Sarah L. Frantz's Blog, page 14

Monday morning washing in His word

2 Kings 7

Elisha foretells
Heavenly bounty

Measured meal
1 shekel!

2 barley
A shekel!

Doubting Captain
God questioner

Will see
Not eat

Four lepers
Determine deliverance

One way
or another

Ghostly sounds
Echo threat

Lord delivered
Arameans fled

Lepers ate
Were filled

Carried goods
To keep

Stricken consciences
Told blessings

King doubts
Sends scouts

Two follow
Army litter

Jordan’s edge
Proclaimed truth

God’s deliverance
Was total

Choice meal
1 shekel!

2 barley
As well!

Sky windows

Wide open

Doubting captain
Death trampled

Samaria’s Gate

Full witness

Leaping Snakes!

My granddaughter came for a day visit, bringing her school, hoping for a fun outing with her Marmee.

After breakfast and some successful phonics work, I promised to take her out for a swing before we ran errands. She had confessed something to me earlier in the morning. After talking gently with her and seeing her conscience had already begun to work on her we moved on. It would mean she would miss out on a hoped for outing.

She is growing and maturing, listening more, thinking thoughtfully through the words being spoken. I can see her mind sifting through my motives and my underlying desire to help her.

A call from the bank let me know we needed to drop off some paperwork for my dad. She and I were walking outside as I answered. As we rounded the corner and passed the shrubbery a black movement struck at us just below my shoulders. In a split second, I realized it was not our cat, Shadow, but a huge snake. We jumped, yelled, and picked up our pace. It brushed her leg but didn’t strike.

I apologized to the bank lady and hung up. My granddaughter and I had a rapid fire discussion about what had just happened as we continued to hurry away, glancing back to the grass to see if it was in pursuit. It wasn’t.

After our adrenaline subsided, we decided to forego the swinging session and deliver the papers to the bank and get some lunch. We called her mom on the way and told her our story.

“Marmee swat at it…” she said excitedly.

“Your daughter thought Nalla (our old cat) needed saving, she rushed and picked her up,” I said.

After lunch, she and I talked about the original snake in the garden and how he takes pleasure in misleading us. How when we desire something, if we allow it to cause us to sin, we will try to justify our decision.

I said, “See, how subtle he is? We have to be careful not to let our desires cause us to sin against God. Not if we claim to love Him best.”

God warned Cain in Genesis 4:6 (NIV)

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

When you brush against sin, it can help you be more aware of what is lurking in the bushes. Not in fear, but in preparation.

leafspeak

I saw our first leaf fall

It surfed the breeze

I’m sure I heard it whisper,

“All is change.”

As it passed.

Life & Landmarks

This year has been chock full of pivotal moments. Painful, dark, scary ones. Bright, blazing, hopeful ones. Exciting, joyful, precious ones. Dull, boring, repetitive ones.

Such is life, they say. Made up of the beautiful and painful, side by side they sit as salt and pepper at every meal in a year saturated with grief.

I was still clinging to a board from our family’s shipwreck of death from 2022 when a mighty, maelstrom struck again. As I flung the puny wreckage aside and cried out for Jesus’ promised yoke, I gladly discarded the manmade and inferior design for His eternal, glorious way.

And I have proven Him true.

Grand baby births, a home purchase & house sale, book launch, double nickel birthday, and a 32nd anniversary…. Each one of these events has been laced with His incredible goodness.

But. I. Am. So. Very. Tired.

Events that marked our dad’s life this year… recovery from a stroke, transfer to SNF- Skilled Nursing Facility in Oklahoma, over 2 1/2 months to assess where he would recover in physical therapy, moving in with us the last of April. A UTI that landed him in the hospital, a lung clot that landed him in the hospital, new medications to prevent further clots, a brief hiatus of peace and health, then a three week hospitalization with removal of a gangrenous gall bladder. Now he has been home again the same length of time… scars have healed… the pain and sorrow of that period has been replaced by another season of regaining strength and continuous physical therapy.

All that to say. I should be tired. And… it’s okay to be tired. As I wind down from my first book launch I will finish book reviews I committed too, as well as some lovely book launches, and some fun compilations, but then I will be focusing on Overcomers Book 2.

Every September I quiet my inbox and mute subscriptions and delete extraneous sales e-mails. It gives me a moment to catch my breath and just breathe.

I hope your fall is full of simple pleasures… a napping great-grandfather, purring cats, mugs of hot coffee, laughter, and slanting rays of light brushing through the leaves as they change color.

But more importantly, may they be full of His presence.

New listing in my etsy shop, Somebody’s Luggage

The Quickening, Overcomers Book 1

Signed copies with Overcomers sticker now available here!

Breech but born…

I guess I don’t know how to do anything the normal way. My first born was breech and now my book launch has come about a little backwards as well.

And that’s okay, because I am learning.

Taryn and her group at Typewriter Creative Co. did a stellar job formatting my book. Cassidy Wierks is on the team and is responsible for all the artwork associated with The Quickening, Overcomers Book 1.

Please come give me a follow on Amazon – and if you are interested a review of my book would be lovely.

The Quickening by Sarah L. Frantz

Imprints and Colophons

Exciting things are in the works, artist Cassidy Wierks designed an imprint for my indie-publishing business. I couldn’t be more pleased. She also completed the cover art for The Quickening, more about that in upcoming posts.

Suffice it to say writing, formatting and publishing are not for the faint of heart.

I chose the Sursum Corda because of its meaning:

Latin for “Lift up your hearts” or more specifically

“Upward hearts.”

God has enabled me to persevere through many trials and losses over the past thirteen years as this story unfolded. I see His hand every step of the way. My heart is lifted upwards in praise to our King and His sustaining power. May He be glorified.

Rachel’s new Book Launch Collective!

EXCITING NEWS!!! I’ve been invited to be one of seven highlighted authors during the Book Launch Collective’s June Launch Event!

You can learn more about the Book Launch Collective and the event here: https://booklaunchcollective.com

The Book Launch Collective harness the power of word-of-mouth marketing and leverages it to help Christian fiction writers (and their stories) reach readers so they can make both an impact and an income with their novels!

I know first-hand how hard getting the word out there about a novel can be! I’m looking forward to being part of this event in June!

If you:
Love fiction written from a Christian worldview
Believe story is a powerful tool to point people to God’s goodness and love
Want to support your creative brothers and sisters in the work they are doing

You’ll want to be part of this unique opportunity!

You can get on the waitlist to get notified of the event details here: https://booklaunchcollective.com

Ten Commandments for Smooth Writing

by J.E. & Mary McReynolds

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR SMOOTH WRITING

Thou shalt send most adjectives and adverbs to a place outside the camp. They are usually not needed or wanted. They may even be unclean.

Hemingway was told early in his career to excise most of the adjectives in his prose. His novels became bestselling masterpieces. No one missed the adjectives that he banished. 

Thou shalt not make characters one-dimensional.

Bad characters who are all bad are boring and unrealistic. Good characters that all good are boring and unrealistic. People are not one-dimensional. The scripts for Titanic and Avatar ignored this commandment. The bad guys were all bad. The movies suffered for it.

Thou shalt vary thy cadence.

Alternate short sentences with longer sentences, but not in a mechanistic or predictable fashion. Readers are attracted to short sentences, but too many in succession make the manuscript choppy. Some writers think longer sentences prove their talent and intellectual capacity. They are wrong. Nobody is fooled.

Thou shalt embrace dialogue.

Nothing moves a story along faster than dialogue: people speaking directly to each other, with or without quotation marks. Readers feel good that they’ve covered a particular number of pages in a relatively short time. They are happy with themselves and the world. Help them achieve this bliss by giving them dialogue instead of exposition.

Thou shalt not search for attribution alternatives.

He said. She said. They said. Searching for alternatives to “said” often leads to derision. This is not absolute. Once in a while, use an “uttered” or “noted.” Avoid archaic alternatives such as “ejaculated” or “expostulated.” Some attribution is not needed in a stream of dialogue. Enough said. 

Thou shalt ignore much of what you were taught by elderly English teachers in high school.

Yes, you can end a sentence with a preposition. This is legal in 49 states. 

Thou shalt audit thy work before letting others read it.

Audit means to hear something said out loud. Read your work to yourself aloud. Listen for how it sounds. You might pick up on something that sounds wrong. 

Thou shalt not get in an all-fired hurry.

When finishing a draft, let some time pass before you go back and read it. The passage of time injects objectivity into the equation. If you don’t wait, you lose that advantage; you’ll just read it the way you wrote it, which sounded great and clear when when you were writing but not great or clear enough to sign off on the work.

Thou shalt not overuse words in a short span of prose.

Look for reasonable alternatives – synonyms – for nouns that appear more than once in a short passage, but be careful. It’s OK to use “deluge” as a substitute for “rain” in a passage with a lot of references to ongoing precipitation. It’s not OK to write about bananas and describe them as “elongated yellow fruits.” That was actually done once by a bad writer.

Thou shalt “show” more and “tell” less.”

Show: As his mother switched off the light and left the room, Michael tensed. He huddled under the covers, gripped the sheets, and held his breath.

Tell: Michael was terribly afraid of the dark.

The “show” version illumines what’s happening in detail. The “tell” version states a condition with no explanation for why the condition exists.

Mary Hicks McReynolds lives in Northwest Arkansas with her husband, a retired professional journalist. McReynolds has authored three novels, a non-fiction historical book and a collection of poetry. She earned her BA in English and MA in Creative Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma. A career in health care marketing and public relations rounded out her writing skills with awards in attendant disciplines. 

James E. McReynolds is a retired professional journalist, having worked at newspapers for nearly 40 years. He lives in Northwest Arkansas with the novelist and poet Mary Hicks McReynolds, his wife of 43 years. He is an Oklahoma native and graduate of Oklahoma State University. 

Both James and Mary have received numerous awards for their fiction and non-fiction writing.