Mary Harwell Sayler's Blog: In a Christian Writer's Life, page 25

What’s on your writing desk, Mary Sayler? | Karla Akins

Thanks, Karla, for our chat! I appreciate your interviewing me. God bless.

What’s on your writing desk, Mary Sayler? | Karla Akins

Going for gold with God | Mary Harwell Sayler

Long after the Olympics end this year, our going for gold will keep on going with God’s help.
Going for gold with God | Mary Harwell Sayler

Pencil, paper, pc, and beyond

The scope of a Christian writer's life extends far beyond our bookshelves and writing desk!

To expand the possibilities for our discussions, I began a blog on WordPress where I'm posting instead of here. I hope you will join me and let me know the topics or concerns you would like to see addressed. Thank you.

If you're a Bible student or teacher, pastor, or other communicator for Christ, you might also be interested in following the prayers, devotionals, and Bible discussions on The Word Center blog. Again, please let me know if you have thoughts to share or topics to suggest.

May God bless you in all you're to do in Jesus' Name.


Mary Harwell Sayler

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Contacts & Critiques - Mary Harwell Sayler

Just updated my critique page to make it clearer, but not raise prices! If you'd like my feedback on your poems, prayers, devotionals, or children's picture book text for a minimal fee, check it out. God bless you and your good work in Jesus' Name.

Contacts & Critiques - Mary Harwell Sayler

Annual Writing Competition, dd March 15

Guidelines for WEN/FFWA Writing Competition

I'm looking forward to reading the poems entered in this year's writing contest, which is open to fiction and nonfiction too. Hope you enter and win! But I won't know until the finalists have been chosen as this is a blind competition with no i.d. on the entries I receive http://www.writers-editors.com/…/Con…... 

The Word Center in a Christian writer's life

After a few years of trying to maintain several blogs with regular posts on Blogger, I saw a need to simplify! So a new umbrella blog has been set up for The Word Center on WordPress.

Lord willing, the blog will include Bible prayers, Bible poetry, devotionals, articles on writing, biblical principles of Christian healing, and reviews of new editions or translations of the Bible.

If you're a worker of words or a minister of The Word, I pray you will Follow the blog and find what you need. If not, please leave a question, helpful comment, or suggestion for future posts.

Thanks and blessings.

Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2016

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Tips on writing nonfiction

• Pick a subject that clearly relates to the theme and purpose of the publication or blog for which you would like to write.

• List the points you want to make. [Hint: Give your ideas time to surface.]

• Select the most significant, timely, and/or freshest points.

• Arrange those points in order of importance.

Next, evaluate how long your article will probably need to be.

If you have one main point or fresh perspective you want to discuss in, say, 200 to 300 words, that would be about the right length for a blog post.

If you have 3 to 5 points you’d like to develop in, say, 1500 to 3000 words, that could be a magazine article.

If you have a long list of points that will require research and/or take time to explain, you might have the makings of a book!

If you’re interested in suggestions on ways to develop each point, let me know in the Comment space below, and, Lord willing, we can talk about that next time.

by Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2015

Besides a couple dozen books in all genres for Christian and educational markets, Mary has placed over 1,500 articles, devotionals, and other short manuscripts with traditional and indie publishers. She also wrote the Christian Writers Guide e-book on writing, revising, and publishing to help you in your Christian writing life.

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Jesus the Storyteller

In Part 1 of Jesus the Storyteller, academic author Stephen I. Wright gives an overview of respected writings on the parables, which I recommend for biblical scholars and Bible teachers interested in a serious study of the good stories Jesus told. To be honest though, those opening pages provided more information than I wanted!

When the publisher WJK (Westminster John Knox Press) kindly sent me a free copy of the book to review, I didn’t expect such a scholarly approach. As a narrative poet and writer, I mainly wanted to know what made the stories work as a form of entertainment used to reveal spiritual truths. But then, I also saw how the book can help our Christian writing lives.

Although the text continues on an academic level, subsequent sections delve into the aspects of story that narrative poets and writers need to study and employ: theme, purpose, characters, plot, and setting.

For example, chapter 6 “Hearing the stories through Luke” points out that “Luke recounts more stories from the lips of Jesus than either Mark or Matthew. Most of these occur in the ‘travel narrative’ of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem….”

Since I’d never thought of the stories as being set in a larger story on the way, I read with interest:

“We may best outline Luke’s performance of these stories by noting the way he has woven them into his travel narrative as explanations, illustrations, clarifications or expansions of teaching and situations that arise ‘on the way’,” where, “Interaction with others is a constant.” It’s sort of like a travelogue with stories accentuating passage from one place to another.

In chapter 7 “Hearing the stories in Galilee,” the author points out that “Stories have a setting that may be a combination of geographical, cultural, temporal and religious aspects, and more…. This is part of what we mean when we say they invite us into a ‘world’.”

For example, the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:3-9, Mark 4:3-9, Luke 8:5-8, and the apocryphal book, Thomas 9 was set in a world where “the great majority of the population scraped a living together off the land.” And so, the author asks, “what would be the force of the parable’s promise of a harvest?” Although we might typically expect our gardens in the U.S. to do well, farmers in Jesus’ time and locale would have been less certain of a favorable outcome.

Besides this, “For Jewish people, the land had considerable spiritual significance. It was God’s trust to his people, to tend and care for. Israel’s care for her land came to be seen, in the developing tradition, as a mirror of the way humanity had been called to care for the earth….” Therefore, “God’s blessing on the land was a sign of his favour and the fact that the people were acting in obedience to him and justice towards each other, while drought, famine, plague and conquest were a sign of his displeasure and their rebellion.”

Additional chapters consider other parables and places, but sticking with Luke’s presentation of The Sower in chapter 7 might give you a better idea of what you’ll find in this book. For instance, headings include:

Setting
Character
Point of View
Plot
Reflection

The character in The Sower is the only person presented and is also anonymous. The plot is brief and “loss of seed is real. But so is the possibility of great fruitfulness.”

Speaking from that single character’s point of view, Jesus “reveals himself as one who knows and understands his hearers’ situation well.” And, “By drawing a specific scene, however mundane, a whole world of truth may be evoked.”

In the “Reflection” on the parable, the author insightfully points out how “It sounds almost like a narrative rendering of a song, Psalm 126.” More importantly, “It invites thought and encourages hope. The identification of seeds with people in the parable’s application draws out the personal challenge that a careful listener might have received from the story itself, but it does not close down the ongoing signifying power of that story,” which unlike a straight telling or listing of events causes listeners to continue to listen, consider, and hear God’s living word.

© 2015, Mary Harwell Sayler, reviewer and life-long student of the Bible, is also the poet-author of numerous books, including Living in the Nature Poem and the Bible-based poetry book, Outside Eden .


Jesus the Storyteller, paperback




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Christian poets, writers, and ministry gifts

My decision to write a new post today came about as one godly thing led to another and another, which then led me!

First, God led some members of our Christian Poets and Writers group on Facebook to remind us this morning how our lives in Christ have a purpose and how God has a plan for each of us.

Another member said this is National Suicide Prevention Week, which connects with the theme of God’s plan and purpose, too, in that people who consider taking their own lives usually can see no plan, no purpose, and no reason for living.

Another member, whose post has been highlighted today on the Christian Poets & Writers blog, gave suggestions about ways to hear God’s word to us and, therefore, become more aware of a divine plan for our lives.

In addition to those leading factors, the reading for my next Bible Study group discusses the gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12 – gifts that inform, edify, and guide our Christian writing lives.

If you have no idea what ministry gifts you have, type “Ministry Gifts test” in the search box on the Internet, and you’ll get a variety of sites to visit. After you have responded to each question, you’ll get an assessment of your gifts, along with their ranking. That’s important to know because, unlike natural God-given talents, which might be used for your own pleasure and enjoyment, your ministry gifts have been given to you to help uplift and strengthen the church.

That needs highlighting:

The Holy Spirit gives each of us ministry gifts to build up, nurture, and encourage the whole Body of Christ.

You’ll want to do that locally, of course, as you serve and minister to your church family, but as a poet or writer, your ministry gifts will help to guide the type of writing you’re meant to do.

For example, if the Lord has given you a gift of teaching, you might be led to write nonfiction books, articles, or Bible study guides.

If God has given you a gift of encouragement and empathy for others, writing spiritual poems, devotionals, and children’s books could be just right for you. Or, perhaps, you'll show loving relationships, realistically, in a novel.

Regardless of your ministry gift and writing talent, these tips might help too:

• Believe God’s promise to you of gifts from the Holy Spirit. (See 1 Cor. 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4.)

• Pray for God to reveal your gifts and God’s unique plan for you.

• Expectantly await the results!

• Let the Bible, that “inner knowing” given to you by the Holy Spirit, and, often, the affirmation of Christian friends, lead you into God’s plan and purpose for you and your writing life in Christ.



© 2015, Mary Harwell Sayler. If you need prayer about this, post your request in the Comments below. If you need a fresh perspective or professional feedback on your poems, children’s picture books, devotionals, or book proposals for a minimal fee, visit the Critique & Contact page of Mary’s website.

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Getting ready for Erika

Living in Florida, we’ve been through a few minor hurricanes since being in Biloxi during Camille a few decades ago, but regardless of a storm’s size or intensity, we’ve come to some conclusions:

• People with well water pumped by electricity should not have to brush their teeth with Pepsi. We now make sure we have plenty of bottled water to drink and a full sink for washing dishes, but for the latter, paper plates and throw-away cups are cause for praise.

• Gas pumps might be ready to power up your car, but they’re powerless and immobile without electricity.

• Downed power lines cut electricity to your house, but not to themselves. They’re perfectly willing to electrocute anyone who steps on them.

• Candles add a romantic glow to the dark, but only a well-designed candle holder will allow you to glow from room to room without giving your hand a hot wax treatment.

• We have batteries! big batteries, little batteries, batteries for flashlights and batteries for the otherwise-unused radio that might keep us in touch with storm reports and the world beyond debris.

• Canned goods and an old-fashioned can opener keep us fed, and a dry bag of charcoal grills up almost anything. Oh, and that humongous smoker the guys just had to have can now be used to cook up whatever is thawing in the freezer, using fuel from fallen branches.

• Garbage cans and yard chairs make amazing projectiles.

So stay safe! And thank God that Jesus gave us a prayer to pray at all times. For these times though, I love how He commanded the winds and water with words that bear repeating: “Peace! Be still!”

In Jesus’ Name, amen.

©2015, Mary Harwell Sayler

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