Lisa R. Howeler's Blog, page 95

Fiction Friday: Why I’ve been struggling to write fiction lately

Several times in the last couple of weeks, I’ve started a blog post about why I have been struggling to write fiction recently.

Each time I’ve started the post, I’ve stopped because no matter how write out my feelings, it comes out accusatory and whiny, with me alternating between defense and offense.

I know it’s not wise to try to explain something while a hurt is still raw, but my blog readers have been with me through many ups and downs, in my writing and in my personal life, so I feel like I need to share a little with all of you about what has been weighing me down lately. If it comes out as over dramatic to you readers, I totally understand.

A few weeks ago, I somehow got tossed into a situation where a last minute topic was needed for a writing group I was in. Long story short, my writing was tossed up in front of a bunch of people and critiqued as a “learning moment” for other writers.

This type of critique was something I had been avoiding for a while now, but especially recently because of the health issues and personal issues I’ve been going through. The author who conducts the critiques is very good at what she does but she’s also pretty hard on writers and I wasn’t in a good place emotionally for that.

I had explained that to one of the leaders of the group (a very sweet woman with stresses of her own) that I could not currently handle one of her critiques. I can only guess this leader was not fully listening when I expressed the desire to not be critiqued since, much to my horror, my work appeared on the screen during the weekly meeting/presentation. This weekly presentation is held with somewhere around fifty other women in attendance. Lines and red marks were scratched through most of the chapter being shared, with several comments off to the side listing of all my writing sins.

I didn’t ask for this critique. What I had actually suggested for the session was for the author to answer advice on how to handle what critiques on our writing. I had recently received what I felt was a critique, but it was sent privately so that made it easier to digest.

I wanted to know how to choose what to keep and what to dismiss from a critique, especially when it comes from someone who is not a professional author. I thought that my situation would be used to teach others how to handle a critique, not that my work would be critiqued again in a much more public setting. Even though the critique was anonymous, I knew many of the women watching knew the work was mine because I had mentioned my difficulty in processing part of the original critique.

I ended up turning off the second critique before it really got underway after it was launched by several minutes of mocking comments about my choice of metaphors. I did not feel these comments were constructive. Instead they seemed to be setting up what I gathered would be several more minutes of unhelpful comments. The unhelpful remarks continued until I felt like I was openly being mocked by the two women, one with 20 years of experience and another with a few.  I knew I was in a poor place emotionally to handle any more mocking.

I turned off the session and tried instead to mentally prepare myself for a doctor’s appointment I had the next day that I hoped would help me with some of my longstanding health issues.

It’s one thing to know that your work is cliché and rather silly but it is entirely different to be told that in front of a group of fellow writers on a live feed while two women cackle and laugh at the absurdity of your writing, while not actually calling it absurd. (Clarification here: it felt like cackling and laughing at me but I’m sure they don’t feel that’s what they were doing. They most likely thought they were being lighthearted and trying to make light of a situation because they were preparing to eviscerate my writing for “educational purposes”.) I had watched this happened the month before to another writer and knew I didn’t want it to happen to me. It was extremely disheartening to see her on a video chat a week later looking completely downtrodden about her writing and like the joy of writing had been completely sucked out of her.

 I was told later that I shouldn’t feel bad about my writing flaws because MANY writers do the same thing I did. I felt like I was being told that not only was I an idiot, but I was an idiot among many other idiots.

“You are cliché and silly but so are many authors,” is how I read a “somewhat apology” sent by one of the women in the group after I canceled my subscription. I say somewhat because the apology was more along the lines of “sorry if the critique of your work displeased you.” Yes, the word displeased was actually used. To be honest, it was not the critique that “displeased” me. I never had the chance to hear the critique. It was the fact I was critiqued when I never asked for the critique and that the so-called critique seemed more mocking than instructional.

I received the replay of it all a few days later, hoping to watch it again and see if I had over reacted. I was sure I had because many people have told me over the years that my feelings are wrong, my reactions are wrong, I’m too sensitive, too easily offended, too…whatever I am too much of that day. And sometimes they are right.

Unfortunately, the replay had been edited to remove the critique, as if it had never happened. I would hope that this was out of kindness, knowing I was upset, but I would instead guess it was for self-protection to make sure this author and her writing business didn’t look bad. I really hope my second theory is wrong because I do believe these women truly believe they are writing and serving in the name of Christ.

I would not disparage these women or the writing group based on this situation. Even if they were careless with their words, the program is a good one, offered at an amazing price and it is filled with wonderful Christian women who truly mean well and support each other. This is why I am not naming the group here. I would recommend the group to other writers with one caveat — make sure you communicate better than I did and if you ask for a critique be prepared to be absolutely shredded. That’s okay. The shredding can help you improve after your wounds heal.

In the end, the proof I needed to show myself that I had been overly sensitive was gone. So, there I sat in a weird kind of limbo of wanting to be wrong (because, hey, maybe I really was way too sensitive this time. I can totally own up to that and even now I feel I probably was.) but really not sure since I had no way to confirm what I had actually heard and what else was said after I logged out of the meeting.

Needless to say, all of this has taken a mental toll on me in relation to my fiction writing and why that may not be positive, what has been a positive is that it has brought me back to the path God originally set me on.

Even though the writing group was wonderful in many ways, part of me wonders if by joining it, I overstepped God’s desire for what role writing would fill in my life.

“I never told you to do this,” is the sentence kept popping up in my head when I first joined the group.

I promptly ignored it every time.

After the forth of fifth time this sentence popped into my head, I decided that maybe God was trying to get a message across to me. If he was, what was his message? He never told me to do what? Try to improve my writing? Try to make what I enjoy also something I could make money from – even if it was only a little?

It isn’t that I think God doesn’t want us to improve and get better at what we enjoy doing. What I do think is that for me, God was, and is, saying he never told me to push this writing journey to the point where I hate it as much as I ended up hating photography years ago.

I’ve said before that when it comes to writing I hold on to the words “just have fun.” It’s what drove my writing when I first started sharing it on the blog. I wanted to have fun sharing and connecting with my blog readers, focusing on something other than my medical issues or my loneliness. It served that purpose but then I began to believe that it needed to be something more if it was going to take up so much of my time. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be better at the activity you enjoy but God didn’t ask me to ruin my love of writing while trying to improve.

A lot of Christian authors would say they feel God has called them to write fiction because has called them to change and grow his kingdom with their writing. This may be true — for them.

However, I don’t  feel that way about my writing, or at least my fiction. For me writing fiction is about having fun and entertaining a little. Do I want to share messages of hope, redemption and forgiveness in my fiction? Yes. Do I feel like maybe God wants me to do that? I think so, but I also have never looked at my fiction as some grand ordination from God that makes me something special and my writing a gift to humanity. My writing is fun, silly, probably cliché and childish and that’s fine with me.

I think a lot of Christian fiction authors feel their stories and books are going to change the world and maybe they will. I have never felt that way about my writing, though. Could my writing change a few hearts and minds here and there? Yes, I hope so, but like I told a friend this week, part of me feels like God didn’t give me the passion for writing so I can change the world. He gave it to me to help change me first and foremost.

I need to change in many ways, I am the first to admit that. I need to change my attitude and my tendency to be offended, and the way I feel hurt so easily. I don’t think that’s all that needs to be changed in me, though. The change I believe God has wanted me to make is in how I think about life.

 He doesn’t want me to see life as something where rules are followed and others are appeased at the sacrifice of my own mental well being.  He doesn’t want me to see it as a place where I don’t fit in and I am never good enough. He wants me to see the world as somewhere where we all have our place, even if it isn’t at the front of the crowd or the same place as others. God wants me, and you, to know that he placed us where he placed us for a reason and sometimes that reason may not be as somber or as serious as we think.

Sometimes God places us where he placed us because he simply wants us to have fun, to have joy, to look beyond the challenges and realize that not everything has to be perfect or polished.

Sometimes life and what we do in it simply needs to be fun.

All this being said, I hate that this post sounds like I don’t welcome critiques of my work, especially when I ask for it. I wholeheartedly appreciate the written critique I was given. I was merely trying to process it and how it should lead to changes in my work when the second, more public critique, slammed into me. I will definitely be asking for critiques of my work again in the future and I am open to them, even if they are harsh. Harsh can help me improve. I simply don’t know if I think public harsh criticisms are all that helpful to writers who aren’t career-driven but are instead fun-driven when it comes to their fiction.

I like movies and books about quirky smalltown characters

I love stories about small town or rural folk (as some might say instead of people) and maybe that is because I grew up in a small town and have interacted with so many interesting real life, small-town characters over the years.

Books or movies that feature interesting or “down home” characters with a bit of a quirk are my kinds of books and movies.

A few movies that scratch this itch for me include The Quiet Man, Fisherman’s Friends, The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill and Came Down a Mountain (that’s a mouthful), Road Less Traveled, Steel Magnolias, Pure Country, Forever My Girl (an overused trope is in this plot, but it was handled better than most) and a little known movie called Sweetland. Some of these movies were, of course, books before they were movies.

What I don’t like, however, is how Hollywood often portrays people who live in small towns as “backward”, weird, uneducated, stupid, close-minded, or like they are “yokels” or “hillbillies.”

What they don’t seem to get is that when they do that, they are the close-minded ones and maybe even a bit backward themselves. I actually think people who live in small towns are a little bit more grounded and normal than those who live in cities.

Books that fill this love of smalltown characters for me include the series of books by James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small, etc.), the Mitford series by Jan Karon, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the Miss Julia series by Ann B. Ross, the Home to Harmony series, The Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun, and the Anne of Green Gables series.

Are you a fan of books and movies about small towns or do books about larger cities interest you more? Which movies or books featuring each location are your favorites?

Five uplifting, sing-along worship songs you need to listen to today

It’s Monday and they are often a drag for many of us so today I am sharing five uplifting, sing-along worship songs for you to put on and sing at the top of your lungs. You should also be able to find these songs on Apple or Amazon music, Spotify, or wherever you download your music.

Lion with Brandon Lake and Elevation Worship.

Brandon Lake and Tasha CobbsRevival Anthem by Rend CollectiveChris Tomlin, God’s Great Dance Floor

A classic:

Maranatha Worship

And a bonus:
The Queen of worship:

CeCe Winans and Michael W. Smith

Sunday Bookends: Call Me A Cab, wishing it was actually spring, and an Irish tune for you

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

Last week was supposed to be my busiest week of the month, but after a couple of appointments were moved around and my parents contracted Covid, almost all of what I had to do was shelved.

My parents didn’t allow me to help them much while they were sick, but luckily their case has been fairly mild. It certainly didn’t make them feel well, but it did not hit their lungs as severely as it hit mine. Thank God. I don’t mean to say that my lungs were severely damaged as they remained clear even during the hospital stay, but my oxygen did drop quite a bit and so far that has not happened with my parents.

While my parents were sick, other friends of ours also caught the dreaded virus and it was quite rough on them. One is on oxygen and the others are recovering but were left with damaged smell and taste, similar to what my son and I are still dealing with. I am also still dealing with hairloss and have asked my son if I can borrow one of his knit hats if I should discover a bald spot this week. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.

We enjoyed one or two days of warmer weather this week and this weekend it went back to winter temperatures.

Today and tomorrow we are lighting the woodstove. That’s how cold it is going to be. Then I believe the temperatures might warm up a bit again later in the week. For now, though, they are calling for a high of 23 on Tuesday. It is the end of March! Gah!

What I/We’ve Been Reading

I am still reading Call Me A Cab by Donald Westlake and this is a bit of a different book than I usually read, but I am enjoying it.

I think it is a different book for Donald Westlake too, but this is my first book by him so I’m not sure. My husband, who is a huge fan of his, says he writes all kinds of styles of books but, yes, crime is among his most popular.

My husband says that this book was one of a few unpublished works that were found by his wife in his desk after he died. It was published last year by Hard Case Crime Novels as a full novel but another source I bumped into said it was originally published in Redbook in an abridged form. I’m not sure if the Redbook info is accurate or not.

Either way, the premise is that a woman asks a New York City cab driver if he will drive her to meet her fiancé in Los Angeles. The cab driver checks briefly with his boss, who also happens to be his dad, and agrees after the woman offers him a few thousand, plus expenses, for the trip. What follows is the story of their journey and her reason for the trip — which is to give her more time to decide if she really wants to marry Barry, her plastic surgeon fiancé who lives in LA.

I’m about a third through the book and so far, I really enjoy Westlake’s humor and the way he doesn’t drag out descriptions until you completely lose track of the story. I can’t even remember if he described  It’s so different than how I’ve been told to write, and I love it.

The chemistry between the two main characters keeps me reading because I need to find out what happens to the woman, Katharine Scott. I’m on Chapter 16 and I think it was the first time I learned the cab driver’s full name — Tom Felton. Some people don’t like when a book is written in first person but this one is interwoven with such much entertaining dry wit that I can’t see how it could be written in third person.

I caught this description on Penguin House and thought I would share it here to explain the plot better than I can:

In 1977, one of the world’s finest crime novelists turned his pen to suspense of a very different sort – and the results have never been published, until now.

Fans of mystery fiction have often pondered whether it would be possible to write a suspense novel without any crime at all, and in CALL ME A CAB the masterful Donald E. Westlake answered the question in his inimitable style. You won’t find any crime in these pages – but what you will find is a wonderful suspense story, about a New York City taxi driver hired to drive a beautiful woman all the way across America, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, where the biggest decision of her life is waiting to be made. From Pennsylvania to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada on the way to California, the characters’ odyssey takes them through uncharted territory – on the map and in their lives.

It’s Westlake at his witty, thought-provoking best, and it proves that a page-turner doesn’t need to have a bomb set to go off at the end of it in order to keep sparks flying every step of the way.

I’m not sure I’ll make it since I’m such a slow reader (I get distracted eas — squirrel!), but I hope to finish the book by the end of this week.

If you are curious about the book, you can find a link to an excerpt on the Crime Reads site.

Last week I finished Every Star in the Sky by Sara Davison. I enjoyed the book but ended up skipping a lot because I felt like it was fairly tedious in parts, even though it was a very important subject matter and very well written. There seemed to be several slower parts that I wasn’t sure were needed but then again it was important to show the healing the young main character needed after eight years of being held captive by a sex trafficker.

The book did not go into explicit detail regarding the main character’s abuse but it made it clear she was very abused, sexually and otherwise, as well as being forced into prostitution. In other words, it was a tough book to read and part of me feels that the 52 chapters could have been shortened a bit if there hadn’t been so many pointless conversations between the two main characters.

What We watched/are Watching

The husband and I watched a lot of Brokenwood Mysteries this past week.

What I like about Brokenwood is how well-rounded the main character is or at least is becoming as the series goes on. Each episode (which are about 90 minutes long, so like mini-movies) we receive another breadcrumb of information about his personal life and I like that. We don’t learn as much about his partner, Sims, as the series goes on, however. I haven’ t got a clue about her family or her personal life at all as we never see her at home or anywhere but at work. Maybe we will as the series goes on, but Mike is really the main character anyhow so he’s the main one we want to know about. I like Mike. He is like a mix of two or three newspaper editors I had all rolled into one. That’s hard to explain but as a combination, I like Mike much better than I liked any one of those editors, though I liked one much more than the other two.

I also watched a Bob Hope movie called Alias Jesse James. I missed a lot of it because I seem to get interrupted a lot when I am trying to watch a movie by myself.

I also watched a comedy special on Amazon with Jeff Alan called I Can Laugh About It Now.

What I’m Writing

Last week I shared:

about old television shows that I enjoy watching,

five comedians you should check out,

a review/recommendation of Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz,

and an update on my upcoming book Beauty From Ashes and future writing projects.

This week I have some other blog posts I hope to share and I also hope to work more on writing Mercy’s Shore, the next book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles.

What I’m Listening To

I have been forced to listen to the songs from Encanto over and over again this week as well as some Katy Perry because Little Miss has heard these songs either from the movie or on Youtube. Youtube is being taken away from her this week because I either have to listen to weird gaming YouTubers or various renditions of the songs of Encanto. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Encanto and the music but I don’t need to hear the songs on repeat. All day. Every day. For weeks and weeks. Or sung by Little Miss and all her little friends.

To break up the monotony, I listened to some Rend Collective.  Revival Anthem is one of my favorite songs by them. I do ask, if you listen to it, that you play it very loud and dance a bit to it. Don’t be shy. Enjoy the rhythm and the words. It will brighten up your day. I need songs like this. Songs that will let me shout away the depression and anxiety with God’s truth. Try it. It’s fun.

Lyrics:

Spirit fall down

Start a Holy riot

Fill this place now

With the tongues of fire

Break the strongholds

Come and unleash heaven 

Burn within us Make us bold as lions

This is our revival anthem

Can you feel the darkness shaking

Oh, we are the dry bones rising 

This will be our great awakening

This is our revival anthem

Fill our hearts, Lord With a Holy danger Lead us beyond

Our fear of failure

We’ll fight the good fight In Your strength and power

We’ll take back the night Victory is ours 

We will praise You when our hearts are breaking

Praise You when our world is caving

We will not, we will not be moved

We will praise You till we see Your kingdom 

Greater things are surely coming

You are God, and You are on the move

Now it’s your turn

What have you been doing this week? Reading, watching, writing, or listening to? Let me know in the comments.

Sunday Bookends: Call Me A Cab, wishing it was actually spring, and

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.

What’s Been Occurring

Last week was supposed to be my busiest week of the month, but after a couple of appointments were moved around and my parents contracted Covid, almost all of what I had to do was shelved.

My parents didn’t allow me to help them much while they were sick, but luckily their case has been fairly mild. It certainly didn’t make them feel well, but it did not hit their lungs as severely as it hit mine. Thank God. I don’t mean to say that my lungs were severely damaged as they remained clear even during the hospital stay, but my oxygen did drop quite a bit and so far that has not happened with my parents.

While my parents were sick, other friends of ours also caught the dreaded virus and it was quite rough on them. One is on oxygen and the others are recovering but were left with damaged smell and taste, similar to what my son and I are still dealing with. I am also still dealing with hairloss and have asked my son if I can borrow one of his knit hats if I should discover a bald spot this week. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.

We enjoyed one or two days of warmer weather this week and this weekend it went back to winter temperatures.

Today and tomorrow we are lighting the woodstove. That’s how cold it is going to be. Then I believe the temperatures might warm up a bit again later in the week. For now, though, they are calling for a high of 23 on Tuesday. It is the end of March! Gah!

What I/We’ve Been Reading

I am still reading Call Me A Cab by Donald Westlake and this is a bit of a different book than I usually read, but I am enjoying it.

I think it is a different book for Donald Westlake too, but this is my first book by him so I’m not sure. My husband, who is a huge fan of his, says he writes all kinds of styles of books but, yes, crime is among his most popular.

My husband says that this book was one of a few unpublished works that were found by his wife in his desk after he died. It was published last year by Hard Case Crime Novels as a full novel but another source I bumped into said it was originally published in Redbook in an abridged form. I’m not sure if the Redbook info is accurate or not.

Either way, the premise is that a woman asks a New York City cab driver if he will drive her to meet her fiancé in Los Angeles. The cab driver checks briefly with his boss, who also happens to be his dad, and agrees after the woman offers him a few thousand, plus expenses, for the trip. What follows is the story of their journey and her reason for the trip — which is to give her more time to decide if she really wants to marry Barry, her plastic surgeon fiancé who lives in LA.

I’m about a third through the book and so far, I really enjoy Westlake’s humor and the way he doesn’t drag out descriptions until you completely lose track of the story. I can’t even remember if he described  It’s so different than how I’ve been told to write, and I love it.

The chemistry between the two main characters keeps me reading because I need to find out what happens to the woman, Katharine Scott. I’m on Chapter 16 and I think it was the first time I learned the cab driver’s full name — Tom Felton. Some people don’t like when a book is written in first person but this one is interwoven with such much entertaining dry wit that I can’t see how it could be written in third person.

I caught this description on Penguin House and thought I would share it here to explain the plot better than I can:

In 1977, one of the world’s finest crime novelists turned his pen to suspense of a very different sort – and the results have never been published, until now. 
 
Fans of mystery fiction have often pondered whether it would be possible to write a suspense novel without any crime at all, and in CALL ME A CAB the masterful Donald E. Westlake answered the question in his inimitable style. You won’t find any crime in these pages – but what you will find is a wonderful suspense story, about a New York City taxi driver hired to drive a beautiful woman all the way across America, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, where the biggest decision of her life is waiting to be made. From Pennsylvania to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Arizona and Nevada on the way to California, the characters’ odyssey takes them through uncharted territory – on the map and in their lives. It’s Westlake at his witty, thought-provoking best, and it proves that a page-turner doesn’t need to have a bomb set to go off at the end of it in order to keep sparks flying every step of the way.In 1977, one of the world’s finest crime novelists turned his pen to suspense of a very different sort – and the results have never been published, until now. 

I’m not sure I’ll make it since I’m such a slow reader (I get distracted eas — squirrel!), but I hope to finish the book by the end of this week.

If you are curious about the book, you can find a link to an excerpt on the Crime Reads site.

Last week I finished Every Star in the Sky by Sara Davison. I enjoyed the book but ended up skipping a lot because I felt like it was fairly tedious in parts, even though it was a very important subject matter and very well written. There seemed to be several slower parts that I wasn’t sure were needed but then again it was important to show the healing the young main character needed after eight years of being held captive by a sex trafficker. The book did not go into explicit detail regarding the main character’s abuse but it made it clear she was very abused, sexually and otherwise, as well as being forced into prostitution. In other words, it was a tough book to read and part of me feels that the 52 chapters could have been shortened a bit if there hadn’t been so many pointless conversations between the two main characters. There were also some unrealistic plot points, but I can’t say a thing about that and if you’ve read the chapters of Beauty From Ashes I have shared here you know I’m not always great at realism either. *wink*

What We watched/are Watching

The husband and I watched a lot of Brokenwood Mysteries this past week.

What I like about Brokenwood is how well-rounded the main character is or at least is becoming as the series goes on. Each episode (which are about 90 minutes long, so like mini-movies) we receive another breadcrumb of information about his personal life and I like that. We don’t learn as much about his partner, Sims, as the series goes on, however. I haven’ t got a clue about her family or her personal life at all as we never see her at home or anywhere but at work. Maybe we will as the series goes on, but Mike is really the main character anyhow so he’s the main one we want to know about. I like Mike. He is like a mix of two or three newspaper editors I had all rolled into one. That’s hard to explain but as a combination, I like Mike much better than I liked any one of those editors, though I liked one much more than the other two.

I also watched a Bob Hope movie called Alias Jesse James. I missed a lot of it because I seem to get interrupted a lot when I am trying to watch a movie by myself.

I also watched a comedy special on Amazon with Jeff Alan called I Can Laugh About It Now.

What I’m Writing

Last week I shared:

about old television shows that I enjoy watching,

five comedians you should check out,

a review/recommendation of Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz,

and an update on my upcoming book Beauty From Ashes and future writing projects.

This week I have some other blog posts I hope to share and I also hope to work more on writing Mercy’s Shore, the next book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles.

What I’m Listening To

I have been forced to listen to the songs from Encanto over and over again this week as well as some Katy Perry because Little Miss has heard these songs either from the movie or on Youtube. Youtube is being taken away from her this week because I either have to listen to weird gaming YouTubers or various renditions of the songs of Encanto. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Encanto and the music but I don’t need to hear the songs on repeat. All day. Every day. For weeks and weeks. Or sung by Little Miss and all her little friends.

To break up the monotony, I listened to some Rend Collective.  Revival Anthem is one of my favorite songs by them. I do ask, if you listen to it, that you play it very loud and dance a bit to it. Don’t be shy. Enjoy the rhythm and the words. It will brighten up your day. I need songs like this. Songs that will let me shout away the depression and anxiety with God’s truth. Try it. It’s fun.

Lyrics:

Spirit fall down

Start a Holy riot

Fill this place now

With the tongues of fire

Break the strongholds

Come and unleash heaven 

Burn within us Make us bold as lions

This is our revival anthem

Can you feel the darkness shaking

Oh, we are the dry bones rising 

This will be our great awakening

This is our revival anthem

Fill our hearts, Lord With a Holy danger Lead us beyond

Our fear of failure

We’ll fight the good fight In Your strength and power

We’ll take back the night Victory is ours 

We will praise You when our hearts are breaking

Praise You when our world is caving

We will not, we will not be moved

We will praise You till we see Your kingdom 

Greater things are surely coming

You are God, and You are on the move

Now it’s your turn

What have you been doing this week? Reading, watching, writing, or listening to? Let me know in the comments.

Book Review/Recommendation: Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

One recent Saturday I spent almost the entire day under a warm blanket with chocolate chip cookies dipped in Nutella and read Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz. It was very enjoyable, not only because it was the most relaxed I had been in a long time and I had chocolate, but because the book was such a good one.

My husband recommended the book so I was a bit leery at first. We don’t always like the same books, but lately, he’s been suggesting ones I have enjoyed, including the Walt Longmire Series by Craig Johnson. I’m also reading my first Donald Westlake book, Call Me A Cab, at his suggestion.

First, a little bit about Moriarty. For those familiar with Sherlock Holmes books and movies, you will recognize that name. The book opens, though, with Professor James Moriarty having died at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland, which leaves the reader wondering about the title of the book.

The main characters of the book are Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase and Inspector Athelney Jones.

The description of the book: Sherlock Holmes is dead.

Days after Holmes and his arch-enemy Moriarty fall to their doom at the Reichenbach Falls, Pinkerton agent Frederick Chase arrives from New York. The death of Moriarty has created a poisonous vacuum which has been swiftly filled by a fiendish new criminal mastermind. Ably assisted by Inspector Athelney Jones, a devoted student of Holmes’s methods of investigation and deduction, Chase must hunt down this shadowy figure, a man much feared but seldom seen, a man determined to engulf London in a tide of murder and menace.

The game is afoot . . .

My view: The book is written like an old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes book so don’t expect there to be modern overdone descriptions of characters of scenes. For the most part the book is a fast paced, dialogue heavy and straight forward presentation. The focus is on the story, not the characters necessarily.

Horowitz takes the reader down into a dark world of crime, twisting around and around until there is a point you’re not sure who is who. Even though I tried to guess the ending and was right on one theory, the way Horowitz brought the story to its finality was still satisfying and fascinating. I honestly couldn’t put the book down once I got myself snuggled in that Saturday afternoon under the covers, and placed other books I was reading aside so I could finish it. I also stopped feeding my children and taking a shower, but that’s an entirely different issue. I’m kidding, of course. I took a shower. I’m not a monster.

Reading the book has encouraged me to move on to Horowitz’s other Sherlock Holmes book The House of Silk which was actually his first Sherlock Holmes-related book.

The House of Silk was the first book authorized as a new Sherlock Holmes novel by the Arthur Conan Doyle in 125-years.

Confession time: I have not actually read any original Sherlock Holmes books. My husband is a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, however, and we have watched many shows based on the books together.

How about you? Are you a big Sherlock Holmes fan? Have you read all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s books?

Fiction Friday: Book update and a glimpse at the next book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles series.

This week I thought I’d give an update on where the manuscript for Beauty From Ashes is. It’s now in the hands of a couple of editors but one of those editors has been piled under work and the other is sick with Covid. For those reasons and a couple of others, I’ve pushed back the release date of the book from April 26 to May 10. This will hopefully give me time to implement some suggestions from early readers and make any changes my editor wants me to make before the book is released, without my head exploding.

The book will have some extra scenes from what I shared on the blog and it will also be missing a couple of others. There have been several changes from the first draft, which is mainly what was shared on the blog, but none so huge they change the entire plot of the book.

The biggest thing I have had to remind myself during the process this time is my author tagline of “just have fun.” I wasn’t having fun with writing recently, was taking myself a bit too seriously, and trying to be something I am not.  I didn’t start writing these stories to be a traditionally published author so focused on career that they lose site of who they really are. This isn’t to say that traditionally published authors don’t know who they are but I know that I would lose that if I was traditionally published and being told what I have to write, how to write it, and when to write it. It would stress me out to no end but that is because I am stressed out by a lot. There are other writers are not stressed out by every little thing and while I’m working on not being stressed out by things (I swear I’ve come a long way, even though I have a long way to go), right now in my life I need to take the easiest road possible to tell my stories.

So, anyhow, while I wait for more rewrite suggestions for Beauty From Ashes, I am starting to write a couple of other books, including Mercy’s Shore, which will be the next book in the Spencer Valley Chronicles series.

Because I often share everything first with my blog readers, this is the tentative cover of the book.

It could definitely change before the final publication sometime next year (or maybe late this year if I really get some inspiration and push forward fast on this book).

Mercy’s Shore will focus on Molly Tanner’s ex-boyfriend Ben Oliver and possibly on Ellie’s obnoxious, recovering-alcoholic sister, Judi Lambert. I haven’t definitively decided if Judi will be in the story or not. Similar to Beauty From Ashes, the book will not be a strict romance. I won’t give too much away, but it is possible Judi and Ben will not be romantically linked throughout the book.

After all, Ben has some amends to make to his ex-girlfriend Angie and to their daughter, Amelia, who he abandoned while trying to earn his law degree and pass the bar. In Mercy’s Shore we will learn more about why that happened and what led Ben to be so focused on career over family.

I’m still plotting this one out, but thought I would share with you what I’ve written so far, which is literally a few paragraphs that may or may not end up being in the final book.

When the world stopped spinning, Ben Oliver was upside down, his seatbelt digging into his chest. Underneath him were shards of glass and something warm and slippery dripped into his eyes.

For a moment he thought it was oil from the engine. Even when red splattered the shattered windshield beneath him he couldn’t comprehend it was him that was bleeding. Of course it was him bleeding. He’d been the only one in the car when he’d jerked the wheel to the right to miss the deer and had sent his silver BMW careening over the embankment.

So, this is it, he thought. This is how it all ends. Not with a whimper but a bang after all.

A lot of bangs actually. He was sure that his BMW was totaled but worse than that was the pain searing through his sternum, back, and head, not to mention the blood now pooling in the shards of broken glass. He was beginning to wonder if he was totaled as well.

His hand slipped up to the seatbelt buckle, searching for the button to release it, but then he hesitated. If he released it there was a bed of glass waiting for him. He had to think this through, brace his legs and arms somehow before he released himself from his upside down prison.

In the end it didn’t matter anyhow. The seatbelt buckle wouldn’t release, no matter how many times he hit it and he was left to listen to the metal of the car creaking and groaning as it settled into its new position on its roof in the middle of the woods.

I’m not sure if I will share this one on the blog or not.

I’m also not sure if I will be sharing any of Lily on the blog, which is a different type of book for me and the other book I am working on. Lily will be based on the character Lily from A New Beginning, the book about Blanche Robins and Judson T. Wainwright.

Spoiler alert if you haven’t read the book — If you remember, Lily became pregnant at 15 after she slept with a man who had drugs she wanted. Blanche’s sister, Edith, and brother-in-law, Jimmy, were going to adopt Lily’s baby and in the end, decided to take Lily in as well.

Lily will be written in the first person and though the topic matter will be dark, I’m going to try to not make the entire book dark and depressing. There will be hope, especially as the book progresses and marches to the end. I am in the plotting stages of this book as well. When I write “plotting” I should mention that I have considered myself a “panster” writer in the past. A panster in writing is a person who writes by the seat of their pants and simply sees where the story will go.

For future books, I’ll be considering myself a hybrid pantser-plotter fiction writer. I will be plotting some of the book while also writing away and seeing where it goes. I want to plot more of the stories out from now on but also not plot so much that the book feels stale and cookie-cutter or formulaic. All books are formulaic in a way, I recognize that, but some genres make a book feel even more formulaic and predictable than others and Christian fiction is one of the worse for that. I don’t know if I will continue writing under the strict Christian fiction genre, but I do know my books will remain “clean.”

I’ve shared a little of Lily on here before, but will share a few paragraphs here to give you an idea of why it will be a different book for me.

That lady social worker said it didn’t hurt to push out a baby.

She lied.

It hurt like that place Mama said I was gonna go for getting pregnant in the first place. I never felt so much pain in my life. I thought I was going to die.

They wanted me to hold the baby, but I didn’t want to. She wasn’t mine anyhow. She belonged to those people I’d met at the agency.

That baby was squawking and hollering; all red and squishy and ugly. I told that nurse to take it away and let those people who were going to be her parents deal with it.

I don’t remember much after that. I slept for hours and hours. Everything in my body hurt and I was so weak I could barely stand. When I opened my eyes, it was dark, and I knew I had to get out of there.

Having something growing in you for nine months is weird.

Pushing it out through your private area while you scream is weird.

Giving that baby to people you only met once is weird too.

It’s all as weird as what that man did to me that left that baby in my belly in the first place.

The nurses didn’t hear me leave.

That social worker wasn’t even there.

My clothes were in a drawer by the bed at the hospital and I changed into them quickly. I cried because it hurt so bad all over. The area where that baby came from hurt the worse. Blood ran down my leg and I wiped it away.

I walked a long way to get to Mama. Wind whipped my hair across my face, cold bit at my bare skin. My stomach ached from hunger and my body screamed for sleep. I didn’t think I’d makeit.

I could barely lift my hand to pound on the door to her apartment when I finally got there. She didn’t open it for a long time and when she did, she was angry.

“How did you even find your way back here?”

She spat the words out like chew in a bucket.

“Mama, I’m tired.” I clutched at my stomach. “Hungry.”

“What do you want me to do about it? Didn’t those social workers feed you anything?”

“Mama —“

“Don’t call me Mama. You know I don’t like that.” She scowled in disgust. “You’re bleeding all over the hallway. You have that baby yet?”

I nodded weakly, wincing when she grabbed my upper arm, ripping me forward into the darkness of the apartment, bouncing my side off a wall.

“Get in here and stop bleeding on my rug.”

She shoved me down the hallway toward the living room. I collapsed on the couch, grasping at the musty smelling cushions as the room began to spin.

Maybe it was days. Maybe it was hours. Maybe it was weeks  before there were voices at the door and strong arms lifting me. I don’t really remember. It was all a blur of sweat and pain and Mama’s pinched and angry face, her screams cutting through my nightmares.

That day was the last time I saw Mama.

Now I’m living here in this place with a bunch of trees and open fields and a stream like I saw a picture of once in a book.

I don’t know what life will be like now, but anything has got to be better than where I came from.

So that is my Fiction Friday update. Hopefully in future weeks, I will have some original fiction to share with you, especially if I decide to blog Mercy’s Shore, which I hope to be able to write a little bit faster than other books.

Old fashioned entertainment is my kind of entertainment

The entertainment I like would be considered old-fashioned by some. Okay, fine. It would be considered old-fashioned by everyone.

I feel like maybe I have an old soul (of course, now at 44, my body is getting old as well). I have always liked shows like The Dick VanDyke Show, Burns and Allen and The Andy Griffith Show, and other old shows that were on the air long before I was born. Part of the reason I like these shows is that I was exposed to them at a time when there was nothing else for me to watch.

They hold sentimental value for me.

Growing up, we had an antenna on our back porch and four TV channels on an old black and white TV. Sometimes Dad would have to go out back and adjust the metal wiring that was supposed to be an antenna. I think he might have even put aluminum foil on it one time to try to improve the quality of the signal. I don’t remember it working.

I’m not so old that we didn’t have color TVs back then. Our family was just poor. We did eventually get a color TV from my grandmother, but we still only had four channels because the local cable company wouldn’t bring their lines to our house since we lived about three miles outside of a town. That same cable channel now has the internet and still won’t bring their lines up my parent’s road (which is across from the creek from where we used to live) to replace the inferior internet service they have now.

The four channels we could get were ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS. When I came home from school, there were either after-school specials to watch or the news so I often turned to PBS. Our local PBS channel used to rotate between The Dick VanDyke Show and Burns and Allen at 6 p.m. Around 4 p.m. they showed Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons on PBS (they rotated these too) and I would watch that too.

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE — Pictured: (clockwise from top left) Melissa Gilbert as Laura Ingalls, Michael Landon as Charles Philip Ingalls, Karen Grassle as Caroline Quiner Holbrook Ingalls, Lindsay/Sidney Greenbush as Carrie Ingalls, Melissa Sue Anderson as Mary Ingalls Kendall (Photo by NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)

Because I had nothing else to watch, I found myself actually watching the shows, focusing on the comedy, the facial expressions, and the easy-going way they delivered their lines. They didn’t need to yell or be biting or sarcastic or crass to make everyone laugh and I liked that. Now that I am getting “old” I find myself gravitating to those shows as a way to find comfort in a crazy world.

When I am down or the world is swirling too fast around me, I turn on The Dick VanDyke Show or The Andy Griffith Show, which I only watched later in life. Sometimes I’ll take about any old comedy show – Green Acres has even popped up on my screen a time or two. My husband used to watch Hogan’s Heroes and The Mary Tyler Moore Show too.

I stay clear of the mystery or crime shows from the 60s to now as much as possible lately. I find they can sometimes pull me deeper into depression. Perry Mason from the 60s isn’t as difficult for me to watch since it’s mostly about the battle in the courtroom than anything else. Once the shows started to get into modern times they began to focus more on violence and crimes that are all too real for me and while I do like crime shows of today (Brokenwood Mysteries, Father Brown, McDonald and Dodd, etc.) the days when I am looking for comfort, I avoid them.

Sometimes my brain needs to quiet down and remember a simpler time of comedy. Was life perfect in the 60s? Of course not. There was still all the sadness of today, simply packaged differently for the world to see. It was all there. The abuse, the drug use, the murders, assaults, war, etc. The world hasn’t ever been perfect since Adam and Eve messed up in the garden. But what is nice about the shows from the 60s is that they focused on the quality of content. They care more about putting out a quality product, not about just kicking out the quantity to fill up the airwaves for commercial dollars. Sure, there were bad shows out there too, don’t get me wrong, but the high-quality shows overshadowed them and still hold up today (though not all the references do, the overall storylines do).

Are there old TV shows that are a comfort to you? Probably not as old as mine, of course. *wink* Then again, I do have some readers here who are “old” like me!

I thought I’d close with a clip from my favorite episode of The Dick VanDyke Show.

And here is a documentary about the show I bumped into on YouTube while looking for clips.

Five comedians you need to look up today

I have been watching a lot of comedians recently and thought I would share my favorites today on the blog.

Ken Davis

I have been watching Ken Davis since I was in high school. After I got out of the hospital in November I watched him constantly to ground me and help take my mind off how awful I felt.

John Branyan

John isn’t as well known as Ken Davis is to many (at least in the Christian community) but he has some of the most hilarious bits, including this one about the Three Little Pigs.

Josh Sneed

I just discovered this guy this past weekend and he was exactly what I needed to lift my spirits.

Chonda Pierce

Oh, Chonda. Many who hear her love her and some have decided not to like her because of how she’s expressed her political views in the last few years, but Chonda still cracks me up. She’s had so much heartache in her life, but still manages to laugh and make others laugh.

Nazareth

This comedian is originally from the Middle East and he uses his heritage for some very edgy, very funny jokes.

Sunday Bookends: A somewhat rough week, missing when Christian fiction was good, and the ongoing battle with depression

Welcome to Sunday Bookends where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, doing, watching, writing and listening to.

What I/we’ve been Reading

This week I started Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle by Ann B. Ross and I’m really enjoying it.

I’m also looking forward to reading Call Me A Cab by Donald Westlake.

I’m actually looking forward to reading anything that isn’t Christian fiction right now, as awful as that sounds, but I need a break from the new Christian fiction – yes, the stuff like mine – that is fairly cheesy and very watered down.

I was in the library of my parent’s church this week while Little Miss was at Awana and I was looking at books by Bodie and Brock Thoene, books that were about real issues, real people and not fluff. They were great and there aren’t a lot of Christian fiction writers like them out there now. Don’t get me wrong. I like fluff books too. I write fluff. I’m just in a really bad place when it comes to Christian fiction right now, especially how a lot of the new stuff seems to have the same template and be the same story but with different characters.

Little Miss and I are reading some Paddington again this week. I guess she needed some comfort reading and I did as well.

The Boy is slogging through Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.

He hates it. I’m hoping to find him a better classic book to read before the school year ends.

What’s Been Occurring

This week presented some challenging moments for me. Those moments left me deeply hurt, worried, sad and finally in a pretty deep depression. There are a couple people that were a part of one of these moments who think I am in a deep depression because they said my writing wasn’t good, but that isn’t actually the issue. The issue this week was once again being disappointed in the behavior of people who profess to be Christians. Or I should say, that was my issue until I worked toward changing my way of thinking.

Christians are not perfect, merely forgiven. No Christian is going to do everything right all the time. The Christians who hurt me this week did not do so spitefully, they did so carelessly. Had they listened to me over the last few weeks, maybe they would have known how I have been slipping deeper and deeper into depression, all while trying to pretend I am not.

I have been doing an awful lot of pretending lately. I have pretended I am okay, I have pretended I’m not worried about myself or my family. I have pretended I want to have a career in writing novels. I have pretended I’m good enough to write novels. I have pretended that it doesn’t hurt when people I grew up with and used to be close friends no longer speak to me.

The next paragraph is not in an attempt to whine or sound like my life is so hard, but to explain a bit of what I have been pretending. Also, please read this with the little bit of humor I wrote it in and not as dark as it sounds. I have been pretending that my hair is not falling out in clumps and that isn’t freaking me out (my family knows I am freaking out, but I’ve tried not to mention it too much to anyone else). I have been pretending that my smell and taste is back to normal after Covid. It is not and there are some days I can’t even eat because everything is disgusting and has the “Covid smell and taste.” I have been pretending that I don’t feel like I’d rather stay in bed all day long than face another day of unknown health oddities. I have been pretending that I can keep pretending, shoving it all in so no one can see it to keep people from looking at me like most doctors do – like I am a sad, anxiety-ridden loser who needs to be on as many pills as possible and then hidden away.

I don’t have a lot to look forward to each day, other than my children and some days even that is a challenge. My 7-year old doesn’t want to do her school work many days so sometimes we both end up crying. My 15-year old is amazing but he’s trying to figure out life as he transitions into being a teen and marches toward adulthood so sometimes his dad and I screw up trying to communicate with him and then we all end up in tears. (I know we will figure this out but some days I just feel like I’m really bad at the mom thing.)

Then we came to the end of my week when I went to a new doctor for my thyroid and my blood pressure was sky high, my weight was the highest it has ever been in my entire life, and the doctor told me I have to try a new medicine that could make me feel even worse than I do now or I can face a myriad of health issues that will slowly kill me.  I’m already sick on the thyroid medicine I take now so I have no idea what to expect from this new stuff.

Hmmm…can’t figure out why the blood pressure was so high after the weird situation with the writing group that happened about the same time I found out there was a very good possibility my elderly parents had not only been exposed to Covid, but now had it. (We now I’m know that they do indeed have it.)

The entire time I was at the appointment I kept worrying they would try to admit me. I was almost out the door when the nurse wanted to take my blood pressure again before I left. She did so while my arm was in the air and I was on the verge of a full blown panic attack as I flashed back to my time in the hospital when I briefly thought I might die on a ventilator (I did not think this for the majority of my stay, thank God). Needless to say my blood pressure was still high. I seriously don’t even think the woman knew how to take a proper reading.

Once at home, I took the bp meds that have been making me dizzy, watched some TV with the hubby and the bp dropped more than 30 points. In fact, it dropped even before the medicine kicked in. I guess because I was out of the stressful situation.

So, last week was hard. I don’t know what this week holds but I do hope it is something a little better. Right now I am not going to pretend that I am optimistic that it will be better. Writing the truth feels good. I am not optimistic. I have hope, but not optimism. I am not trying to fake it until I make it anymore and it feels good to be honest about my current emotions instead of trying to pretend that “I’m fine and I know things will be fine.”

Bull crap. I don’t know that at all and I am not fine.

Walking away from a writing group that I loved, but that was stressing me out (not their fault other than that awful experience of my work being shredded in front of a bunch of strangers), finally admitting that I was trying too hard to be something I am not, was completely freeing. I will, however, miss the wonderful ladies who were a part of the group.

I like writing my stories, no matter how stupid they are or how they don’t follow the strict rules of writing. I will probably continue to share them on my blog, but maybe nowhere else. I don’t even know yet. I will offer books for sale for friends and family to access but I probably won’t push their advertising much in the future. I was writing for fun not for acclaim and when that fun started to be stomped out of me, it was time to step back to what once made me happy – just sharing my ramblings on here and with friends and family.

What We watched/are Watching

Now on to happier things. Last week we watched more Brokenwood, some Mystery Science Theater (Manos, The Hand of Fate. It was absolutely horrific, which if you know anything about MST3K is actually a good thing. More opportunity for quips and laughs.), more Night Court, and I watched some old All Creatures Great and Small but then decided I really don’t like the actor who plays James Herriot in the old. He made James Herriot into a kind of uptight jerk without a Scottish accent. He’s much sweeter and less huffy in the new series, which is what I would imagine the real James Herriot (James Wight) was actually like.

What I’m Writing

Honestly, not a whole lot right now. Maybe someday again. I did share a Randomly Thinking on the blog last week and a book review.

What I’m Listening To

There has been a need for uplifting music this week so there has been some Elevation Worship and Matthew West going on.

Now it’s your turn

What have you been reading, watching, doing, or listening to? Let me know in the comments.