Memorial Day is a day set aside for honoring and remembering the military personnel who have died in the performance of their duties in the US armed forces.
Please take a few moments today to reflect on the sacrifices
that so many have made to protect not only the cherished freedom of the USA,
but that of other countries around the world.
Please stop by again soon!
THE SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY
The Adoration of the Trinity by Albrecht Dürer (1511),
Germany. [PD-US]
The eleven disciples went
to Galilee,
to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
When they all saw him, they worshiped, but they
doubted.
Then Jesus approached and said to them,
"All power in heaven and on earth has been
given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded
you.
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of
the age."
Matthew 28:16-20
The Seekerville bloggers are praying for YOU and for our entire blog community. If you have any special intentions that need additional prayer coverage, leave a request for prayer in the comment section below.
May the Lord bless you and keep you safe.
For writers, in some ways, maybe it might not have been too bad to social distance and be shut-in. Authors are solitary people and writing is a (mostly) solitary undertaking. But the ramifications of the pandemic reached its tentacles into many an author’s life. Some were called on to provide childcare and/or virtual learning when their children or grandchildren’s daycare and schools closed their doors.
And for those who didn’t become caregivers or teachers, just the stress of the pandemic worked on their psyche, making writing difficult. But if 2020 seems like a blur and you look back and can’t think of one thing you did to further your writing career, don’t despair.
One year doesn’t a writing career make — or break.
Did you know there were 22 years between Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and Resurrection? Or that James Joyce remained silent for 17 years between Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake? Supposedly, Joyce was so exhausted after finishing Ulysses that he didn’t write a thing for a year. And when he did start writing again, his production slowed to a crawl due to more trauma in his life. His father died, and he had to deal with the health of his daughter, Lucia, as well as his own health issues. (Sound familiar, anyone?)
Do you need more? Pynchon had a 17 year time-out. US writer Harold Brodkey, 33 years. And 60 years … SIXTY YEARS … between works for Henry Roth. I am not familiar with these last authors’ works, but just making a point that 2020 is ONE YEAR in your writing career. ONE YEAR.
Take a breath.
Take a break.
Take a page from some writers who took a lot longer than a year to get back in the game.
Take care of family and take care of yourself.
Then, when the time is right, pick up your pen, or open your laptop, and begin again.
CBA Bestselling author PAM HILLMAN was born and raised on a dairy farm in Mississippi and spent her teenage years perched on the seat of a tractor raking hay. In those days, her daddy couldn't afford two cab tractors with air conditioning and a radio, so Pam drove an Allis Chalmers 110. Even when her daddy asked her if she wanted to bale hay, she told him she didn't mind raking. Raking hay doesn't take much thought so Pam spent her time working on her tan and making up stories in her head. Now, that's the kind of life every girl should dream of. www.pamhillman.com
I am a storyteller. Scenes for my WIP (work-in-progress) run
through my head during most of my waking moments. By the time I sit down to
write, the words come spilling out in a steady flow, sometimes in a torrent.
Word limits are not my friend! My most prolific writing jag came in at just
over 28,000 words in six days (four of which I worked at my FT job). Some of
these were penned while waiting for a flight. When they announced we were
boarding, I was just hitting my stride. I pounded away until the last second, then
had to wait until we’d taken off and reached the magic 10,000-foot threshold
before I could fire up my laptop and continue.
Whether you’re a storyteller or a poet (or something
between), whether you’ve been writing a week or a decade (or more), it will
happen to you sometime.
BAM! You will hit the wall.
For me, the torrent trickles to a slow drip, then stops
completely. My stories are character-driven, so my wall is usually a plot
point. Everything comes to a screeching halt. I back up, then approach the wall
again. After a few tries, I admit that I’m stuck.
There
are four techniques I’ve used to get over the wall:
1.
Bang your head against it until you break
through. This was how I dealt with the wall when I was a beginning writer.
I still have the scars to prove it! Sometimes it worked, but it usually
involved taking quite a long break—and sometimes a writer doesn’t have that
luxury (can anyone say deadlines?).
2.
Take a break. Switch to another project.
What? You don’t have three or four WIPs going at once? I can’t relate! 😊
3.
Go over the wall. I learned this
technique early in my writing adventure in a writing group, and it has served
me well. Leave where you stopped. Pick up a new thread and start weaving. Then
come back and take apart the wall, brick by brick, and make whatever changes
are necessary to connect the two sections.
4.
Phone a friend. If you don’t have a
critique partner or group, find one. In the post-pandemic world, it doesn’t
have to be someone local, you can connect with anyone virtually. When you hit a
wall, a fellow writer can look at the problem with a fresh perspective. In one
case, my critique partner made a simple suggestion, and that led to a
completely new, successful plot point. And I’ve done this for others as well.
If I had to rank these four suggestions in order, I’d say 3,
2, 4, and finally, 1. Actually, I wouldn’t even recommend 1!
Regarding point 4, if you’ve been writing in isolation
because of fear over sharing your writing with anyone, I highly recommend
finding a writers’ group. I’ve been with the same group of four others for
almost five years. From the beginning, it was established as a safe place, and
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn’t be the writer I am today
(still growing, though) without my beloved writing friends.
Back to the 28,000-words-in-six-days manuscript. That was in
July, 2019, and I just finished it this spring. In From the Storm will
release in about a month. There were times when I had to turn my attention to
other WIPs, and times when I hit the wall and had to employ points 2 and 3
above. As so often happens, the characters took the story in a completely
different—and much better—direction than my original plan!
Leave a comment for a chance to win a print (US readers
only) or Kindle copy of Sisters Ever After, the first book in Erin’s
Canadian Meadows series.
About Erin:
Erin
has been writing fiction since 2014. She has published independently and with
Pelican Book Group and Winged Publications and is a member of American
Christian Fiction Writers.
Writing
is like breathing to Erin. Stories are running through her mind during most of
her waking hours, and by the time she sits down at the computer, the words flow
and time ceases to exist.
Erin
was raised in Illinois and has lived in many places in the U.S., including on
both coasts, but is a Midwest girl at heart. She spent many years as an
educator from pre-school through college levels, and currently works in
training and internal communications for a global corporation.
When
she’s not writing, Erin loves spending time with her children and
grandchildren, and playing in the garden (which equates to mostly pulling weeds)
at her central Iowa home. Her secret indulgence is plain M&Ms.
Brock Hennessey fled California to make a fresh start in northwestern Montana. He hopes he’s put enough miles between him and danger, banking on a promised job to give his family a new start in a safe place.
Circumstances pit Gianna and Brock against one another, and neither one is willing to give an inch. As their professional dealings grow more acrimonious, their daughters become best friends and suddenly, the four of them are thrown into situations that have them acting, looking, and sounding like a real family.
Set against the stunning backdrop of northwestern Montana, Sisters Ever After is the first book in the Canadian Meadows series.
Before I begin, a caveat - I can't say GMC by Deb Dixon is one of my favorite craft books (for reasons which I will explain), but there's no doubt it's an important and beneficial one.
You see in many ways I could be that cautionary tale veteran writers could use to terrify newbies. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when I first began to write, I had no idea that there was such a thing as structure or that stories followed any prescribed formula.
I should amend that comment. I was not consciously aware of it. But because I was an avid reader, and had been for my entire life, I had a somewhat intuitive sense of story structure even if I didn't know that's what it was.
So, picture my happily writing away without a care in the real world, lost in my own wonderful story world. But then I took a break from writing for a while - children, work, grad school, there just weren't enough hours in the day to make it all work, and writing took the back seat.
Cue the violin music.
No, seriously, the reason I'm explaining that is because I so very clearly remember coming back from my self-imposed writing exile to attend a writer's conference. And I remember being confused because of all the buzzwords I was hearing - and the buzzword that was on everyone's lips was GMC.
GMC. I had no idea what they were talking about. It was like everyone else was speaking a different language.
Finally, some kind soul clued me in to Debra Dixon's book (which had been published while I was off on writing hiatus).
I read it. I saw it's value (which it clearly had since everyone was talking about it!), and I ignored it.
I didn't want to write conflict.
I liked happy stories.
I didn't want to make them be mad at each other.
Are you laughing at me yet?
I'm going to use a photo of the back cover, because I think this shows why the book is so important.
GMC is apparently also a really popular topic here on Seekerville.
If you're interested in looking more into it. check out some of these posts:
Mindy's Engaging Openings
Missy had one in the Archives - Battling Through Your Manuscript...Once Scene at a Time
(Note: Missy really gave a detailed explanation of how she uses a GMC chart.)
Then there are all these GMC posts in the Seekerville archives!
So tell me, are you a GMC chart maker? How do you handle planning the goals motivations and conflict for your characters.
by Laurel Blount
As a writer, two of my favorite things are telling stories—and asking questions that help me tell better stories.
I’ll start off with a story. I was sorting through a box of photos, and I came across this one from about twenty years ago. That slightly blurry girl is me, sitting in the Atlanta airport getting ready to fly off to Paris with three teacher friends.
That trip-of-a-lifetime was every bit as awesome as it sounds. I lit a candle and prayed at Notre Dame, explored Versailles, went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and ate some truly scrumptious food. But you know why I smiled when I saw this photo?
It’s my haircut.
I’d never had short hair. Like…never. My whole life I’d had long hair, with swoopy bits that fell over my forehead.
I was tired of that look, and I wanted to spruce up for my special Paris trip. I just wasn’t sure what to do.
One day, I was sitting in the stylist’s chair—the same sweet lady I had been going to for years—peeking out from under my bangs at my frumpy self in her mirror. I mustered up my courage and asked her a question:
“If you could do anything with my hair, what would you do?”
And oh, my word, ya’ll. It was as if I’d flipped some kind of switch. That woman’s eyes lit up, she grabbed a book, and she started thumbing through pages. “This!” She pointed to a super short haircut. “This right here! This is the perfect cut for you. You need to get your hair off your face and shorten it up. And then for pity’s sake, girl, go get your ears pierced!”
The poor lady was bouncing with excitement. She’d been cutting my hair for years, and apparently had secretly been dying to tell me what to do.
But, see? I’d never asked.
I was taken aback, and I definitely wasn’t sure about going that short. She seemed really confident, though, and she knew a lot more about hairstyles than I did.
So after one long minute, I said, “Do it.”
And you know what? I loved that haircut! It was fun-looking and simple to take care of, and I bopped all over Paris with easy-care, cute hair. (And earrings. Because she was right about that, too.)
That experience taught me a lesson that I’ve applied to my life—and my writing process—over and over again. People are often eager to share their expertise—but you’ve gotta ask.
For example, I have a wonderful vet who reads my animal scenes. (This is especially important since I’ve ventured into Amish fiction. That’s a lot of horses, ya’ll.) I knew she was a very busy professional, and I hated to bother her. But finally, when I had a really tricky horse section, I just…asked. Turned out, she was delighted to help me, and she’s been such a blessing!
I also have a dear author friend who was an ob/gyn nurse, and I asked if she’d check a maternity scene in my Love Inspired in progress. She did, and she told me what I’d gotten wrong—which was plenty. (In return, I gave her tips when she was writing about milking a cow. Hey, I’ve got some skills, too!)
I’ve talked to doctors, journalists, social workers, farriers, adoption coordinators, former law enforcement officers, sales executives, ministers—you name the profession, I’ve probably cornered one of them and said, “Could I ask you a question?” Most of the time, they’ve been very gracious and generous with their knowledge.
That led to some fascinating talks. She enjoyed some of my questions more than others—like the time I asked her if Amish sweethearts ever kissed while they were dating. (If you’re interested, the answer—after some laughing—was yes.)
She also told me that Amish men often carry pocketwatches in the pocket of their pants, that families in her community generally kept only one horse until the children were older and needed one of their own, and that the seven mile buggy ride to town took her about half an hour. She described to me what the inside of a buggy smelled like and how the straight pins she used to fasten her dress would sometimes work loose and prick her, leaving little dots of blood on the fabric. She told me about the long talks couples are given by the leaders of the church before they are married—and how nervous she felt and so ready for that part to be over.
The personal insights she provided enriched my writing as I worked on Shelter in the Storm. I’m so glad I found the courage to talk to her. As much as I love asking questions, it’s not always easy for me to approach the people I need to speak with, especially when I don’t know them well. Like most writers, I have a strong introverted streak. So far I’ve had the most success with people I know personally or those I’m introduced to by a helpful friend.
Since I started with a story, I’ll end with some questions. What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve learned as a result of asking questions related to your writing projects? Have any tips for finding experts who are willing to chat with information-hungry authors? Is there somebody you’d love to talk to for your current story?
And finally—one along the lines of my do-Amish-couples-kiss question. Has anybody ever tried these jams that I saw at our local Mennonite café? I’m so curious!
A commenter will be chosen to win one of these mystery jams along with a copy of Shelter in the Storm. As long as you promise to tell me what the jam tastes like. Because you already know…
I’m gonna ask.
PENTECOST
Pentecost, Juan Bautista Maino, c1615-1620,
Museo del Prado, Madrid Spain. [PD-US]
On the evening of that
first day of the week,
when the doors were locked, where the disciples
were,
for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst
and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
When he had said this, he showed them his hands
and his side.
The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and
said to them,
“Receive the Holy Spirit.
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,
and whose sins you retain are retained.”
John 20:19-23
The Seekerville bloggers are praying for YOU and for our entire blog community. If you have any special intentions that need additional prayer coverage, leave a request for prayer in the comment section below.
May the Lord bless you and your families and keep you safe.
