Ellen Gable's Blog, page 114

7 Quick Takes Friday – January 13

Join me and other Catholic bloggers at Conversion Diary for 7 Quick Takes Friday. Here are my Quick Takes:

1. Exciting news about two of my novels, which are currently in the top 10 of Amazon Kindle's Religious Drama category! Wow!

In Name Only actually made it to #1 periodically yesterday! Double Wow!

2. I've been asked to talk by Skype to a group of mothers at a Catholic book club meeting in Missouri at the end of this month. was their January book club selection. I know I've said it before, but I LOVE the 21st century!

3. Earlier this week, we were invited to dinner and my husband and I were able to try some homemade Moroccan food. I don't normally eat prunes or beef, but this meal was delicious! You can find the recipe here.

4. There are now two published authors in our household! My husband's academic paper was published through Common Ground Publishing.

5. Our online NFP class this past Monday night was a huge success! This is our 7th online course, but this class was unique because it was so large: seven couples (14 total people). Up until this point, we've been keeping our class sizes small (under 4 couples).

6. My short article entitled "Eternal Gifts" will be published in the new book by Karen Edmisten called After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman's Companion to Healing and Hope which will be released in February.

7. And, finally, since Jen at Conversion Diary just turned 35, she asked what we were doing at age 35. So what was I doing? I was writing my first published article called Five Little Souls in Heaven. This article is actually the long version of "Eternal Gifts," from #6 above.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary's Blog.

Photos and text copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach

NFP in the 21st Century

Natural Family Planning is a safe, healthy, effective and moral alternative to artificial contraception. Earlier this week, we held an online NFP class, in the comfort of our living room here in Canada. There were seven couples from all over the USA attending "virtually."

I love teaching NFP and doing so online gives us an opportunity to reach many couples.

If you would like to learn NFP and you don't live near accredited teachers, the Couple to Couple League offers virtual NFP classes. You can learn NFP in the privacy of your own home: no need for babysitters and couples can save on the cost of gas.

There are three classes (about two and a half hours each) spaced a month apart.

If you're interested in taking a virtual NFP class, you can register at the following link: http://register.ccli.org/virtual

For more information, please email me at info (at) fullquiverpublishing.com or leave a comment below.

The "Control" of Self-Publishing

Yesterday I was over at the Catholic Writers Guild Blog sharing my thoughts on the control that self-publishing authors have:

Self-Publishing is so easy nowadays that anyone can publish his or her own book. Because of that, many self-published authors are producing poor quality books. This can give self-publishing a bad name.

In some respects, self-publishing is more difficult than publishing with traditional publishers. After all, publishers take care of the editing, cover design and all the jobs that go with creating a quality book. They often do extensive marketing as well.

However, I believe the advantages of self-publishing outweigh the disadvantages. I'm going to share what I believe are the main advantages of self-publishing.

I do not use Trafford, Author House or Publish America. I simply started my own publishing company and currently sell my books through Amazon, Kindle, Smashwords and my publishing website.

This month: Control

As a self-published author (and owner of my own publishing company), I maintain 100 percent of the control and decision-making. I like having a say in every part of my book's creation. I enjoy working with my husband in the creation of a cover that I feel will best illustrate the content and story of my book.

I transcribe the book, make necessary edits, typeset it, convert it to Kindle and do all the marketing myself…which is why I'm only able to knock out four books in ten years.

If I can't perform a specific job (like overall editing and copy-editing), I hire people to complete that job. I currently hire an editor, copy-editor and several proofreaders.

Control re: prices

This is especially important when it comes to setting Kindle e-book prices. As a self-published author with little overhead, especially with e-books, I can offer my novels at a remarkably cheap price of 2.99. Traditional publishers generally don't do that, which means that I can sell more e-books than they do.

Control re: content

While my editor makes suggestions on plot, character, settings etc, I make the final decisions regarding those things. I don't have to water down the Catholicity nor do I have to make it generic Christian, unless I feel that a certain project warrants that.

Self-publishing gives the author control over every stage of book production from first draft to publication.

Personally, it's the way I like it.

I'll be doing two moderated chats on self-publishing at the 2012 Catholic Writers Conference Online in March. Click on the link to find out more information about the conference.

Copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Epiphany Blessing 2012

On Epiphany Sunday, our family has continued a tradition of reciting a blessing and marking the lintel of every doorway in our home (usually with chalk) indicating the year and the initials of the wise men (Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar): 20 C M B 12. CMB also stands for Christus Mansionem Benedicat, Latin for "May Christ Bless this House."

For more information on this beautiful tradition, the following website has some great readings and more information on this beautiful blessing:

http://www.liturgy.co.nz/blog/epiphany-chalk-house-blessing-2/4942

Sunday Snippets – January 7

Please join me at RAnn's Place for Sunday Snippets where Catholic bloggers share their posts from the previous week. Here are my posts:

Come My Beloved Free on Kindle This free promotion of my third book is over now, but I'll be doing another free giveaway closer to Valentine's Day.

Healthy Habits for the New Year Include NFP My latest post for Amazing Catechists talks about the importance of including NFP in one's overall health plan.

7 Quick Takes Friday (NFP Edition) I decided to do a 7 Quick Takes devoted entirely to Natural Family Planning. Included are original cartoons and other NFP-related "takes."

7 Quick Takes Friday – January 6 (NFP Edition)

Please join me and other Catholic bloggers at Conversion Diary for 7 Quick Takes Friday.

Today I'd like to do a 7 Quick Takes devoted entirely to Natural Family Planning (NFP). NFP is safe, healthy, effective and morally acceptable. To read a bit of how I came to be such an enthusiastic promoter and teacher of NFP, click here.

1. The beginning of a new year often prompts the making of resolutions. My latest column at Amazing Catechists talks about including NFP in healthy habits for the new year.

2. While NFP has many benefits, sometimes couples are attracted to the low cost of learning and using NFP:

3. The Couple to Couple League has been offering NFP classes online/virtually for two years. James and I have taught more couples virtually in the past year than in the past ten years combined. While it's not a perfect system as yet (internet problems do happen), it is an ideal way to learn NFP if there are no classes within driving distance. We've taught couples from Florida, Utah, North Dakota, Colorado, Ohio, California, Virginia, Ontario, Newfoundland, Wisconsin. For more information, check out this link: http://register.ccli.org/virtual

4. I have always loved having conversations about my fertility with doctors, especially ones who don't know I've been an NFP teacher for 27 years:

5. My first book, Emily's Hope, is the fictionalized parallel stories of myself and my great-grandmother. In telling my conversion story, I also wanted to illustrate the beauty of NFP and the Church's teachings on sexuality. For more information, or to watch an interview, to read reviews or an excerpt, check out the novel's website or the Amazon page.

6. If you like to read good old-fashioned love stories, you'll probably enjoy my third book, Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship. Earlier this week, I offered copies on Amazon Kindle and was surprised at the response (nearly 700 people downloaded the book on Kindle). I'll be offering another free giveaway on Kindle closer to Valentine's Day. Of course, it's only 2.99 on Kindle so it's a bargain either way.

So what does Come My Beloved have to do with NFP? Well, many of the stories touch on NFP themes. At the book's website, you can view a book trailer, read reviews and excerpts.

7. Finally, if you are interested in learning more about Natural Family Planning, there are many different methods and organizations that teach NFP. Here are just a few: Couple to Couple League, Billings Ovulation Method, Serena (Canada), Creighton Model Fertility Care System.

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary.

Cartoons copyright 2012 Full Quiver Publishing

Healthy Habits for the New Year Include NFP

My latest post at Amazing Catechists talks about Healthy Habits for the New Year: The beginning of a new year often prompts the making of resolutions regarding lifestyle. Some will decide to exercise more or to eat better.

Nowadays healthier lifestyle choices are encouraged: a diet rich in whole foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, low in saturated fat. Unhealthy habits are discouraged: poor diet, inactivity, smoking, excessive drinking.

An important part of a healthy lifestyle also includes making good choices regarding birth regulation.

Moral considerations aside, Natural Family Planning, or NFP, is very healthy. It is a highly effective method of birth regulation, and it also poses no physical side effects. In my experience, NFP fosters a greater understanding and appreciation of the couple's natural combined gift of fertility. There are no pills or chemicals to harm a woman's delicate system. There are no devices or operations for either man or woman.

Other methods, however, are not so health-inducing.

Each prescription for chemical contraception (Pill, patch, vaginal ring, injectables) includes an extensive insert outlining the many physical side effects: an increased risk of weight gain, mood swings, headaches, breast cancer, blood clots, strokes. Vasectomy comes with an increased risk of prostate cancer and dementia. Women who undergo a tubal ligation have a greater risk of chronic pain and hysterectomy.

For those who are especially concerned with the health of the environment, chemical contraception is a likely culprit in contributing to the feminization of male fish. Although chemical contraception isn't the only cause, the following link includes more detail on chemical contraception's effect on fish:

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/86/8608cover.html

A new year can be an opportune time to adopt healthier lifestyle choices. It's also a great time to learn NFP.

My husband, James, and I are certified NFP teachers and we even teach NFP online. For more information on NFP, check out my previous Amazing Catechists column entitled, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About NFP, But Were Afraid to Ask" or email me at info(at)fullquiverpublishing.com.

Text Copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach

Photo purchased on iStock

Today and Tomorrow Come My Beloved is Free on Amazon Kindle

Just a reminder that today and tomorrow, the Kindle edition of my book of courtship stories, Come My Beloved: Inspiring Stories of Catholic Courtship, will be available for FREE on Amazon.

To read excerpts, click here: http://ellengable.wordpress.com/books-by-ellen/ Excerpts are listed at the bottom.

A long list of reviews and a video is included at the book's website.

To download Come My Beloved for FREE, click here.

Sunday Snippets – January 1

Join me and other Catholic bloggers at RAnn's Place for Sunday Snippets. I had a quiet week on my blog, but a very busy week at home. My husband and son performed (six shows) in a Christmas musical entitled "A Year With Frog and Toad." I posted some photos on my Facebook profile.

Here are my blog's contributions for this week:

Happy New Year! We Are Our Brother's Keeper Words of wisdom from Catherine Doherty, foundress of Madonna House.

Come My Beloved is FREE on Amazon Kindle January 2 and 3 (this Monday and Tuesday). If you have a Kindle or Kindle app, please consider downloading my book for free on Monday or Tuesday. It's a gift to my readers to celebrate the beginning of a new year. There's a link on my blog to excerpts and a few reviews are listed in the post.

Photo copyright 2011 Josh Hrkach

Happy New Year! We Are Our Brother's Keeper

A Blessed and Happy New Year to all!

I'd like to share words of wisdom from Catherine Doherty, foundress of Madonna House in her article entitled "The New Year: We are Our Brother's Keeper:"

I keep thinking and meditating on the New Year, and thinking about the world in general; it kind of haunts me.

God hands us a shiny beautiful New Year. That is to say, he gives us time. I wondered: what are we going to do with this time? To each one of us God has given time—time to love him. It's strange that in the Christian countries the New Year comes at the time right after Christ's birth.

Stop and think of the Incarnation (Christ God becoming man), which leads to his crucifixion, which leads to his resurrection, all wrapped up in a little package of this Child—a crib in a stable. And then, as if the Child himself handed it over, he turns to me and to you and he says, "Here is a new year, shiny, coming from my hands. What are you going to do with it?"

The greatest thing we can do is to love. There is nothing else that matters, really. So why don't we begin? Many of us already love our neighbour, love ourselves and our neighbour, but we have to extend that love.

Time really does not exist. I come from the mind of God—he had me there from all eternity, and I go to the Way (who is Christ) to the heart of God; and the Holy Spirit helps me to keep on the narrow path, the Way that Christ says he himself is.

When we talk Christianity or Christ to one another, whoever we are, wherever we are on the threshold of the New Year, something has to break into our hearts. Our Lord enlarges our heart, if we desire to enlarge it, to love more and more and more.

Will our love end in crucifixion? It's obvious that when you and I totally forget the pronoun 'I', then we are crucified; and those who are crucified are free. This is a strange and mysterious thing. It's one of the mysteries that God puts into our hearts.

If we agree to go to Golgotha, a little hill on which he was crucified, there is another side to the crucifix. Immediately the crucifix ceases to really be a crucifix as we understand it—that is to say, pain and all the rest of it—and it becomes a joy. In a sense, we can wish everyone a joyful New Year—provided we have opened our heart to Joy; we have mounted Golgotha; we have agreed to be crucified with Christ; and by doing so we have entered into his Resurrection.

By entering into his Resurrection, we have suddenly found ourselves totally free—free from all the things that affected us only yesterday. Free to love everyone, including our enemies. Free to lay down our lives for our fellowman.

This all sounds highfaluting, big ideas, but in everyday life, it is simplicity itself. Never think of yourself, day in and day out. You have to do an unpleasant job, but you do it joyfully, because whatever you do, you do for God. Joy lifts us up and makes us run toward whatever task is given to us; to what we call "the duty of the moment."

The mother gets up, and the father, to nurse the baby and quieten it at night, but it goes a little further. It may go to a little neighboring child who cries. I lived in Chicago, on West Walton Place, which had been cut up into little apartments; we had a little apartment and one was above us. You could hear what happened. One evening, lying there and not sleeping very well, I kept hearing the patter of young feet and I knew that only a mother with her child lived up there. The child was about eleven or twelve. I met her going to school. Something worried me about this patter of feet. I got up and went upstairs and knocked at the door and said, "It's the lady from downstairs". "Oh," she said, "I'm so glad it's you", and she opened the door. "I don't know what's happened to my mother. I don't know what to do. She doesn't wake up." Well, her mother was dead!

Love is a strange thing. The patter of little feet. The cry of a child. The cough of an old person or a young one can disturb us, and should disturb us, and we should say, "Oh, I am responsible for everyone." Dorothy Day, one of the great American saints-to-be, wrote in her Catholic Worker why we should not buy grapefruits (this was in the Depression) because the people who gathered grapefruits received such a small salary that they could not live on it. I am responsible. Do you realize that this beautiful New Year that God has put into your hands means that you are your brother's keeper, and so am I?

It's deep stuff; it's bottomless, because it means that God is saying, "Enter my heart. It is in this heart of mine that you will know how to live out this beautiful year that I have given you 'to have and to hold'".

So let us be our brother's keeper; and let us not forget that Christ is our Brother too. Not only in everyone, but in himself. And if we really want to learn how to love, we should go into his heart this year.

— from a spiritual reading, Dec. 29, 1976.

This article is free under the Creative Common License.

Photo copyright 2011 Josh Hrkach