Becky Wade's Blog, page 107

New Year, New Words

Hello friends. I hope your 2022 is off to a good start. I have only a few days left until my next manuscript is due, so today’s post will be short and sweet.

As a historical novelist, I spend a fair amount of time checking to see if words were in use during my time period and sometimes end up discovering new words along the way. For example, I recently consulted my favorite online etymology dictionary to see if I could describe a child as “rambunctious,” only to discover that word did not come into use until 1834. Before that time, a person might be called rumbunctious (1824) or rumbustious (1778).

So, when I opened one of my Christmas presents from my husband to find The Little Book of Lost Words by Joe Gillard, I was delighted. I have already read through it, and have enjoyed learning some new-to-me old words.

The books specifies when the words came into use and gives brief definitions and (often humorous) sample sentences and illustrations. If you love words as I do, you might want to order a copy for yourself.

On New Year’s Eve, some members of Inspirational Regency Readers (a group on Facebook) played a game where we took turns coming up with a sentence using one or more of these example words. (If you haven’t joined this fun group yet, please do!) You might like to try it here as well (feel free to comment with your sentence below). Or, if you are an author, I challenge you to incorporate one of these into your next book….although that may prove difficult for contemporary writers.

Apanthopy: the desire to be alone; a distaste for the company of others

Blatteroon: a person who talks or boasts incessantly

Smatchet: an ill-tempered, despicable person

Pingle: to work in a useless unhelpful manner that only interferes.

Honneyfuggle: to compliment someone to get what you want.

Pamphagous: will eat anything

Collywobbles: stomach pain or sickness (I’ve used this one.)

Snollygoster: a corrupt, unprincipled person

Example page from book.

I have incorporated at least one word from this book into the manuscript I’ll turn in soon, fabulosity: an exaggerated statement or completely made-up story. (Now to see if it survives the editing process.)

That’s all for today, because I am in a state of betweenity (between two things), enjoying my time here, yet needing to finish my draft. Have a great day!

Gifts for five-year-olds

Ten years ago, my husband, Ken, began a wonderful tradition of giving our grandkids paintings of themselves riding their creature of choice. Our first two grandsons got their paintings the same year, but after that, the paintings were gifted to each grandchild on the Christmas they were five years old.

Ken starts with a photo of the child, posed as if he or she was riding the creature of their choice, but of course, it’s a surprise. Here, our grandsons didn’t have a clue why Papa asked them to pose on a pillow flopped over a sawhorse…

Until they saw their Christmas presents the next year—paintings of each of them riding a fierce T-Rex!

Ken might have had second thoughts if he’d known we would end up with a dozen grandkids (counting two on the way!) but I think he enjoys giving these paintings as much as the kids enjoy getting them. Here are the others that have been given since those first two:

This year’s unicorn rider is one of my personal favorites and our daughter reported that this five-year-old couldn’t wait to hang the painting in her bedroom!

Seven down, five to go…and I can’t wait to see what the next five kids (or however many we end up with!) choose for their “Papa painting.”

Inspired by Scripture

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Release Time! Let’s party! (Plus a Giveaway!)

NEVER LEAVE ME, the much-anticipated sequel in my Waters of Time series is hitting shelves this week!

So far, early readers have been loving this second time-crossing novel. In fact, one reader said this:

“Never Leave Me is one of my most anticipated sequels and it does not disappoint! Once again, author Jody Hedlund weaves a compelling, intelligent, page-turning story full of symbolism, healing, miracles, time-travel in another amazing “what-if” story. I could not put it down!”

In NEVER LEAVE ME, Harrison Burlington, a brilliant scientist, is left to pick up the pieces after experiencing the devastating loss of longtime friends. With his power and wealth, Harrison continues the search for more holy water, with the hope of saving the woman he secretly loves, Ellen Creighton, who is dying of a genetic disease.

Ellen’s prognosis is grim, and the doctors agree she doesn’t have long to live. She resigns herself to her fate. But Harrison only grows more desperate to save her. When Harrison finds two flasks of holy water, he sets into motion events that changes both his and Ellen’s lives forever and sends them on an adventure of a lifetime.

It’s my desire that readers will come away from both books in the series with a greater fascination and appreciation for history. And maybe in the process, they’ll also wonder if crossing time is more possible than they’d ever believed!

I hope that you’ll decide to take a chance on this new time-crossing genre! You never know, you just might find yourself swept away in the rivers of time!

If you’d like the chance to WIN a copy of NEVER LEAVE ME, I’m giving away a copy here on the blog to celebrate the book’s release. Enter the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

If you could travel back in time, what time period would you most like to visit?

From the Mountain to the Valley

For the last several months, I’ve been rehearsing for a worship music recording that started on December 28. People from all over the country came to my hometown of Abilene, TX to participate in a Praise & Harmony recording. It happens in a different city each year, and when a friend of mine told me about it coming to Abilene, I was excited to join in.

We had to audition in quartets to ensure an equal number of singers on each part. This is my quartet. I had never met any of these three before, but now we are bonded for eternity.

My worship tradition focuses on a cappella singing, but this worship style is becoming a lost art. Keith Lancaster (the founder of the praise group Acappella that was big in the 80’s) uses his talents not only to preserve this worship style but to minister to people around the world, sharing the love of Jesus through song.

Since we have no instruments to keep us on tune and in time, we all wore ear buds and listened to a “click track” broadcast over an FM radio channel to stay in tune and on beat. The click track featured a metronome clicking the beat along with a quartet plus piano singing/playing the parts. We basically had to have the music memorized, though, because all dynamics and cut offs came from our director, so we had to watch him carefully. And since we couldn’t risk having paper rattling on the recording, we sang with slides projecting the music on the front walls. My 50 year-old eyes had a little trouble seeing that far since I was in the back of the room, but we made it work.

There were two sections for each part set up throughout the large auditorium for recording. This was my alto section. I am on the third row back in the middle in the green shirt. Met some great people on my pew!

Many of the pieces we recorded for this Overwhelming God album are a cappella arrangements of contemporary Christian songs you would hear on the radio. Others are new compositions or revitalized arrangements of long-forgotten hymns. About 250 people gathered for four days a recording, and I can’t express the joy in my spirit as my voice blended with so many other talented singers to get a small taste of what heaven must be like.

After the audio recording was complete, we gathered to make video recordings to be used with the audio tracks in the ministry. This was a gathering in the ACU Bible Building Rotunda as we recoded a video for the song, God So Loved the World. The acoustics in this rotunda are so live, that the sound reverberates for about 5 seconds after we stop singing. We had an impromptu devotional here after the video was captured, just to enjoy the sound and the fellowship.

I even met a reader and possibly found a few new ones along the way.

It was a lot of hard work. Learning and memorizing 25 songs. Getting up at 6:00 am every day and working until after dinner for the 3 1/2 days of recording, but it was a glorious time of worship, ministry, and music. Truly a mountain top experience.

But then came the valley. After our last group event on Friday, I began feeling a little under the weather. Then on Saturday, an email hit my inbox that mentioned someone in the group had tested positive for COVID. I had run fever Friday night and had some congestion, so I went in for a test Saturday afternoon. Sure enough, my results were positive. Happy New Year, right?

I had been vaccinated previously, so I’m supposed to be less contagious and hopefully will have a milder case of the sickness. Right now, I feel like I have the flu, so not great, but not horrible, either. On the bright side, God kept me well long enough to complete the recording, and so far none of my family is sick. I’m taking precautions. Sequestering in my room most of the day and wearing a mask whenever I emerge. I would appreciate prayers for a quick recovery and for protection for my family.

There would be no mountains without valleys, so I’ll hold tight to the Lord’s hand until he guides my path onto more even ground.

Do you enjoy singing?
What is your favorite style of music?

My Favorite Year End Task

Some seventeen years ago, I was discouraged. After five years of writing, my motivation to continue was waning. I had written three complete novels, and while my rejections always came with good feedback, it wasn’t easy to find the will to keep going. Especially when I felt like I had less time than I wanted for writing, even with my kids in school all day. Maybe God was trying to tell me I had other things to do instead of write. But writing was the thing my heart desired most, the crazy dream I truly believed the Lord had given me. What a conundrum!

So at the beginning of 2005, I set up a simple spreadsheet. I decided to keep track of things I did which constituted my writing life for an entire year. Because while I “felt like” I got nothing done, I needed to discover whether or not that was true. I figured knowing would either convince me to quit or keep at it.

Of course you know the end of the story. I kept at it. But my total that year wasn’t overly impressive: 58,501 words written and meeting with my critique group 41 out of the 52 weeks that year. The meetings were good. Consistent. But the word count? I’d done almost that in one month back in November of 2000. But somehow I saw that my hit-and-miss days of writing had added up. So I prepared a new spreadsheet for 2006 and determined to better my total.

Not surprisingly, my numbers did rise. In 2006 I added some other stats to track besides words written. Now I counted pages revised and pages edited for my critique partners. I also kept track of books read.

Every year my totals grew. I added column for time I spent researching and pre-writing. I got a contract, and my totals jumped even higher.

I’ll be honest, those numbers puffed me up with pride a bit. “Look how much I can get done!” “Look how I’ve pulled myself up out of the doldrums and made a career.” But as we know, pride goes before a fall.

The book contracts stopped. My statistics plummeted. In 2018, I wrote fewer words than all the way back in 2005. Again, I was discouraged. But after 13 years of tracking my writing time/pages/words, I couldn’t just quit. I continued on. Somehow I felt the numbers would help me know when it was time to let it go for good.

The words written numbers hovered fairly steady for a few years, but at each year’s end I noticed something: The number of books I read and the pages I critiqued for others had jumped up. Maybe my writing life wasn’t dead, just different. And maybe the end of each year, when I totaled out my spreadsheet wasn’t meant to be a reason to celebrate me at all anyway. It was meant to be a testimony to God’s faithfulness, even in the changing nature of the numbers.

I knew this year would bring another shift in my spreadsheet. As I totaled out 2021, I saw that my words written had jumped up again, especially since I did so much re-writing on this year’s book! But I noticed that even with this, the numbers in other categories didn’t dip as significantly as before. Even in giving me new writing work, the Lord hadn’t decreased my time to help other writers or find pleasure in my own reading. Nor had I neglected the relationships in my life in favor of work. As I looked over the year in numbers, I sat in humble thanksgiving for what the Lord had done in 2021.

This is why my favorite year end task is to total out of my yearly writing spreadsheet. It makes me recognize what God’s faithfulness not only in the current year but in past years. And as the numbers stretch across almost two decades, it helps me see the bigger picture of what God has been doing, both in and through me.

What is your favorite task at the beginning or end of each year?

Ah the joys of anonymous reader mail!

I have three things to share today and I promise they’re connected—though it may not seem so at the outset.

FIRST, a video.

In 2016, one of my publishers asked me to make a quick 1-minute video containing my best and worst review to date that would then be shown to the sales team during their conference. This video is the result. I’ve never shared it publicly, but am sharing it now for fun—and also for a timely reminder as we enter the New Year.

Ah the joys of anonymous reader mail! LOL

Seriously though, this letter has provided such enjoyment through the years. How you might ask?

Well, first, my publisher said the video got the biggest laugh at the conference. And since laughter ranks high on my list that was huge!

Secondly, I worked the phrase “something is (was) terribly wrong” into my next two or three books just for kicks! So if you ever notice that phrase in one of my books, you’ll know the inside story. : )

Thirdly, a writers group I’m in has an annual tradition of sharing our worst reviews with each other. It’s a way to laugh and remember not to take them too seriously. Well, I won that particular year with this anonymous review letter. LOL Long story short, we named our worst review contest the Something Is Terribly Wrong Award and ordered an engraved medallion that we bequeath to the subsequent winner each year. What fun!

Here I am bequeathing the award to the lovely and ever-so-sweet Kim Vogel Sawyer the next year. If I remember correctly, she won with a reader letter that likened her books to “Satan’s tools.” (Well, alrighty then!) : }

All that to say…

When 2022 brings bumps and bruises your way—and it’s certain to because bumps and bruises are simply part of this earthly journey—remember to keep things in perspective. Especially when it involves someone else’s opinion. I mean, we all have them, right? Do I wish everyone liked every book? Sure. But that’s not simply not reality.

So the next time something happens that could make it a really downer day or be a discouragement to you, try to see the lighter side of the situation. And have fun with it!

SECOND, an ebook.

Remember the best review reader letter I read from in the video? It was for my book, A Lasting Impression, the first novel in the Belmont Mansion series.

A Lasting Impression is a Kindle Monthly Deal for January. Yep, all month!

** KINDLE MONTHLY DEAL **BUY A Lasting Impression $1.99 eBook

Incidentally, some years back when my daughter Kelsey and I were in the Netherlands promoting A Lasting Impression when it released there, readers were certain that was Kelsey on the cover. Granted, there IS a strong resemblance. : ) While we explained that it wasn’t her, they still wanted her picture with the book and her autograph too. And of course, if you know Kels, you know she played along! It was such a fun trip!

THIRD and lastly, a giveaway.

Two weeks ago in my post, I mentioned a sale on tear jars on a friend’s ministry site. As I shared then, in the biblical world, Jewish women used tear jars to store their tears in times of grief and lament. I love it that the Creator of the Universe chose a commonly known practice to communicate the depth of his love and compassion for us (Psalm 56:8). Especially when life brings bumps and bruises that can oftentimes hurt and discourage us.

Several of you wrote me saying that you tried to buy one. But that by the time you checked, they were all gone. Well guess what? I nabbed one and am giving it away on my website this month!

So if you’re interested in winning the tear jar, sign up today. Or if you know someone who could use this encouragement, sign up “for them” and then gift it when you win!

So, a video, an eBook, and a giveaway. All connected. Just like I’m SO grateful we are!

THANK YOU for being part of the Inspired by Life & Fiction Community, and blessings in this New Year!

From Nashville with love,

Tammy

I hope you had a great Christmas and New Years.

Were you able to get with family and friends? I hope so.

Here are some glimpses from ours..

Joe and me at Hilton Head IslandWith our three kids!
Daughter Kels, son Kurt & his wife KellieMy brother Doug and his wife Jackie, along with their son Dillon and his girlfriend Katie joined us one night for dinner and games in HHI!

Let’s Talk About Lambs

Remember the old game of gossip, where you whispered something in someone’s ear, and by the time the words got all the way around the circle, it was so convoluted it made no sense? 

For the last two or three years, at Christmastime I’ve received copies of an essay about newborn lambs—the perfect lambs intended for sacrifice—that were swaddled and placed in a manger. The essay says shepherds in ancient Israel would be constantly on the lookout for perfect lambs that could be used as a sacrifice. They would place newborn lambs in a stone manger immediately after birth in order to search for any defect.  If they found no defect, the lamb would be swaddled and kept in the manger so it would be protected.  So when angels told the shepherds to look for a baby swaddled and lying in a manger, they knew immediately where to go and what they would find—the perfect Lamb of God. 

That is a beautiful story, but it doesn’t fit the facts. The reality is just as amazing and miraculous. 

Let’s look at a bit of history and some facts about raising lambs. 

Nearly all the flocks around Bethlehem—sheep, cattle, and oxen—were intended for Temple sacrifice. The shepherds didn’t have to search for sacrificial candidates, because unless an animal was unhealthy, scarred, or maimed, it would qualify. These animals did not have to be pure white. 

A perfect newborn lamb is a lamb without birth defects.  Since most lambs are born without missing limbs, multiple heads, etc., an unblemished lamb would be the rule, not the exception. 

Newborn lambs must bond with their mothers within the first thirty minutes after birth, however, so no savvy shepherd would separate that mother from her offspring. As soon as the lamb is born, the mother licks it until it stands and begins to nurse. If the lamb is not allowed to nurse, the mother may abandon it, and the lamb is likely to die unless it can bond with another mother. 

What would be the point of keeping a newborn lamb in a stone manger? A swaddled lamb in a manger would not be able to walk or nurse or thrive. It would not survive more than a few days. 

The Torah speaks against separating a newborn from its mother for at least seven days (Ex. 22:30). And newborns were never sacrificed immediately—sacrificial lambs were to be one-year-old males (of females, depending on the type of sacrifice) “without defect” (Ex. 12:5). God required that sacrificial animals be “without blemish” because sin requires a proper sacrifice, not a bargain animal of no use for breeding. 

One version of the “swaddled lamb” essay mentions the tower of the flock, Migdal-Eder, and says the place had a stone manger, so that’s where the shepherds went when the angels told them to look for a baby in a feeding trough.  

The opposite is much more likely. The shepherds would have been at Migdal-Eder⁠1 when they heard the angel’s announcement, because that’s where they watched over the flocks intended for Temple sacrifice. The tower was located some distance away from Bethlehem. 

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The perfect Lamb of God was born, swaddled, and placed in a manger  in the city of David. 

Were lambs ever swaddled? I was surprised to learn that they often were—but not immediately after birth. They weren’t completely swaddled because they needed to be able to walk, eat, and defecate.  Just like puppies and kittens, a lamb’s birthcoat is especially soft and fuzzy with halo hairs, the long, fine hairs that form a gentle “halo” around the lamb’s body.  

To protect this fine wool, lambs were protected by coverings from two to fifteen months of age. Talmudic sources relate that in order to protect the wool of young lambs, some Awassi sheep, the most common breed in Israel, were wrapped in a cover, which eliminated the need for repeated washing and helped the wool retain lanolin.  These coverings were adjusted as the lamb grew, and when the animal was old enough, the extra-soft wool was shorn. The average lamb produced only about half a pound of the prized wool. The practice of collecting this fine wool was recorded as early as the fourth century before Christ, and still continues today. 

So the story of swaddled lambs is lovely, though not exactly accurate. But it does not change the truth of what really happened in Bethlehem on that miraculous night: the Son of God was born and placed in a manger. And angels appeared to shepherds, who left their flocks and hurried to Bethlehem because they had been especially invited to be among the first to view the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the World. 

The simple story is more than enough to generate awe and wonder. 

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1 MIGDAL-EDER The place where Jacob sojourned after the death of Rachel (Gen. 35:21; Authorized Version: ‘tower of Eder’), known also in the Roman period. In the Septuagint it is located between Beth-El and Rachel’s tomb. In the time of the Mishna the place was still known, and it is there that the Messiah will make himself known. Eusebius (Onom. 43:12) and other early Christian sources identify Migdal-Eder with Shepherd’s Field 1 1/2 miles east of Bethlehem. Identified with Siyan al-Ghanam, southwest of Jerusalem.

 Negev, Avraham. The Archaeological encyclopedia of the Holy Land 1990 : n. pag. Print.

Inspired by Scripture

This Sunday feature is brought to you by ClashVerseoftheDay.com. You may sign up to receive a beautiful photo with Scripture in your inbox each morning or view the verse each day online.

Happy New Year

On January 1, 2021, I wanted the new year to bring an end to the pandemic and the social upheaval and the political unrest everywhere. But the start of a new year can’t change everything. In fact, the only thing that the new year is guaranteed to change is the calendar.

In too many ways (in my opinion, at least), 2021 seemed like 2020. Sigh.

Still, I begin 2022 with hope. How can I do otherwise as a daughter of the King? And “hope” is the word (along with the verses in Romans 5:5 and Ephesians 1:18) that God gave me for 2022.

“and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5, NASB95)

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” (Ephesians 1:18, NASB95)

I plan to dwell on the hope that Christ has given me. Perhaps you’ll choose to do the same.

May 2022 bring you one step closer to the One who is our hope.

~robin