdom that just because it never happened to me doesn't mean it doesn't happen or isn't very real to someone else.
Most cases I have heard of have to do with a kind of hitting a wall, usually of the writer's own making, a wall of fear. A big advance, an unexpected mega bestseller, an honor that feels undeserved, or deserved but...
What if I can't do it again? What if that was all there was in me? What if that's all I had to say? What if I don't really want to do that again? What if I can't deliver what people are expecting? How can anything I do merit that kind of money, praise, recognition, anticipation? It doesn't have to be a huge thing, of course, it can be just knowing your critique group thinks your present work is "IT" and wondering - how do I write up to that?
If you dwell on that, I can see how it would cause you to freeze up. But if you have the ability to build a wall strong enough and scary enough to cut you off from your creative drive, you have the ability to take that writer's block and build on it.
One... word...at...a...time.
The key is to get those words, to do SOMETHING, to WRITE! Scribble in notebooks and tell yourself no one will ever see it, if that helps. Talk your story into a digital voice recorder. Blog it. Put it in a file marked "practice" or "just stuff". Tweet it out if it comes down to that.
Every day people do things they think they cannot do. I mean tough stuff. This is just writing. Just words. Slap some down, then some more, add a few more and when you have enough to go back and work with, fix them up and move on. You can do it, if you get out of your own way.
Says the writer who has been avoiding writing for 2 weeks. Okay, here goes... chapter 6...
Most cases I have heard of have to do with a kind of hitting a wall, usually of the writer's own making, a wall of fear. A big advance, an unexpected mega bestseller, an honor that feels undeserved, or deserved but...
What if I can't do it again? What if that was all there was in me? What if that's all I had to say? What if I don't really want to do that again? What if I can't deliver what people are expecting? How can anything I do merit that kind of money, praise, recognition, anticipation? It doesn't have to be a huge thing, of course, it can be just knowing your critique group thinks your present work is "IT" and wondering - how do I write up to that?
If you dwell on that, I can see how it would cause you to freeze up. But if you have the ability to build a wall strong enough and scary enough to cut you off from your creative drive, you have the ability to take that writer's block and build on it.
One... word...at...a...time.
The key is to get those words, to do SOMETHING, to WRITE! Scribble in notebooks and tell yourself no one will ever see it, if that helps. Talk your story into a digital voice recorder. Blog it. Put it in a file marked "practice" or "just stuff". Tweet it out if it comes down to that.
Every day people do things they think they cannot do. I mean tough stuff. This is just writing. Just words. Slap some down, then some more, add a few more and when you have enough to go back and work with, fix them up and move on. You can do it, if you get out of your own way.
Says the writer who has been avoiding writing for 2 weeks. Okay, here goes... chapter 6...
Monday, October 4, 2010
Throwing myself...
...into another week.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Not with all that weighs me down. I carry with me all the stuff I need to get done (years of frustration, laziness, promises, disappointments, bad decisions and more). That fills a great big suitcase. I have another suitcase full of stuff I wish I had done, plan to do when I get the chance or when I lose weight or when I have the money, etc and all the things I know I will NEVER do but really should.
Those never far away, I slip on my backpack full of worry, about kids and career and pleasing God and, yes, pleasing the whole wide world.
An overcoat of shame comes next. Lined with guilt and embarrassment for my many mistakes, my bad choices, all the things I procrastinated on that have come back to roost.
I clomp along in the over-sized shoes of looking at other's kids and careers and talent and yes, even blessings from on high and wondering why can't I have those things? I struggle along further, wriggling into this funky, awful, ill-fitting and itchy hand-made hat of fear - fear of health problems, fear of loss, fear of being found out as a fraud - crammed down onto my head, almost covering my eyes.
All this I put on usually even before my feet hit the floor in the morning. In short, I am a mess.
That is how I report to work each and every day and every day when I enter the lobby of my life, often having picked up a few extra issues like remembering I am way behind on something vital or that I don't have enough money to pay all my bills glom onto me like old used gum or TP stuck to my shoe. And every day, first thing, the invisible voice behind the smoked glass in the reception area tells me - "'Morning, Jones, the Boss wants to see you."
I schlep onto the elevator and press the button to take me to the top, and then a litter higher still. The ride up is filled with the Muzak of my misery. "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, baby, you're no good" sung in perfect pop vocal choral harmony with an snappy beat, easy to dance to. Then the bell dings and I have arrived.
The doors whoosh open. The day streams in to meet me. There is no marble hallway in this building. No high-haired secretary to usher me inside.No humongous desk dominated by a black swivel chair. There is only me and the Boss and this day stretched out before me - vast and deep and as-yet, undefined.
It's as if my toes rest on the threshold of the sky.
And from inside the unknown, the question - Well, what are you going to do?
Hang back? Proceed with caution? Step out boldly in faith?
Today I chose none of the above. Today, even half-blinded by fear and nearly completely encumbered by all my baggage, I think that I will throw myself across the brink, not just into the day, but into the Hands of God.
Here we go... The Lord is my shepherd and I trust him to catch me.
amen.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Not with all that weighs me down. I carry with me all the stuff I need to get done (years of frustration, laziness, promises, disappointments, bad decisions and more). That fills a great big suitcase. I have another suitcase full of stuff I wish I had done, plan to do when I get the chance or when I lose weight or when I have the money, etc and all the things I know I will NEVER do but really should.
Those never far away, I slip on my backpack full of worry, about kids and career and pleasing God and, yes, pleasing the whole wide world.
An overcoat of shame comes next. Lined with guilt and embarrassment for my many mistakes, my bad choices, all the things I procrastinated on that have come back to roost.
I clomp along in the over-sized shoes of looking at other's kids and careers and talent and yes, even blessings from on high and wondering why can't I have those things? I struggle along further, wriggling into this funky, awful, ill-fitting and itchy hand-made hat of fear - fear of health problems, fear of loss, fear of being found out as a fraud - crammed down onto my head, almost covering my eyes.
All this I put on usually even before my feet hit the floor in the morning. In short, I am a mess.
That is how I report to work each and every day and every day when I enter the lobby of my life, often having picked up a few extra issues like remembering I am way behind on something vital or that I don't have enough money to pay all my bills glom onto me like old used gum or TP stuck to my shoe. And every day, first thing, the invisible voice behind the smoked glass in the reception area tells me - "'Morning, Jones, the Boss wants to see you."
I schlep onto the elevator and press the button to take me to the top, and then a litter higher still. The ride up is filled with the Muzak of my misery. "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, baby, you're no good" sung in perfect pop vocal choral harmony with an snappy beat, easy to dance to. Then the bell dings and I have arrived.
The doors whoosh open. The day streams in to meet me. There is no marble hallway in this building. No high-haired secretary to usher me inside.No humongous desk dominated by a black swivel chair. There is only me and the Boss and this day stretched out before me - vast and deep and as-yet, undefined.
It's as if my toes rest on the threshold of the sky.
And from inside the unknown, the question - Well, what are you going to do?
Hang back? Proceed with caution? Step out boldly in faith?
Today I chose none of the above. Today, even half-blinded by fear and nearly completely encumbered by all my baggage, I think that I will throw myself across the brink, not just into the day, but into the Hands of God.
Here we go... The Lord is my shepherd and I trust him to catch me.
amen.
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