Are we asking the wrong questions?

Are we asking the wrong questions? Let me back up. Lately my reading and learning has been pointing me toward the idea that I've been going about the Christian walk all wrong. I hear people asking hard questions about faith -- about the Bible and about how God answers (and doesn't answer) prayer, among other questions. And while I feel pretty certain about my faith, I don't have any answers. I'm pretty comfortable with uncertainty -- I don't have to know all the answers or have all the inconsistencies resolved to be confident that God knows what he's doing and I need to just let him be God. Because, after all, where was I when the foundations of the earth were laid? But this approach is also pretty lazy, intellectually and spiritually. And it's not real helpful when talking to people aren't comfortable with uncertainty.

Two things I've been learning in the last few weeks suggest a way of dealing with this dilemma.
Much of what Eugene Peterson is saying in Eat this Book points toward reading God's word formationally. Too much of the time we read for information, or to back up our own pet theological concepts. But Peterson argues that the point of reading the Bible -- and it's been the point of reading the Bible through all the centuries of the church -- is to find out what God is doing and come into alignment with that, instead of trying to get God to line up with what we're doing. So if we read the Bible so we can come into a fuller relationship with God, if we understand the Bible as a coherent narrative, then it should have a profound affect on the kinds of questions we're asking.

The second thing I'm chewing over is a broadcast I watched at church of Larry Crabb teaching about prayer. (Our church subscribes to a service that provides access to a large variety of Christian simulcasts and video presentations. So the members of the women's ministry leadership team decided to watch this session about prayer to see if it was something we wanted to use later.) This was excellent teaching -- some of the best teaching about prayer I've heard in a long time. Dr. Crabb talked about the issues he's struggled with in prayer and shared a bit of his journey to a fuller understanding. His main point (and I'm simplifying here) revolved around the idea that we need to be praying to align ourselves with God, instead of trying to get God to align himself with us. Which is not to say that God doesn't answer prayer, but we must first be in relationship with God.

See a theme developing here? (God doesn't always have to hit me over the head with a brick, but sometimes it helps.) I think that instead of asking why God didn't give me what I want, or why he healed that person but not this other person, or why he acted one way in the Old Testament but not in the New Testament -- instead of always asking God to explain himself -- I need to be asking how I can be more in line with his will, how I can participate in what he's doing in the world.

One of my favorite books is The Left Hand of Darkness -- which I'm sure you'll point out is not a Christian book. Still, it contains a lot of truth. One of the plot points of the book is that practitioners of a certain mystical religion seem able to predict the future with remarkable accuracy. It's an arduous process, though, and not one to be undertaken lightly or for casual reasons. At one point, the narrator points out to one of these practitioners that they have a skill that would be highly desirable -- it could be worth millions to the right people. And the practitioner replies something like "Don't you get it? We've perfected the art of foretelling to prove the utter uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question."

Sometimes I think we're like that -- we want to know the answers to all the wrong questions, instead of the only one that is answerable -- we can know God.

Nursery songs rock

OK, this is pretty darn hilarious: Mono and ME2. Megan sent me the link. I'll never think of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes the same way again.

Tuesday news and views

When I wrote my post about happy endings last night and posted it this morning, I had not yet seen Mark Bertrand's excellent essay at Novel Journey. He talks about some things in The Perpatetic Novel that I've only begun to wrestle with, and I'm not nearly so articulate. This is worth bookmarking and printing out and studying for a long time.

Chris had an exciting Monday. Not only did he get a role in Brandilyn Collins' Kanner Lake blog (to go with her new series of novels), he published another story at Flashing in the Gutters. Good work!

I, on the other hand, did not have an exciting Monday. But in a couple of weeks I'm going to see Rebecca, which will be fun and possibly exciting (or at least as exciting as two middle-aged women hanging out together and talking can be).

Happy endings ... or not

I've been thinking about the issue of happy endings. I have nothing against happy endings -- in fact I'm a sucker for a happy ending. Look at my list of favorite movies and there's nary an ambiguous ending in the lot. (The list includes Tootsie -- I love Jessica Lange asking Dustin Hoffman if she can wear his little yellow outfit ; While You Were Sleeping -- my goodness she's wearing a wedding dress at the end!; The Goodbye Girl -- nothing pluckier than Marsha Mason hugging a guitar in the rain; and About a Boy -- that whole island chains bit gets me every time.)

But I'm comfortable with a fair degree of ambiguity -- especially when it comes to fiction. One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, which has a most bittersweet ending. But it's satisfying all the same. In The Lord of the Rings victory is won, but at a price. The joy at the end is mingled with tears.

Sometimes the stories I write have happy endings. But not all of them. I've written a story recently (it's called April Showers) that has the most downer of an ending I've ever done. It's dark enough that my mother was disappointed in it; my critique buddies have mostly been silent on the subject, which tends to worry me (though, to be fair, it's long enough that they probably haven't had time to mess with it yet). I don't know if it's any good or just a bunch of derivative, depressing dreck.

And if it's really no good, I can deal with that. I know it needs work, which I'm willing to do. I wanted to write a story where everything wasn't wrapped up all pretty at the end. I wanted to let my main character live with the consequences of his actions. I didn't give him an easy out, no miracles or life-changing epiphanies. Maybe I should have left the door open a little wider for hope to shine in. But he doesn't really believe in hope yet, so I don't know where it would have come from. So maybe I accomplished what I set out to do.

When I was a kid in Sunday School, I always knew the answer. And I know the answer now -- at least the ultimate answer. But if I write a character who doesn't yet understand that the answer to the questions he's asking -- can I be forgiven? is there redemption? -- is Jesus, how can I jump in and force the answer into the story? This is a guy who won't be preached to. There has to be some internal consistency; I don't agree with everything he does, but he is who he is and I'm trying to keep my manipulative paws off him.

People (who don't write much) say you can make your characters do what you want them to do, but that's not entirely true. I have these characters I've thought of and I've given them a setting and a certain amount of personal history. Then I turn them loose to interact with each other and respond to incidents and crimes. They have to be consistent with themselves. There's a certain amount of me in there, but hopefully I'm far below the surface and out of sight. So I can't manipulate the story to wrap up in a tidier way.

I intend to write more stories about this character, to give him a chance at redemption. (I'm really not a nihilist. Maybe I'm a little warped, but I'm a pretty nice person overall.) But it has to be at the right time, under the right circumstances so it's believable. It can't be because I've just gotten too uncomfortable with messy endings.

I guess the point I'm meandering around to is that this world is imperfect. If I want to write honest stories, that imperfect world is going to show up. There is hope -- but we live in a state of "already, but not yet." The Word has been spoken, but not all hear it. I believe that the light of God's grace will shine brightly in the darkness, but that means I have to show both dark and light in my stories. I don't do it very well yet.

Which saint am I?

This is how I started out my work week -- taking another wacky quiz. (Thanks Megan) By the way, if you're wondering who Julian is, here's the Wikipedia article.

Which Saint Are You?

You are Julian of Norwich! It's all about God, to you. You're convinced that the world has a happy ending. Everyone else is convinced that you're a closet hippie, but you love them anyway.
Take this quiz!








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Reading notes -- honest stories

I've been reading a couple of good books this week: Deliver Us from Evelyn, by Chris Well, and Eat This Book, by Eugene Peterson. I know, pretty big contrast there, but I have eclectic tastes.

I enjoyed Evelyn -- it's a pretty snappy story, with some good plot twists. I really enjoy seeing how some of the characters from Forgiving Solomon Long are developing. Chris does a good job of making Charlie Pasch and and Tom Griggs distinctive characters that engage the reader's interest. What's more, most of the secondary characters come to life, especially "failed thug Nelson Pistek," and the religious con man with the ever-evolving set of aliases. And the end of the book gives a promise of more to come. I think I would have enjoyed one less subplot to keep track of, but that's a small criticism. I have to recommend this book to anyone who enjoys crime fiction, and not just because I'm part of the "street team." I know Chris is working on the next book in the series, at least tentatively titled Kingdom Come, and I'm already looking forward to it.

My other reading is going slower, but that's OK. Eat This Book isn't designed to be devoured. It's a book to savor, to study, to highlight in many places. Peterson has been immersed in the Word for a long time and his wisdom and experience come through clearly. He has a lot to say about how we "use" the Bible instead of allowing it to form us, and I could quote passage after passage that has so much to teach us. But I want to highlight one passage today. He talks about how the Bible is a narrative -- a long and complete story, not simply a compilation of rules and precepts and information to make us better human beings. He says story brings us into God's word, it allows us to participate with the characters; story can act on our souls. And here's what he said that really jumped out at me, as a Christian and as a writer: "Honest stories respect our freedom; they don't manipulate us, don't force us, don't distract us from life. They bring us into the spacious world in which God creates and saves and blesses." Wow.

I'm still wrestling with this. He links imagination and faith in reading the Bible, which is not something you hear about much these days. But I think he's right. We've been told for too long that our imaginations are somehow wrong, or at least trivial, when in fact they are part of how God created us. An imagination in God's service is an amazing thing. (C.S. Lewis, for example.) The imagination can be misused, as has much of creation, but it can be what God meant it to be: a door to experiencing God in intimate relationship.

And I keep wondering: Am I writing honest stories?

Monday news and views

While I was eagerly looking forward to finding out how I did in the Dragons, Knights and Angels fiction contest, I can't say that I was surprised with the results. The winning story was "The Fortunate Purgatory of Arthur MacArthur" by Chris Mikesell. It's an excellent, and delightfully twisted, story and it'll appear on the DKA Web site June 27. (I got to read it before it was submitted, so I knew what I was up against.) I didn't place, but I'm OK. According to the editors at DKA, they got a lot of good entries and they'll be publishing more of the stories. So I guess I'll see if The Man Who Kept a Dragon in His Basement still has a chance of publication.

It was not an exciting weekend at my house, which was nice. I did score a couple of bargains from the library's book sale table: The Reader's Digest Family Word Finder and an anthology of American literature (19th and 20th century) from Macmillan (not the famed Norton anthology). The Word Finder is a thesaurus kind of book, but with more information; the anthology has lots of good stuff, especially poetry. Oh, and the books cost me a whole 25 cents. Yep, one quarter. I love my library book sale.

It's Friday -- First Friday that is

This is the day about 45 Web sites, My Space pages and what have you are posting the first chapter of Chris Well's new novel, Deliver Us From Evelyn. Now's your chance to read it. And if you like, of course you'll want to buy the book.


Deliver Us From Evelyn
(Harvest House Publishers)
Chris Well

Everyone from the Feds to the mob is scrambling to find the husband of heartless media mogul Evelyn Blake. But no one can decide which is worse—that he is missing, or that she is not ...

CHAPTER ONE

Sunday night. April 23.

On his last day of this life, the Right Fair Reverend Missionary Bob Mullins checked the party dip. Just stuck his finger right in there, pulled some glop free, stuck it in his mouth and sucked.

Hmm, good dip.

He wiped his saliva’d finger on his jacket, popped the top off a can of Pringles, shuffled a neat row of curved chips onto a Dixie brand paper platter.

There.

Setting the can down, he stepped back from the secondhand coffee table in the middle of the shag-carpeted office, looked at what his party planning skills had wrought. And he saw that it was good.

He went to the stereo system across the room, selected a CD. Personally, he would have preferred something by the Rolling Stones, maybe Exile on Main Street or Beggars Banquet -- muscular, honky-tonk rock ’n’ roll you can get drunk or stoned to, depending on your mood. He could really go for the bluesy wail of “Tumbling Dice” right now.

But the music library here offered none of that. Besides, his marks -- that is, the members of his “flock” -- held certain expectations regarding what music was appropriate for a prayer meeting. Especially in a small armpit of a town like Belt Falls, Illinois.

(Who names a town “Belt Falls,” anyway?)

The ladies would be here soon. Then Missionary Bob could use his people skills, honed from his years of "ministry," to good effect. Would lead the group in a spontaneous (but carefully planned) evening following “the Lord’s leading” -- some Bible, some hymns, some ministry time. A carefully rehearsed prayer, a combination of wails and pleas, which experience had shown to be a very effective prelude to the passing of the offering plate.

Swept up by the rush of maudlin and spiritual emotion, the ladies would cough up plenty.

“Yea, but there are those who do not have it as comfortably as we do,” he found himself practicing, fiddling with chair placement in the circle, maneuvering pillows on the couch. “Poor children who do not have the food or clothing or shelter such as we take for granted.”

He double-checked the handy photos on the table. The orphanage in Mexico went by a lot of names. It would not do for the Right Fair Reverend Missionary Bob Mullins to get all weepy-eyed over JESUS AMA A LOS NINOS PEQUENOS and then whip out a photo showing a bunch of tiny brown faces smiling under a banner that said CHILDREN OF HER MERCY ORPHANAGE.

Following the fiasco in the last town, he’d played it cool once he got to Belt Falls. (Really, who brings a wagon train across the frontier, breaks ground on a settlement and says, “From henceforth, this shall be known as ‘Belt Falls’”?)

Ever since Andrea -- his partner, his companion, his ray of light -- had got Jesus, she'd stopped helping with the scams. Stopped helping him fleece the flock, so to speak. She laid it on thick enough, It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment, and all that.

He tried to smirk it off, tried that face that always brought her around, but it didn’t seem to work anymore. Whatever had got hold of her wasn’t letting go.

Missionary Bob would never admit it to anyone, least of all himself, that the dividing line between success and failure began and ended with Andrea. When she was working with him, the scams worked like butter.

But then she got religion and the whole machine went up in flames.

Not that Missionary Bob got the clue. He kept working his games, town to town, each new gambit failing, each new town harder to crack than the last.

Once he set up shop here in Belt Falls (don’t even get him started about the name of the town), he took his time getting to know the people. He found them to be a small, close-knit community, smugly going to their church services.

Smug, but not that pious -- it did not take much effort to plant sufficient evidence that the only pastor in town was a raving drug user, maybe even a dealer. Not enough evidence to get the man convicted -- even the hick sheriff saw it was a weak case -- but the hapless pastor had to make only one phone call to the wrong deacon asking for bail money before word of his unholy lifestyle rushed through the congregation like wildfire.

In the eyes of God and the law, he was probably an okay guy. But once a congregation chooses to believe the worst, a preacher may as well pack his bags and move on.

Missionary Bob had even heard tell of one particular church, somewhere in the Midwest, where the members had booted the pastor because he'd had the temerity to wear short pants to a church potluck.

Yep, hell -- if it existed -- would be packed to the lips with smug, busybody churchgoers who ran their preacher out of town because he had worn shorts to a church potluck. Or, as in this case, was the victim of circumstantial evidence planted on him by a traveling huckster.

He stood and straightened his dress jacket. Felt a bulge in his left pocket, was surprised to discover a coaster with the face of Jesus on it.

He looked around the office, befuddled. When had he picked this up?

You don’t have to lift anything here, he reminded himself. You’ve pretty much lifted the whole office already.

Missionary Bob, in what used to be the hapless pastor’s office, heard steps echoing from the foyer, somebody clomping up the stairs. My, my, thought the Right Fair Reverend Missionary Bob Mullins, these ladies do need to lose some weight, don’t they? Whoever this was, she was pounding the stairs to wake the devil.

He stopped fidgeting with pillows and stood up straight, getting into character. Thinking of his plan, his mission, remembering the correct accent and speech patterns of a Right Fair Reverend Missionary, an accent as specific and undeniable as the drawl of New Orleans or the wicked blue-blood of Boston.

There was an insistent pounding on the door, a battering, really, if he had stopped to think about it. But he was too wrapped up in the character of a Right Fair Reverend Missionary. He slapped on a toothy grin and opened the door. “Welcome, child, to -- ”

It was a man. A. Large. Man. A grizzled bear towering over him, bloated flannel shirt cascading out of pants where they were almost tucked, tractor cap on his head declaring EAT ROADKILL. The grizzly bear pressed his flannelled beer belly against the Right Fair Reverend Missionary, leaned down from on high and belched, “I’m Darla Mae’s husband.”

The Right Fair Reverent Missionary Bob Mullins broke character and cursed.

The rest of the confrontation was like a dream, a nightmare of slow motion, the bear smacking him, a freight train to the skull, tossing Missionary Bob across the room. Hitting the coffee table as he went down, elbow in the dip. The grizzly roaring, storming in, Missionary Bob on the floor, scrambling backward, away, fleeing in the only direction he could, farther into the room. The angry husband kicking the table over, party snacks flying, dip spattering across the bookcase.

As Missionary Bob kicked to his feet, always moving backward, until the wall stopped his escape, one question kept flashing through his mind: Is this about the fake antique Cross of James or is this about the adultery?

Either way, his back against the wall, this grizzly man bearing down on him, Missionary Bob was out of options. The giant man, his eyes red, had barrel fists clenched and ready to swing, like jackhammers.

There was a noise behind the grizzly, at the open door. “Missionary Bob?”

One of the ladies.

The enraged husband turned at the voice. Missionary Bob took his one and only chance, grabbed the stone head of Moliere, clubbed the grizzly across the side of the head. The man stumbled backward and fell.

Missionary Bob, fueled by anger and fear and blind, stupid adrenalin, kept clubbing, again and again. The man on the floor now, blood streaming from his head. Missionary Bob clubbing him with the bust again and again. On his knees, on top of the man, clubbing him again and again and again.

Finally, adrenalin loosening its grip, Missionary Bob became aware that the man was not moving. Clutching air in hot, painful gasps, he dropped the bust to the carpet.

Felt something wet on the side of his face, wiped it with his sleeve, saw blood smeared on fabric. Not his own blood.

Gasping, wheezing, he looked up and saw the witnesses, ladies pooling in the doorway, staring agape at the Goliath on the floor, downed by the David with his stone.

© 2006 Chris Well

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The cookie's tale ...

Jeanne Damoff is either very funny or very warped. The Short Happy Life of Gingergreg. Scroll down through the pictures for the whole gruesome tale.

On the radio

No, not me. Chris Well, who I'm sure is much more interesting. If you want to hear Chris interviewed tomorrow on the radio program "Bookshelf," hosted by Dawn Weber, at 4:20 PM Central on KJAB 88.3 FM, Mexico, Missouri, point your browser here: http://kjab.com

In case you haven't been paying attention, Chris is the author of one of my favorite novels from last year, Forgiving Solomon Long. I've started his new one, Deliver Us From Evelyn, and am enjoying it. Friday I'm participating in his First Friday promotion: you'll find the first chapter of Evelyn here (as well as about 40 other places). It's just one more way to generate a little buzz about a good book. And the plan is to do this with other novels in the future. It's not too late if you still want to participate. Visit Chris's blog for the details.

'Be careful out there'

Yesterday I picked up the first season of Hill Street Blues on DVD, so last night we watched the first couple of episodes. I think my boys are hooked. They're too young to remember when it was on the first time (in fact it may have been over before a couple of them were born), so it's all new to them.

It's been a long time since I've seen it (I don't think it's been in syndication much), so I was seeing it with fairly fresh eyes. It's held up pretty well, and I was reminded how innovative this show was. The look of the show (I think it was filmed, not taped), the multiple storylines in each episode, the continuing story lines between episodes -- these were not common elements of primetime television drama before Hill Street Blues. And the acting -- everyone was good. It's hard for characters in a large ensemble cast to stand out, but Hill Street station was loaded with distinctive characters. Some of that, of course, is the writing, but it's also a tribute to the actors.

What Steven Bochco started with Hill Street Blues has become standard with television drama. But I don't think anyone has done it any better.

Blog Tour: The Hidden

This month's Christian Fiction Blog Tour feature is The Hidden, by Kathryn Mackel. I've never been a big fan of spiritual warfare stories -- I have too low a heebie jeebie threshold -- but Mackel has done such a skillful job of weaving her story that I didn't once get an attack of the willies.

The story begins with psychiatrist Susan Stone receiving a call to return to Colorado to help her elderly father, who's been injured. Susan is still grieving the death of her son, and has been estranged from her father for years. But her sense of obligation, and maybe her well-developed instinct to "fix" things in people's lives, compel her to return to the family ranch she left 30 years before.

Once there, she finds herself in the midst of turmoil -- not only in her family, but also in the normally peaceful valley where she grew up. And then she discovers a young man chained in the darkness. Is he the victim of abuse? Or a serial killer haunting the countryside? He chooses to call himself Jacob, since he has no memory of who he is or how he came to be chained in a dark ravine.

As the mystery of who -- or what -- Jacob is deepens, Susan is forced to examine her own motives and perceptions and attitudes towards her family and Melissa, the young woman who had been involved with her late son.

There's a lot to like about this novel -- Mackel's style is smooth and vivid. The story moves along briskly, without seeming hurried. Her characters are distinct individuals and she does a good job of transitioning between points of view. The story works well on a deeper level, too, by illustrating how hard it is to see past our prejudices and how hard it is to break free from out pasts. There is a conversion or two in this story -- but they're earned. The spiritual elements flow from the characters and the story. The ending may have wrapped up just a bit too neatly, but it works, and the reader was still left with the understanding that transformation is a process and the characters still had some growing to do. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

If you want to know more about Kathryn Mackel, who is a scriptwriter as well as a novel, visit her Web site.

June column posted

I've posted my June "Notes from the Windowsill" column. It's called Serving with Humility and it's something of a Father's Day tribute to my dad.

The 'benefits' of small town living

I read a post of Mark Bertrand's yesterday that got me thinking. He shared a response he had to a discussion about whether or not Christians should choose to live in small towns or in cities. I sensed a certain idealism about small towns and commented on the limitations of small town living. I started thinking more about this and decided maybe it's worth an actual blog post.

I've lived in small towns all my life -- the largest "city" I've ever lived in had about 16,000 people. The town I live in now has just under 5,000 people. It's the county seat, so it has the essential services. And we belong to a great church -- one of the best church families I've ever known. It's one reason we stay where we are instead of moving to Manhattan and saving some commute time.

Growing up in small towns -- and I'm thinking of one in particular -- has shaped me in ways good and bad. The town where we lived during the formative years of my life was (and probably still is) an ingrown little town in west-central Illinois. If you want to live someplace where people leave you alone and mind their own business, it's a fine place. If you're a sensitive child who longs for even one true friend, it's not so fine. We moved there when I was 2 1/2. I've been told it was a confusing move for me -- I couldn't understand why we had left the only home I'd known, and all our friends. My mom says I became much quieter and introspective.

School did not bring me out of my shell -- I was one of the youngest kids in the class and somewhat immature emotionally. I cried easily and probably seemed like a weird little kid so I got picked on. A lot. Which only drove me further into myself. I was imaginitive and intelligent and preferred reading and playing pretend to the more socially acceptable entertainments of sports and cheerleading. I hung onto my imaginary friends much longer than anyone else. Class field trips or other occasions where we had to pair up with a buddy were nightmares for me. No one wanted to pair up with me. I was always the odd one out. A girl in my class lived near me, but she only played with me when there was no one better around. (At least that's how I felt.)

But I also have to admit that in many ways, I had a pretty good childhood. I grew up in a stable, loving family and knew that home was my sanctuary. I got along pretty well with my younger brothers and we played together a lot. I had a best friend, but she lived in another town so I didn't get to see her as much as I wanted. I got to go to church camp in the summer and that was always fun, though I often felt out of place, there, too. But I could alway earn points for my team by doing all the Bible memory verses. I had a lot of fun during vacations when I got to see some of my cousins who were near my age. Still, when we moved away from this town when I was 12, I was happy about the move.

When I look back on my experience growing up in this very small and insular town, I can see how it has shaped me. My self-esteem took a beating, but I also began the process of learning that popularity isn't worth chasing after. I learned to rely on my internal resources, to go my own way instead of following the crowd. I accepted Christ and was baptized when I was 10 and began my walk with the Lord. I'm more willing to accept people who are a little different because I know what it's like.

So in many ways, I can be thankful for the difficulties I experienced as a child. They've had a lot to do with who I am now. And I think they help me be a better writer.

I think God places us where we need to be -- whether it's a small town or a big city or the suburbs. Sometimes -- probably many times -- we wish we were somewhere else. But we're called to be God's people wherever we are. Contentment is a lifelong learning process.

Tuesday news and views

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the blogosphere. My son Tim graduated from high school and preparations and the aftermath consumed my time for several days. But my parents came and all the adult children came home, so it was good.

While catching up on my reading the last couple of days, I came across some good stuff:
Stephen Shields (of faithmaps.org) has some interesting things to say about the importance of the local church. Nothing can really replace the role relationships play in our lives, and in our spiritual development. (Link thanks to Jordon)

And somewhat related to that is what Mike Duran is saying about e-Fellowship.

Somewhere I found a link to a good entry about writing by Scot McKnight. (OK, I found out where: Stephen Shields' blog) In essence, he says if you want to write better, read better. If you want to write essays or nonfiction, then read a lot by the writers whose style you admire. I have found this to be true -- whether fiction or nonfiction, I learn more from examples of excellence.

I have to tell a story so you will understand why I'm linking to this. My best friend, Rebecca, had a dachshund named Porgy. One summer I stayed with Rebecca and her parents while my parents worked a week of church camp. Rebecca and I, being imaginitive and wacky, wrote a letter (or maybe it was multiple letters) to them that week describing Porgy riding around on a little motorcycle, complete with helmet and scarf (ala Snoopy). And my mom, though she suspected we were embelling the truth a bit, thought perhaps the poor pooch had been having back trouble and had to use a contraption similar to the dachshund wheelchair in the picture. We, of course, found the whole episode hilarious. And so this morning when I came across the Instructables Web site and saw this, I just had to send the link to Rebecca. I'm sure Porgy himself would get a kick out of it.

I got something very fun in the mail yesterday: Deliver Us From Evelyn, by Chris Well. This is one of the books I blogged about looking forward to a while back, so I'm excited.

A random sample

Of songs, that is. Chris blogged about this and I was going to leave a comment, but for some reason his comment option wasn't available. The idea is, you set your music (on computer or iPod or what-have-you) on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs that come up. No fair editing. So, when I turn on Party Shuffle in iTunes, and allow it to select from my whole library, this is what comes up:
Crazy Times -- Jars of Clay (Much Afraid)
Ghost Train -- Lost Dogs (Gift Horse)
Keep Your Hands to Yourself -- Georgia Satellites (self-titled)
Rainy Day -- America (self-titled)
What's on Your Mind -- Kansas (Leftoverture)
God Did -- Shane & Shane (Clean)
Merry Christmas Darling -- The Carpenters (Christmas Portrait)
Sanctify -- Delirious? (Deeper -- double best-of cd)
Finding My Way -- Rush (Chronicles)
Home -- Sheryl Crow (self-titled)

This is a pretty representative random sample: Lots of CCM and classic rock with the occasional oddity.

Tuesday news and views

There are days when all I really want to do is post links to interesting things and I'm terrible at coming up with headlines (and I used to have write headlines for a living!). So I've taken a cue from Brad who tends to post things under headings such as "Random" or "Monday Notes" or whatnot. Sure, "Tuesday news and views" doesn't tell you a lot, but then neither do most of my other titles. So, on to the stuff.

I found this at BoingBoing: Kissing seems to help allergy symptoms, specifically hay fever. This time of year, I have hay fever, so maybe I should try this. I'm sure Bob won't object. (The actual article.)

Today's Non Sequitur is hilarious. And a little too true.

A couple of good reads:
Jared at The Thinklings posted an excellent quote of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (from Bonhoeffer's Letters from Prison). It relates to living in this world and, as is usually the case with Bonhoeffer, it is likely to turn your thinking on its head.

Have you been trying to figure out what the emerging church is all about? Jordon Cooper has posted an excellent paper on the topic by Jared Siebert.

Want to waste some time? Here's something fun. Puzzle Bobble 0.9, which is actually a port to a Flash game of one of my favorite Super Nintendo games, Bust-a-Move. It's even got the cheesy calypso music. I used to be pretty good at this game. (This and Tetris were my favorites. I liked Super Mario Bros., but I was terrible at it. I died a lot.)

Here's a techie tidbit, at least if you're a Mac user. I found a productivity-type program (thanks to Macworld) called Quicksilver and it is the coolest thing. It's kind of hard to describe -- it's a launcher, but it's a lot more than that. I have such a huge amount of stuff on this computer that finding individual files involves a lot of scrolling. I get around that by using Hallon to bookmark the current projects I'm working on, but there are lots of times I need to hunt for something. Quicksilver lets me search for the folders and launch them or launch individual files or applications in a very easy, intuitive way. It also gets my right hand off the mouse and without having to learn a ton of keyboard shortcuts. Since I've upgraded to OSX 10.4 I've tried to use Spotlight, but it starts searching with the first letter you type in the box. This slows down the process enormously and returns lots of irrelevant results. Quicksilver gets around this issue and if I want to do a Spotlight search, I can type the term into Quicksilver and then copy and paste it into Spotlight. Another thing I like is that I can easily add tags to huge batches of files all at once. Quicksilver can do a lot more and I'm just beginning to get an idea of what I can do with it. There's a good number of online tutorials available and the links are on the Web site. It's also free, which is very good.

Monday news and views

Yesterday was Mother's Day -- I received greetings from all and sundry (husband, adult kids, teenage sons and other random teenage boys who populate our house on an almost daily basis). And I called my mom, too.

Chris Well's Forgiving Solomon Long has been nominated for Christian Retailing's 2006 Retailer's Choice Awards in the Mystery/Suspense category. Congratulations, Chris! I loved the book and I hope he wins. And a couple of other Fifers have been nominated, too!

Mike Duran has an interview with J. Mark Bertrand on his blog, Decompose. Good interview guys, and well worth the read.

Illuminating

Today Mark ponders how the heavens declare God's glory, at The Master's Artist. He is so much more articulate than me, so go read it.

But it did get me thinking. This is part of my comment:

But the glory of the heavens puts us all to shame on a daily basis. The sun is rising as we ride to work now and I often turn my head away, or close my eyes. I can't look at it. But after we follow the curve of the road and the sun isn't directly in my eyes, I can revel in the beautiful golden light illuminating the hills and valleys we drive through. (Kansas is NOT flat.) Maybe that's what we do as artists -- we can't look directly at glory, but we can adjust the angle so the glory illuminates the hills and valleys.

I have been given an amazing gift -- I have to spend 45 minutes twice a day riding through the outskirts of the Kansas Flint Hills. Since we've finally gotten some rain, the landscape is green and if I'm attentive, I can enjoy the beauty unfolding before me. So often, though, I'm paying no attention at all. My mind is elsewhere and I'm preoccupied with my own small life while God's magnificence unfolds before me.

When I do pay attention, I enjoy the interplay of land and sky -- the way the light shines across the landscape at different times of the year, the way the clouds look on a day when storms threaten. It's really never the same scene twice. It looks different on a cloudy day, a sunny day, in winter, spring, summer or fall.

While I can never achieve true perfection in this life, I can try to show the variety of life in my writing. I can adjust the angle so that maybe a bit of God's glory can illuminate the events in my stories. I've certainly got a long way to go, but I have daily inspiration outside the van window.

It's really spring

It's in the mid-70s here this afternoon and I have my window open (I love having an office with a window). It's the kind of day that I should celebrate by playing Rocky Mountain Way and turning up the volume very loud. But since there are people in neighboring offices who probably don't share my taste in music, I suppose I shouldn't. But if you can turn your music up loud, please feel free to do so. It's spring!

Notes

Dan Edelen, of Cerulean Sanctum, has moved his blog. Check it out -- same excellent content, great new look.

Here's a new publication that looks interesting -- Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression. They're accepting submissions for their first issue.

Chris is blogging about his favorite computer games this week. I'll pay attention because my boys are game nuts, though they play PS2 games mostly.

Dark and light

Dave Long has a great interview with James Scott Bell at Faith in Fiction about noir and suspense in Christian fiction. This is so timely for me it's scary. I love what Bell says here, about showing the darkness in our fiction:

It seems to me the issue is not the darkness, but how one responds to it. Is there any basis for hope? Or are we merely carbon based atoms awaiting our inevitable destruction? Can we make real difference?

When light breaks into darkness it is startling and satisfying. That's what I try to get into my fiction.

It seems to me that's what I'd like to do, and maybe I've been able to do a little bit. I like mysteries and suspense. I like the way noir can be a genre that shows humans in all their brokenness, and yet still offer a glimmer of hope.

I started a new Adam Caldwell story last night, one that I suspect will be very dark. I'm not sure where I'm going with this character, who isn't a Christian and doesn't seem likely to be anytime soon. If I tell this story and let him make a royal mess of his life, how do I resolve it? Do I even have to? I'm beginning to think I should be asking more questions and offering fewer easy answers. But to ask the questions means exposing the darkness and maybe it will take a while for the light to shine in.

Here's what I'm beginning to think I'd like to do with Adam: tell a series of stories, somewhat interconnected, that would be not so much a novel as a story cycle. I know, short-story collections are almost as hard to sell to a publisher as poetry. Why not just write a novel and be done with it? But what I keep thinking of are short stories about Adam, not novels. He's a character I can sink my teeth into, one I can let grow over time. And I need to let him be broken. There's a lot I don't know, but I do know this -- I can't coddle him. He's got some growing to do and he's one who has to learn things the hard way.

I learned a long time ago, that we (humans in general) don't learn something until we have to. We have to reach a point where we desperately need to learn something (this can apply to a new skill as well as to knowing we need God) before we learn it. For some reason, I feel like I can show this process better with someone like Adam. So I guess I'll keep writing this story and see what happens.

Friday reading

It's Friday, so check out Mark Bertrand's post at The Master's Artist: Why We Don't Know What We're Doing. There's a lot of meat in this one. He suggests that our approaches to writing may vary and that most of us bring a complex blend of these to our writing. Here's some of what he says:

So instead of seeing these approaches as three positions on art, perhaps it would be better to think of them as different lobes in an author's brain, all of them present in every work, but one enjoying more favor than the others depending on the individual's orientation, the creative ebb and flow. The desire to explore the inexpressible, the desire to persuade, and the desire to delight in the thing itself are all present in each one of us, advancing and receding as the nature of the work dictates. And there are other currents, other dispositions at work, that I can't begin to name.

I'm still chewing on this. I can't begin to summarize it all, so go read it yourself.

And while you're at it, read Mick Silva's new post at Your Writer's Group: Story as Controversy. Even as I say "Amen, brother," I know I don't really write as honestly as Mick proposes. But I'm trying.

Have a nice weekend, folks.

Christians and arts

Here's an excellent article by Barbara Nicolosi, of ActOne in Hollywood, about how Christians should approach working in the arts. She goes beyond simply criticizing what is wrong with Christian artists serving only a closed Christian culture -- she suggests what excellent Christian art should look like.

(Thanks to Katy for the link.)

Rock is alive

Here's something that sounds good: Pearl Jam has a new album coming out. I got the single from iTunes a couple of weeks ago -- it rocks. So now I need the whole album, hint hint.

New column posted

I've posted my May column for my church newsletter at my writing blog. It's called Mapping God's Faithfulness.

I've been away -- I was at the conference annual meeting for our denomination for a few days. God's doing lots of neat stuff.

Just so you'll know: since I've got tons of stuff to do this week, it may be light blogging.

Three questions for Brandilyn Collins

Today, tomorrow and Friday is the Christian Fiction Blog Tour for Brandilyn Collins' new book, Web of Lies. The book, the last in her Hidden Faces series, brings together two of her popular characters, forensic artist Annie Kingston and Chelsea Adams, who sees visions sent by God. Here's how Brandilyn describes the book on her Web site:

A nightmarish vision. A murder in broad daylight. How are they connected?

After witnessing a shooting at a convenience store, forensic artist Annie Kingston must draw a composite of the suspect. But before she can begin, she hears that Chelsea Adams wants to meet with her-now. Chelsea Adams-the woman who made national headlines with her visions of murder. And this vision is by far the most chilling.

Chelsea and Annie soon find themselves snared in a terrifying battle against time, greed, and a deadly opponent. If they tell the police, will their story be believed? With the web of lies thickening . . . and lives at stake, who will know enough to save them?

The two characters are off on another roller-coaster ride -- there's a reason why Brandilyn describes her stories as Seatbelt Suspense. Fans of suspense stories will want to check this one out.

Brandilyn is a prolific blogger, too, and has an ongoing discussion of Christian suspense and writing over at Forensics and Faith. In fact, between her Web site and her blog, it was hard to come up with questions for her, but I tried. I sent her three questions and she very graciously answered them (and even threw in a little story as a bonus):

1. What do you like best about being a writer?

Brandilyn (BC): Oh, I can think of myriad things.

I punch no one's time clock. (Even so, the deadlines can be killers.)

I can work in my jammies. (For hubby's sake, I do get dressed by the time he gets home.)

I have lots of writer friends. (And novelists tend to be a bit . . . eccentric.)

I have an excuse for talking to myself. (Conversing with characters, naturally.)

I get to tell boys who want to date my daughter that I "kill people for a living." (Said daughter just rolls her eyes, but it works on the boys.)

And, oh yeah--I get to create Story.

2. What mystery/suspense authors are your favorites? (Whether they've influenced you or not)

BC: Hands, down, Koontz. I admire his turn of phrase, his long career, his pushing at the boundaries of suspense (going everywhere from his frightening novels like Intensity to those with lots of humor, like Life Expectancy).

3. What's one question no one asks, but you wish they would? (and then answer it :) )

BC: Not sure there's anything left unasked, with all the interviews I've done. People who haven't read the "Never-Ending Saga" on my blog, Forensics and Faith, will ask about my journey toward publication in fiction. I send 'em to my blog with the post-script that this story is long. However, it is also encouraging to others who are trying to be published in fiction to see what it takes to break into the market. And I promise that the story is never boring. A suspense author is not allowed to tell a boring story. Even if it spans ten years, and chronicles one rejection after another. The individual posts of the story (which totalled in the sixties, as I remember), end with hooks. Well, they have to. I teach how to write hooks.

If you find this answer unsatisfying, you might ask me what's one of the dumbest things I've ever done. Which would remind me of the time when I was about eight and arguing with a friend who was twice my size. A very athletic, strong friend. I was determined to beat her up, but I had to lure her to my yard first. (On my own property, you see, I would acquire the SuperKid strength it would take to overcome this Amazon.)

Just so happened my dad had just bought me a huge (and I mean HUGE) all-day sucker. More like all-week. It was gorgeous, too, with one long swirl leading into the middle, and colors of red and blue and green. Aha! A world-class idea flashed into my brain. I unwrapped the sucker, stuck it in the ground beside a huge oak in our front hard, and hid behind the tree. Figuring my nemesis would see the sucker and run over to steal it (she was just that mean, dontcha know). At that point, I, with my superhuman strength, would POUNCE from my hiding place and knock her silly.

Sucker sat in ground. I waited. Impatiently.

Waited some more.

I got hungry. The sucker looked real good.

I resisted.

Soon it looked better.

No, I would not bow to tempting wiles. After all SuperKid did NOT need sugar to make it through an ominous mission.

I passed the time pumping myself up. Dreaming of victory. Man, I'd be the talk of the neighborhood. Nobody would mess with me--ever again. My chest puffed out, my chin lifted as high as it could. A sneer overtook my face. Yeah, yeah, just wait til ol' Meanface crept up to that tree. At first sight of her greedy fingers I was gonna--

"Hey, there, Little Miss Stupid!" A singsong, sarcastic voice pierced my grandiose thoughts. "I see you behind that tree! And I don't want your ugly sucker!"

Instant humiliation washed through every vein in my body. I tried to think of some flimsy reason why I should be behind that tree--a reason other than waiting for HER--but none came to mind. So I did the only thing I could. Shoulders stooped, chin down, I pulled up the candy-on-a-stick and shuffled into the safety of my house.

I tried to mitigate my shame by eating the sucker. (Just think what you're missing, Miss know-it-all Amazon!) Doggone thing didn't taste half as good as I'd expected.

Thanks, Brandilyn! And if you're curious what's next, she's got a book coming out later this year that's the first in the Kanner Lake series. It's called Violet Dawn and you'll be hearing more about it, I'm sure.

Good reading

One of my daily stops is The Master's Artist. It's a group blog about being, what else, an artist for our Master. Now Mike Duran has interviewed the blog's administrator, Jules Quincy Stephens. It's a great interview -- check it out.

One of my fellow Covenant bloggers, Brad Boydston, is preparing (with his wife) to be a project missionary at Pacific Islands Bible College in Guam. He's posted the first of his newsletters with more details, including information on how you can support them. (My round-about connection to Brad is that the church he has pastored for several years, Cornerstone Covenant in Turlock, Calif., was started by a former pastor from Clay Center. Brad has also been a moderator for a Covenant listserve I've belonged to at various times. The Covenant really is a small world.)

I'm not the only one who doesn't want to give up completely on the Royals.

Finally, tomorrow is Blog Tour time again and I'll have a short interview with Brandilyn Collins, author of Web of Lies and other Christian suspense novels.

4 things

A friend of mine tagged me for this via e-mail and so I thought I'd post my answers here, too. I'm not going to tag anybody because most everyone I know has been meme'd to death, but you're welcome to have fun with this if you so choose.

How well do you know me??

For instance, did you know...

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. nurse's aide
2. laundry/housekeeping aide in a nursing home
3. newspaper reporter/copyeditor
4. college instructor

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Tootsie
2. About a Boy
3. The Goodbye Girl
4. While You Were Sleeping

Four places I have lived:
1. Bowen, Ill.
2. Linton, Ind.
3. Lincoln, Ill.
4. Clifton, Kan.

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. House
2. Numbers
3. WKRP in Cincinnati (I know it's old, but it's my favorite)
4. 60 Minutes

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Nashville, Tenn. (quite a few times to visit relatives)
2. San Antonio, Texas (twice -- World's Fair in 1968 and last year for a convention)
3. Dale Hollow Lake, Ky.
4. Chicago, Ill. (both when I was a kid and as an adult)

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pizza
2. Lasagna
3. Meat loaf
4. Fajitas

Four places I would rather be right now:
(not sure I'd rather be anywhere but here, but here's four places I'd love to visit)
1. London
2. San Francisco
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Someplace with a beach

Friday stuff

It's a beautiful day here. I hope you're having a lovely day where you are, too. Just a couple of notes today:

A correction: Kathleen Popa's To Dance in the Desert will be published by RiverOak in 2007. You can still read the first chapter here. It's a lovely story and I'm looking forward to when it comes out.

If you are interested in journalism, if a free press matters to you, you may want to spend some time reading Jay Rosen's blog, PressThink. Rosen is a professor who has been observing journalism culture and related issues for a long time. He's an original and articulate thinker and you'll come away with a lot to think about, whether you agree with him or not. I first became familiar with him when I was a grad student and read some of his writing about public (or civic) journalism. I got to hear him speak a couple of times at journalism education conferences and was impressed. His posts are usually pretty long, but interesting and worth your time.

I guess that's all, folks. Have a great weekend.

I ran over a goat because the voices told me to

Pick the month you were born with:

January--I danced with
Febuary--I loved
March--I choked on
April--I licked
May-- I kicked
June--I murdered
July--I sang to
August--I had lunch with
September--I ran over
October--I smoked
November--I yelled at
December--I kissed


Pick the day (number) you were born on:

1-------a cat
2-------a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a gangster
6-------a mexican
7-------a llama
8-------a banana
9-------myself
10-------my neighbor
11-------an ipod
12-------my dog
13-------chuck norris
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19-------my best friends boyfriend
20-------a football player
21-------a permanent marker
22-------my boyfriends tounge
23-------a noodle
24-------my girlfriend
25-------a baseball bat
26-------my sister
27-------a cd
28-------my science teacher
29-------a thorn bush
30-------my cell phone
31-------A homeless guy


Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:

White------Because I'm sexy
Black-------Because I'm a ninja who wants Taco Johns
Pink--------Because that's how I roll.
Red---------Because I love her/him
Blue--------Because the voices told me to
Green------Because I hate myself.
Purple------because im an ass
Gray--------Because I was drunk as hell
Yellow------Because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange----Because I hate my family.
Other-------Because im NOT homosexual.

Then post your answer as your subject.

(Thanks to Megan for this very strange, but amusing, exercise.)

Remember

Do you remember what day this is? I remember. You can also visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial Web site.

I want to be like David Crowder

OK, that sounds rather strange coming from a middle-aged woman, but in a way, it's true, and here's why. When I listen to the David Crowder Band's most recent album, A Collision, I am in awe of the way he has blended different musical styles into one coherent whole. Instead of being locked into one musical style, he has borrowed and adapted from a whole range that includes blue grass, rock, a bit of ska and some techno-pop. And it's not just a mish-mash of styles; the style of each song is an integral part of the song itself. I can't imagine a song like "Foreverandever Etc." in any style other than sort of a ska/punk fusion. And "I Saw the Light" could only be bluegrass. The whole album works as a unit that is greater than the sum of its parts. (It's a truly excellent album!)

What does that have to do with me, a middle-aged female writer? I want to resist pigeonholing. I want to be a writer -- I am a writer -- who writes a story in whatever way is best to tell that story. So some stories are cozy small-town mysteries but others are grittier crime stories, and some stories are not genre specific. Right now I'm working on a fantasy story for this contest. The story is called The Dragon in the Basement and it's fun to write.

But I am beginning to notice something about my stories. I tend to gravitate toward tales of outsiders (believe me, a guy with a dragon in his basement feels pretty much out of the mainstream). So I think there's a common thread or theme to my writing (in a general way).

I don't know if this is a viable option for someone who wants to be published. It seems that most writers become pretty firmly entrenched in a genre and don't break out of it until they become very famous and wealthy. But I think that I should tell a story the way it needs to be told, not mold it to fit some notion of what "type" of writer I am. Thus, I find David Crowder to be an inspiration.

"Dancing" through a chapter

Kathleen Popa is blogging the first chapter of her novel To Dance in the Desert. It will be published next year by WaterBrook (I think), but she's giving us a sneak peak this week -- it's delightful.

Peterson on perseverance

This is a good quote from Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (ch. 11, Psalm 129, pp. 128-129):

The central reality is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment that God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God's faithfulness. We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God is righteous. Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives and morals but by believing in God's will and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our enthusiasms. It is out of such a reality that we acquire perseverance.

I read this last night and it just jumped out of me. It's not about us, it's about God. I found the idea of making a map of God's faithfulness resonated especially with me.

Psalm 129 is one of the Psalms of Ascents -- the psalmist says the wicked have afflicted him from his youth, but the Lord is faithful. It's good to remember, to focus on God's faithfulness instead of myself.

Story at Flashing in the Gutters

I wrote a short story and submitted it to Flashing the Gutters and it's posted! It's called Thy Brother's Life and it's sort of a be-careful-what-you-wish-for story. One of the things I've observed about noir and hardboiled fiction -- you don't see too many stories by women in that genre. Interesting. But sometimes I want to tell a story that's a little darker -- sometimes, as Switchfoot says, "the shadows prove the sunshine." Not that I'm claiming this story is resonating with great themes or anything, but I think it has its moments. Let me know what you think. You can leave comments on the story or here.

Friday links

Here's a couple of new places I've found to read some good stories:
Flashing in the Gutters is a place for flash fiction (the editor limits stories to 700 words). This is one by Mark Bertrand that I liked. I'm itching to try to write something for it.
Communique is an online literary and arts journal for Christian writers and artists. It's been around a while, but I've just discovered it (thanks to Dave). Check it out.

Have a blessed Easter weekend.

Reading notes and a bit of a rant

Where did the week go? This is what happens when one is sick on Monday and comes to work still feeling yucky on Tuesday. So I have tons to do at work -- but I did anyway! But I thought I'd write about what I read over the weekend: Thud! by Terry Pratchett. As always, Pratchett tells an entertaining story and skewers EVERYTHING imaginable -- from PDA's to children's literature -- and gives you something to think about in the process. He slips the occasional deep thought in unobtrusively while you're laughing.

But ... Yes I have a couple of issues with this book. It needed another proofreading -- there are too many typos for a major publisher to be able to get away with. For any publisher to get away with, for that matter. I understand how hard it is to catch every single mistake in something the size of a novel, but it became annoying. I can't just read past misspelled words or other typographical errors.

My other complaint is Pratchett's choice of pronouns. Specifically, throwing subject/pronoun agreement out the window and using they or their in place of he or his or him as a generic singular pronoun. (To me this isn't a feminist issue, it's a grammar issue.) I know this is how we often talk, and it's becoming more common in writing, but it still feels wrong and it trips me up everytime. Terry Pratchett is a good writer who makes effective use of wordplay of all sorts. His grammar is usually impeccable, in a very British way of course. Which all makes this usage seem even more wrong. (And I don't recall that I've ever noticed it in his writing before, but it's been quite a while since I read one of his books.) There are plenty of ways to write a sentence so that you don't get trapped into this kind of usage. I wish he, or his editor, had made use of them.

Friday reading

I've been busy this week, but not with blogging. I don't have much in the way of original thoughts today, but I did find some good reading elsewhere. Here's a list.

Jordon Cooper posted yesterday about the unproductive way we frame debate as Us vs. Them.
In a similar vein, Lisa Sampson linked to this article about the "separation of church and hate" on the BreakPoint Web site. It's all very thought-provoking and interesting.

Jordon also linked to this brief review of a book by Eugene Peterson that sounds like something I want to read. The book is called Eat this Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. I also want to read another book by Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

Speaking of reading, Mark has posted his thoughts about the differences in how men and women read novels and what that means for us as writers. Good stuff, professor.

Congrats 'Cats!

The K-State women's basketball team won the WNIT championship in front of a sell-out crowd Friday night. Yay!

Things you don't want to hear your children say when you return from a retreat

I went to our church's women's retreat Friday night and Saturday -- it was wonderful and I came away refreshed and blessed. Good thing. I got home Saturday afternoon and walked in the house. Sam and Tim and one of their friends were in the living room. The following exchange ensued:

Me: Where's Dad?
Tim: Oh, he's at the hospital with Joel.
Me: At the hospital with Joel! But the car's outside.
Tim: He rode in the ambulance with Joel.
Me: In the ambulance!!!

At this point, Sam intervened and started from the beginning since he thought I was getting a little excited. I thought I was handling it pretty well, but I'll admit I was showing some anxiety. Apparently, Joel had experienced some pretty bad back pain throughout the day and had been wearing Bob's back support (the kind people who have to do a lot of heavy lifting wear). Then he took it off. And then at some point he passed out right in front of the front door and couldn't get up. So they called 911. They had to take the front door off the hinges because Joel was right in front of it. He's a big kid.

It hadn't been very long, so I went up the hospital and got there before they took Joel for x-rays. It's a little weird seeing your kid laying on a back board. But he seemed to be doing pretty well. After the x-rays and blood work, the doctor still wasn't sure why he passed out, but could find nothing wrong in the tests. He said Joel probably had been having back spasms and the pain, or maybe taking the back brace off (sudden rush of blood from the upper to lower body), could have had something to do with blacking out. He prescribed a muscle relaxer and sent us home. Joel's doing a lot better -- the muscle relaxer seems to help -- but he's still having some pain. Prayers would be appreciated.

And if anyone related to me is reading this and gets concerned, it's OK. I should have called, but really Joel is doing fine and the excitement of it all has passed.

Thinking

(With apologies to Mark and Mike)

All he requested was a bag of Cozy burgers. Some people meet their literary muses in a Paris cafe, others in a Waffle House or roadside greasy spoon. Mine asks me to meet him at rest stop on I-70 with an aromatic bag of sandwiches from a famous Salina, Kan., burger joint. It seemed a simple enough request.

Hank joined me at the designated picnic table, at the aforementioned designated rest stop -- I judged from the box of chocolates he carried that he'd made a stop at the nearby Russell Stover factory outlet.

"So I'm a little curious about this, not having met anyone like you before," I said.

"It's simple, you just tell me what's on your mind, I eat my Cozy burger and we'll call it even. At least you didn't call me out in the middle of the night."

"That happens a lot?"

"It happens to my brother, Hugh, in Tennessee."

"I see. You wouldn't also be related to some guy in Paris named Hughes, would you?"

"Cousin," Hank said, around a mouthful of burger. "Haven't seen him in years."

"So is literary muse sort of the family business?"

"In a way, yeah. But what's your problem? I'm eating the burger, but you're not telling me about your writing."

"See, that's just it. There's not much to tell. I'll write a story that I think is pretty good, but then I read something by someone else and realize what I've written is just so much dreck. So I'll think about it a while and try to write some more, but I don't seem to make much progress."

"You have a critique group?"

"Well, sure, a great bunch of folks, but they're all better writers than me, and way better critiquers than me, too. I don't think I contribute much."

He wiped his mouth with a paper towel and reached for his second burger. "Man, it's been ages since I've had a Cozy burger. Thanks for bringing these."

"Sure, no problem. But what about me? I hate to be whiny, but I thought you were supposed to help me figure out how to be a better writer."

"That's not what I said. I said you bring the burgers and I'd listen. That's what I'm doing. I never said anything about giving you advice."

Oh great, I'd made an unnecessary trip to Salina and met a total stranger along the highway for nothing. I suppose my frustration showed on my face because Hank stopped in mid-bite.

"OK. I've got one one thing to say about what you've been telling me. You think too much."

"Huh?"

"That's your problem. You think too much. And you compare yourself to others too much, but that's just a little bonus advice 'cause the burgers are good. You need to concentrate on not thinking too much."

"But that's how I write. I think about the story and I think about the characters and then I write. If I don't think it through, then it would really be dreck."

"I'm not saying you shouldn't think about the story, but you also over-analyze everything. What about the best story you ever wrote -- how did you feel when you were writing it?"

"Pretty good. It flowed, it almost wrote itself. But I thought about it, too."

"Sure, but I'll bet you mostly just sat your butt in the chair and wrote it."

"Well, yeah."

"So there you have it."

He crumpled up the empty paper bag into a ball and threw it into the trash can.

"It's time for me to hit the road again. Thanks for the burgers," he said. He headed for a somewhat battered motor home. The back of it was plastered with bumper stickers from places like Wall Drug, Boot Hill, Pike's Peak and the Museum of Independent Telephony.

"Hey," I called after him. "You forgot your chocolates!"

"Just keep 'em and enjoy. You know about life and chocolate, I'm sure."

Sure, whatever. But maybe Hank has a point. But I'll try not to think too much about it.

A little basketball glory here

The K-State women's basketball team will play Marquette in the WNIT championship game right here in Bramlage Coliseum. The game is at 7 p.m. Friday. Go Cats!

I love college basketball ...

Because a team that no one ever paid much attention to, George Mason, beat the team many people thought could win it all, Connecticut. It may seem like a fluke, but I'm inclined to agree with Gregg Doyel, of CBS Sportsline.com -- this is a really good basketball team. The Patriots played solid fundamental basketball and won. I was really impressed with LSU, too, and I would love to see a George Mason-LSU championship game.

Write to your strengths

I've been pretty frustrated with my writing lately. This is easy to do because I keep encountering examples of writing that is so much beyond mine that I wonder why I even try. For example, Mary DeMuth's post at The Master's Artist on Tuesday, and the ensuing comments were wonderful, lyrical, evocative writing. I realized that sometimes I may think the muse is dancing within, but what it looks like on the outside is ungainly and ineffective.

But dwelling on the negative is not usually productive, or at least not very healthy. I want to learn and that involves accepting criticism, and I can do that. But another part of growing as a writer is learning to build on your strengths.

So what are your strengths? Have you ever sat down and figured out what it is you do really well? I feel like I'm getting a sense of some areas where I'm stronger than others. I think I write dialogue better than description -- I hear my characters better than I see them. So maybe I should find ways to make my dialogue snap and crackle, which would help make the characters more vivid, too. See, that's what I mean about building on strengths. (Of course, I want to work on improving descriptions, too.)

I hope I'm wrong

This news suggests to me that K-State is taking the win-at-all-costs approach to college basketball. I cannot imagine a bigger contrast to Jim Wooldridge!

Catching up

I'm back. Not that I really went away, just stayed home and took care of Bob and watched lots of basketball. And wondered why I even cheer for KU after watching them play like a bunch of freshmen against Bradley Friday night. Oh, wait, they are a bunch of freshmen! Bradley looked really good, though, and I'm glad they've advanced to the Sweet 16. And so has Wichita State! Cool. Of course, my bracket is shot all to pieces, but I did actually have Wichita State making it to the Sweet 16.

Besides basketball, I worked on writing. I'm seriously working on Secrets in Connors Grove once again and I've been revising a new short story and trying to figure out where I should submit it.

I've done a little catching up on blog-reading, too. Deborah's post at The Master's Artist yesterday caught my attention. She's writing about really knowing the Bible and how our understanding of the Bible should inform our writing and our reading. It's a good post and very thought-provoking.

And it's posts like this and this that keep me reading Jordon Cooper. He consistently pulls together comments and ideas that challenge me to really think about what I believe, to recognize the complexity of many issues and not just accept things at face value.

Anniversary and praise

Today I spent my blogging anniversary at the surgical center where my husband had shoulder surgery. The surgery went well and I'm just taking a few minutes to check e-mail and stuff while he snoozes through basketball games (and my bracket's already wrong because Oklahoma and Pacific lost). But he's going home in a little while.

And yes, I've been blogging for one year now. My first entry was nothing to shake a stick at so I won't bother with a link. But it's been fun and I think I've learned a lot about writing in the last year. Blogging helped me find some writing buddies and Faith in Fiction and Infuze magazine. So I'll keep on posting the random thought about life, writing, faith, grammar and the joys of really loud music.

Usage pet peeve

Here's a language irritant: the use of the word "tract" when the word "track" is meant. I see this when someone is writing or talking about a course of action, or a plan of study, such as with career development.

These words do not mean the same thing. Track can mean a course of action; a way of proceeding. Tract means an indefinite extent or expanse, or it can refer to a major passage in the body, such as the digestive tract. It also refers to a pamphlet or treatise, such as a religious tract.

So, obviously, when one is talking about developing a selection of continuing education courses or following a particular career path, the word to choose is "track," as in "My daughter is on the college prep track at her high school," or "He's following the 'How to be a Better Communicator' track of career development courses."

Let the sunshine in ...

Once in a while the journalist resurfaces. This week is Sunshine Week, a week that encourages open government. This isn't just a journalism issue, though. This is a citizen issue. So what's it all about? From the Web site:

Approaching its 40th birthday, the Freedom of Information Act is looking more than a little worn around the edges. In fact, what it needs is a week of good, solid sunshine, and Sunshine Week 2006, March 12-18, is just the ticket.

The current administration has been characterized by open government observers—both conservatives and liberals—as one of the most secretive in recent history; a stance adopted even before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Sunshine Week is not about journalists, it's not about partisan politics, it's about the public and the importance of protecting and promoting open government. Sunshine Week is not about protecting journalists' rights, it's about the right of all citizens to know what their government is doing—and why.

I recently reread All the President's Men and found it disturbing to see the parallels between the Nixon administration and the current administration, particularly in the attitude of being above the law, an attitude that the ends justify the means. When citizens work to help keep government open, though, egregious abuses can be avoided and our country is healthier.

The Web site more information about open government and Freedom of Information.

Read River Rising

This is one of those books that I can whole-heartedly recommend. River Rising is an excellent book, and I don't usually care much for historical fiction. Athol Dickson touches on some deep themes -- race, faith and redemption -- but it's integral to the story, which moves along pretty well. It's a well-crafted novel and I'm glad I bought it because I know I'll want to read it again.

Mark rants a bit today against novels that aren't so well-crafted -- you can read about it at The Master's Artist.

So have a good weekend. I plan to spend mine watching basketball!

Basketball rant

We will take this break from your regularly scheduled programming so I can bemoan the state of K-State basketball. I love college basketball and this is my favorite time of the year. Sunday night will find me watching the NCAA selection show. I will fill out a bracket (which will most likely be horribly wrong, but it's still fun). I will watch lots of basketball games, even involving schools I know nothing about. I will cheer and yell at the TV and get excited and my children will give me strange looks.

But the Kansas State Wildcats won't be in the NCAA tournament, and next year they'll have a new coach. Yep. After K-State lost to Texas Tech in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament yesterday, Coach Jim Wooldridge got the ax. The AP story makes it pretty plain -- if the Cats can't make the NCAA tournament, then they need a new coach. Wooldridge came to Manhattan six years ago and took over a pretty miserable program. He's built and developed the team to the point where they're actually competitive and they beat the Kansas Jayhawks in Allen Fieldhouse this year. That's amazing! But they've lost a lot of close games, especially in the Big 12, and the powers that be decided it was time for a change. That chafes me -- I'm not so naive to think that winning doesn't matter, but it's not the only thing. Conducting yourself with class and integrity, both on and off the court, also matters. Building respect for a program by doing things right matters. Becoming competitive in a very tough league matters. I think Coach Wooldridge has done all those things. So I'm sorry to see him go and I'm sorry our university seems to think that winning matters more than anything else.

Light blogging

The next week or so will be pretty light, blogging-wise. Just thought I'd warn you. (Not that there's all that many who read it, but ...) I have a lot to do at work and my husband will be having shoulder surgery a week from today. So he has an appointment tomorrow that I'm going to with him so I'll know what to expect.

I'm still reading River Rising -- good stuff. And I'm writing again after not pushing very hard at it for a few weeks.

And here's a link to a neat interview with a rock icon: Christian Music Today talked to Kerry Livgren recently and it's good stuff. And for those of you who have no idea who Kerry Livgren is, read the interview.

What I'm reading

I started reading River Rising, by Athol Dickson, last night. Wow! This is an excellent book. I'll probably write a longer post about this book after I finish it, but I wanted to share some initial impressions.

I wasn't sure what to expect -- I'd read enough about it to know that it's set in Louisiana at the time of the 1927 Mississippi River flood and that it dealt with race issues.

And it is all those things, but this is storytelling that goes deep. I have to admit as I started reading that I wondered if it would be a book that lived up to the hype. Dickson's prose isn't as lyrical as Marilynn Robinson's (but whose is?) or Lief Enger's. If fact, it seemed a little detached -- he uses an omniscient narrative voice, so I didn't feel like I was in the characters' heads.

But that narrative technique serves the story well, because as the story delves deeper into the mysteries that surround Hale Poser (the main character) and the little community of Pilotville, the narration zooms in closer to the characters. It turns out to be effective -- I couldn't put the book down last night and kept reading way past my usual lights-out time.

This is a Christian novel, published by Bethany House, but if you've avoided Christian fiction for a long time, you should make an exception for River Rising. Faith is integral to the story -- not tacked on to make an evangelistic point. Its expressions (and lack of expressions) arise from who the characters are.

I'm about halfway through (I told you I read late last night and it's not really dense prose) and I'm not going to give anything away, but I will say there are twists and turns in this story I did not see coming. And there's darkness, too, befitting a story set in the swamps of the Mississippi Delta. But there's also hope. I have no idea how it's going to end -- something I haven't been able to say about a book for a long time -- but I can't wait to finish it.

Lessons on story from Serenity

I've finally seen Serenity and I really enjoyed it. It's a good story, with engaging characters in a fully-realized universe. It's not perfect -- it feels a bit more like a two-hour TV episode than a Movie. But it's a lot better than most TV episodes, so maybe I'm just being picky.

But I couldn't help but compare it with Star Wars Episode III, which I saw a while back. (I saw neither in the theater, so the viewing experience was similar.)

I think Serenity is a superior movie. But why? It was made for a fraction of the cost of Star Wars, there are no big stars -- but none of those things guarantee a good movie (Heaven's Gate, Ishtar, anyone?).

For me, it boils dow to the underlying foundation of the two movies. For Star Wars, the people seem to be there to move the plot along; in Serenity, the plot moves the people along. The result is a story that resonates at the heart level. Sure, it's exciting and the special effects are impressive -- but those things don't get in the way of the story.

I'm becoming a Joss Whedon fan -- after all, the guy's ability to tell a story got me hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I don't even like vampire stories. Serenity really puts his story-telling skills on display. Even though I didn't watch Firefly much when it was on TV, I had no trouble becoming absorbed in the world of the story and got a handle on the characters quickly. I loved the opening sequences, the sharp and witty dialogue, the seamless effects, the grittiness of the world. It's all good. And I was reminded a bit of an earlier movie-going experience, when I was sucked into a galaxy long ago and far away.

Almost 30 years ago, I sat in a movie theater, transfixed by the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo and the droids. But the most recent episodes of the series have become more sterile, even as the digital wizardry became more dazzling. Friday night I sat on my couch with my sons, laughing and cheering and holding my breath as the crew of the Serenity crashed on planets, got in bar fights and dodged reavers. And when it was over, I wanted more. I would love to be able to tell a story so well that when my readers finished one, they'd want more.

Here's a great interview

Max Hsu (of Superchick) has posted an interview with Infuze founder and novelist Robin Parrish -- a fascinating look into a truly creative mind. Robin describes how his creative process and tells how he founded Infuze. Cool stuff.

Need a little romance?

Then here's a book you might enjoy. Brenda Coulter's inspirational romance A Family Forever is available now from Steeple Hill. Even if, like me, you're not much of a romance reader, the book has some things going for it -- a willingness to let the characters be human and deal with struggles in their faith, and a depiction of faith that is well-integrated with the story. Want to know more? Visit Brenda's blog, No Rules, Just Write, which I enjoy for her breezy, witty style.