New Schedule

I started the new writing schedule yesterday morning. I would not call it a success. I did edit, but not with the single-minded attention I want. Part of that might have been my preoccupation with potential weather issues. I also started this post last night, but got interrupted by life and abandoned it. That's no good. I intended to try morning writing time at least until the end of the month, but now I'm not sure.

I don't do well with "appointments." I can't think of another word for it, except possibly "deadlines," but that doesn't fully connote the problem. I'm actually very good with deadlines.

In my teen years, I took voice lessons at 3 PM on Saturday. I was unable to do anything on Saturday until after the lesson. Knowing I had an "appointment" later that day distracted and unsettled me (one of the reasons I made a terrible case manager).

Writing in the morning brings out that same anxiety. I turn off the radio, which is how I measure time in the morning, and I can't focus on the work because I keep glancing at the clock. I do have a day job and I can't be late for it. Well, not terribly late.

The thunderstorm has arrived. Best wrap this up.

Now that I have turned off the electronics while I edit (something I knew I should do but didn't), I see extraneous words as I enter Glorya's first 3 chapters. Lots of extraneous words.

I'd sent The Lioness some chapters to read, but I emailed her not to bother with them. I'm slashing whole paragraphs right now. The plot won't change but its descriptions sure will.

TT: Simon is attacking a throw rug. It's adorable and quite distracting. Excuse me a moment...

Thank you. He's such a noodlehead. Now he's getting into the trash can. I don't know why. He doesn't fit.

Must be the weather. He's inside the trash can looking down. The lighter spot is his ear canal. My apologies if you can't make him out. He's a black cat in a dark space. I did the best I could with Elder Brother's borrowed digital camera.

Anyhoo...

I will make time to write. It just may not be in wee hours of the AM.

Scheduling

In my quest to network, I've been using the "Friends You May Know" option on FB. When I see a name with more than its fair share of fellow writers attached to it, I Friend Request that person. I have met some interesting people this way. I only ask one or two people a day.

Oddly enough, FB stopped me from doing this. Why would it offer names then refuse to allow me to contact them? I have no idea.

TT: I may lose some of these new contacts if they don't care for FV posts. I cannot help it. FV is part of who I am now.

One extremely useful person I met is K.M. Weiland. Find her blog Wordplay on my "Blogs I Follow" list. She has published two historical fiction books and seems to have more in the works. More power to anyone who doesn't mind doing research.

She also has a links page of marketing resources. I added three of these to my list and will begin implementing their numerous suggestions. I am trying, PYP. Arrogant as I am, self-promotion is new to me. So is networking. This turtle prefers her own shell.

I read a post yesterday (I thought it was Weiland's, but I'm wrong, so I don't know who wrote it) about scheduling time to write, one of the differences between the professional and the hobbyist. I didn't need to schedule Star of Justice; I couldn't stop writing it. Elementals was harder, but I made it happen. I have very much gotten out of the habit of writing daily other than my blogs. Which presents the question, when should I write?

I am a highly scheduled person. Not quite OCD, but close. So when should I write?

It seems clear it will be during what is currently FV time. I can play FV while doing other things, like listening to the radio or eating. I cannot write with divided attention, and I cannot type while wielding a fork.

My greatest time waster has undergone some changes. NBC has at last removed Friends from its daily lineup. That removes NBC from my radar. I have only one channel left, and only 1 show on that channel I follow faithfully (who knows what it is?). That means, as long as I don't turn on the TV, I have 3 hours a night most nights. Except I don't. One night a week goes to the nieces. One night goes to My Best Friend. One night will go to my favorite show. And, for while anyway, at least one night goes to politics.

So when should I write?

The most obvious answer to me is in the morning. No one calls me at 4:30 AM. I don't think my friends know that time exists. I have no problem writing my blog posts at this time.

Potential problem. Writing stories puts me in an odd frame of mind. I don't know if I'm writing from my right brain or entering some kind of trance, but once I focus on that inner world, I have a hard time coming out of it with any kind of graciousness. I'm a little worried about what writing first will do to the rest of my day.

I guess I'll find out.

So, for a while, I'll be blogging in the evenings instead of the mornings. I hope. I remember what happens when the weather turns cold. I may move the computer into my bedroom so I can type under the covers.

On the Elementals revision front, I finished working in all of The Lioness' suggestions last night (despite 3 phone interruptions of varying lengths of time). Somehow I managed to add clarifying sentences and still reduce overall word count. I'm not entirely sure how I did that, unless I haven't counted words since the last time I revised and those edits got counted here. However I did it, I hope I can keep it up. I have 8000 words to remove, and for the life of me, I don't know how I will do it.

Ooo, just had a petit mal panic seizure thinking about submitting in half a month. That's fun.

Approval

Found an interesting concept while reading Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. He was referencing being excited about the work you do, whatever it is.

"This is why ancient Jewish wisdom insists that approval by our friends is an important aid to a person's business success; and likewise, people are stimulated and encouraged by their friends' approval. Even more important, this approval helps people find passion and enthusiasm in what they do (pg 20)."

This shouldn't be a revelation to me. I'm more serious about writing when my friends are interested in my writing. Having test readers badger me for more chapters makes me more eager to write those chapters. Talking about writing - to a point - gets me writing.

TT: I must be careful about the talking. I noticed long ago if I told my stories in detail to an avid listener before I wrote them, they tended not to get written at all. At this point, I will answer only specific questions put to me by Mom, because she can hurt me if I don't. I also promised that courtesy to My Best Friend, because she was my test reader back when I finished nothing, and it was the only way to get her to read anything at all. My Dear Friend, alas, has to wait to find out what happens with any story I'm currently writing, but she gets to hear about stories I may never write, so it balances out. At least, I think it balances out.

I suppose the point of the lesson is shared excitement leads to increased productivity. To write more, I must share more writing.

I do remember Orson Scott Card warning writers must publish or die. Continually reworking old material does no one any good. Leaving manuscripts in drawers does not increase your skill.

In Elfquest, Cutter and the Wolfriders encounter the Gliders, close descendants of the High Ones and thus immortal. Fearing contamination by the outside world, the Gliders confined themselves within a mountain. Cutter accuses them of feeding off themselves, like a wolf with its leg caught in a trap.

My one great annoyance with my favorite authors is how they move on. They write new stories. They change the futures of beloved characters from the future I imagined (Paul Atreides of Dune being an excellent example). They create new beloved characters designed to usurp the old ones in my heart space.

Yet this is what writers must do. We are literary sharks, constantly moving or dying of asphyxiation in a sea of creative oxygen. This is what I must do, if I am to be a writer of those many books my fans will want.

Seems my friends are an integral part of that process. Makes me glad I have the friends I do.

TUTAW: Quantity Matters

The Ugly Truth About Writing is...quantity matters.

Very few authors write a single best-selling book that sets them up for life. I can't think of any. I suppose J.K. Rowling would have qualified if she'd stopped writing, but then again, if she'd stopped, would Harry Potter have taken off like it did? If I remember correctly, it was the third book where everything went viral. I had to go back and purchase the first two as paperbacks. Even Tolkien wrote four books, and I don't think those were as popular while he was alive as they are now.

Long ago, I worried about writing The One Great Book. The One everyone wants to read. The One people will wait in line for. The One bookstores sell out of. You know. That One.

TT: Sorry for all the sentence fragments and dangling prepositions there. I'm making a point, even if it gives GrammarCheck a fit.

A few years ago - shortly before I submitted Star of Justice to MLS, actually - I realized I don't need the One book. I just need to write books.

I figured this out when I read a book I liked and googled the author to see what else he'd written. That was Neil Gaiman, author of Stardust. He also wrote the screenplay for Mirrormask, one of my favorite movies. He also wrote Coraline (the one with the people behind the mirror with black buttons instead of eyes). When I get some money, you can bet I'll be buying more of his books. The guy has an appealing grasp of creepy with the irony only the British can infuse in fantasy.

It occurred to me that's how authors make money. You write lots of books in the hopes that a reader who likes one will buy others you've written. So your first book doesn't have to be a best-seller. Neither does your second book. Or the third. They just need to be good enough to spark interest and build trust with your audience. A trusting reader is a faithful reader.

TT: I posted about this last year in the aptly named "Trust." You can find it under the label "Writing Tips."

Allow me to reference Seth Godin again. If you acquire a faithful fan base willing to support you, you must provide them with items to purchase. One item won't do it.

I love Anne McCaffrey's writing. I have about 15 of her books on my shelf, and I regularly reread them. However, I bought all of them about 20 years ago. That doesn't help her pay the bills today. At least, I don't think it does. It would be cool if it did.

TT: I've mentioned in an earlier post "When Did I Stop Reading?" why 20 years ago is my general marker for reading/writing life events.

I have a file drawer with approximately 20 potential books in it. Some are stand-alones. Some are series. Some are short stories that might end up being novellas or novels. They would take me at least 20 years to write, assuming I don't get ideas for others in the meantime.

The bane of the perfectionist is seeing the work before I get into it. I call it "pre-exhaustion." I get tired just thinking about doing it.

I can't afford that attitude as a writer. I can't really afford it as a person. Putting myself out there in written form is as much a journey as the discipline of FV.

I decided all I had to do was start. Taking one turtle step at a time, I wrote a book. It worked, so I wrote another. It also worked, so I'll go for a third. That's the whole plan. Just write one solid book after another until I die.

I have to stop writing now. I'm feeling a little tired.

Marketing and More Than My Usual Share of Arrogance

Ready?

Since I created Ranunculus Turtle the Facebook Page (am I bringing back memories of Spaceballs yet?), four other authors have created FB pages.

It is entirely possible this has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I suspect it's really because of the appearance of PYP's FB page and their emphasis on author-driven marketing (including FB specifically) and not my stunning example that has prompted the rush to self-promote. It does make me wonder if those 4 authors and I will be competing come October. So be it. I'm a free market gal. Competition improves the end product and benefits everyone.

I do hope Ocilla's Mommy (that's your new name, Diane) will be submitting in October. Seems a shame to have a book and a potential audience and not submit. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge.

I'm reading Thou Shall Prosper by Rabbi Daniel Lapin. It's a Dave Ramsey recommendation. For once, I'm reading an Introduction and finding it fascinating.

Dare I admit a possibly unflattering fact about myself? Why not? I've done it before and with less intention.

As I read this book, I hear the words in a Bronx accent, like that blue aardvark from The Pink Panther or Crusty the Clown's father from The Simpsons. I have no idea what Rabbi Lapin actually sounds like, but that's how he sounds in my head. Rabbi + New York references = Bronx accent. Stereotypical? Undoubtedly. A bit distracting, too, but I can't seem to stop it. To be fair, I have the same problem with British books. Anything written by Jane Austin is narrated in British as I read. Stuffy British, too, like John Cleese.

Anyhoo, I have to figure out how to express a marketing plan in one or two paragraphs. Not that it's a huge, complicated marketing plan. Seth Godin says all you really need are x number of faithful fans and then you just produce what they want in the quantities necessary to support yourself. For example, 200 people willing to spend $20 bucks on anything I write means I automatically get...ooh, I hate math, even with zeros....$2000? dollars per book/story from that fan base. That is some very simplistic boiling down there. I don't expect to make $20 per book, for starters, even if that ended up being the sticker price, which it won't. Personally, I'm hesitant about paying more than $7 for a book, but I remember when a thick paperback cost $4.95, too. I'm a dinosaur.

The hard part is finding those faithful fans, but you won't find them if you don't look for them.

I'll be posting a TUTAW about fans and production later, maybe tomorrow. It's been rattling about in me brain pan for a bit now.

So, on the day I post a flattering review (flattering for me, anyway) of The Lioness's critiquing skills on FB and potentially drive completely new readers to this site, I decide to write an arrogant, self-involved and potentially bigoted post about myself.

Yep. Sounds like me.

Now you know what The Lioness puts up with. Kinda makes you admire her more, doesn't it?

Grammar

One of my first sentences in yesterday's post is bothering me. If allure is the singular object and Ron Perlman and screenplay are modifiers, then was is the appropriate verb. But if allure and screenplay are both objects, then were is the appropriate verb form. I originally wrote were then changed it to was and now I'm inclined to change it back to were. Is this a case where either form is correct, and it's up to me to tell the reader which I meant, or is there only one correct way and I'm missing it? Will it sound wrong to someone no matter which verb I use (thus indicating I should rewrite it and move on)? Do other languages have this issue? In Latin, the verb would indicate whether the object is singular or plural, but in English, I'm more likely to get chastised for improper grammar than kudos for knowing the obscure rule.

Whoa. That graf was a bit more writerly than normal. Sorry, readers. One of the drawbacks of being caught in Editor Land.

Fact is, most of the grammar skills I employ are from rules sunk so deep into the dark parts of my brain from high school I have no idea why I know how I know it anymore. Grammar rules are the compost from which my skill springs, not the framework on which my stories are built. I will have to change that, I'm sure.

Hmm. Cats are restless this morning. Hard to see the monitor around Caleb's enormous bulk or type with Mica's head on my mouse arm. Better keep this short.

I tried a lot of new things with Elementals. Four POVs. Multiple concurrent time lines. Flashbacks masquerading as memories. A lot of ways to mess up grammatically and consistently (that's not the right word. I mean like when you check a movie for glaring errors. I can NOT think of the right word. They call this a category memory error in psych class. I can think close to the word but not the word itself. Grr!) Anyway, I will need help with this story to get it up to snuff for publication.

A vague memory tickles me of trying to complete Elementals this time last year and experiencing tremendous difficulty. Somehow September jammed up with non-writing stuff and conspired to throw my plans off track.

It's happening again. I have "other plans" than writing all this week. I will be ready to submit in October, but only because I will determine now to be ready.

Man, I wish I could think of that word!

Of Aliens and Lions

You remember that scene in Alien Resurrection where...

Hmm.

It occurs to me even the combined allure of Ron Perlman without makeup and a screenplay written by Joss Whedon was not enough to offset Wynona Rider as a supporting actress in that movie to my normal readers, and thus none of you have seen it. Allow me to rephrase.

There's this scene in Alien Resurrection where an alien is carrying Ripley to the Queen's egg chamber. Ripley regains consciousness in the alien's shiny, black arms, sees the enemy who has hunted her through 3 movies and 2 lives, and does the most unexpected thing. She embraces it. She practically snuggles into that cold, acid-filled carapace and peacefully awaits whatever is coming. Finally, she accepts.

That's a little how I feel when I open an email from The Lioness, as I did yesterday. An email containing her copy-editing of the prologue and first 3 chapters of Elementals.

Not that I am saying Kristen is a multi-limbed xenomorph with a head shaped like a deadly loaf of evil French bread. Far from it.

TT: She's actually adorable, if you've seen her pic on FB. It's a perfect front, really. No one would expect the ferocity of opinion dwelling behind that smile. There's a reason I call her The Lioness, and it isn't her hair.

I should be terrified of that attached file. My critique partner is a formidable writing force. She works with words for a living and as a hobby. In other circumstances, she could be not only a rival, but a predator with the power to pop the top of my emotional skull with her fierce mouth-tongue and I could only dangle from her claws and let her do it.

The fact that in her professional arms I feel completely safe is a testament to her skill. I have never resented a single thing she has questioned or corrected in my stories in our year together. Bless her heart, she once apologized for all the red, as if she had been doing something wrong when I was the one writing out of POV in passive voice.

I've written before how hard it is for a writer to receive critiques. Writers are an odd mix of arrogance and self-doubt. We have to be arrogant enough to put our stuff out there, but we still chew our nails until we hear how people will react (and sometimes for days or weeks after we hear).

But Kristen has a disarming way of asking questions to spur thinking. She states her reactions clearly, and knows just when to insert a little humor to ease the sting or build me up.

I haven't always followed her suggestions. If we wrote the same way, one of us wouldn't be necessary. But her opinion matters a great deal to me. Her quiet confidence in my skill means more. I haven't the words to express my gratitude or admiration.

I hope, in her editing arms, to make that passage to the egg chamber of publication safely. If not with this submission, then with another.

Once I get there is another set of problems entirely, just like with Ripley. Perhaps, dear readers, now that you know I equate publication with an audience with a Queen Alien, you can understand some of my reluctance to pursue that goal.

And, Kristen, if you want something a bit more serious, let me know. I can't write anything more heart-felt. My deepest thanks, my friend.

Balance

On Virtual Buttercups, I've been lamenting my lack of balance when it comes to growing crops and making Recipes. Finding balance is more than a FV issue, though. I seek balance in every part of my life, but, like the PH value of a fish tank, it is not something you find only once. It is a continual adjustment.

Goals help. A stated goal focuses attention and resources. My stated goals for September are to write a book proposal and have the first three chapters of Elementals ready for submission to PYP in October. Actually, my goal is to have completed a second revision of the entire book this month. I have two test readers ready to go when that is done.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle through Sherlock Holmes once said the brain only holds so much, so take care with what you choose to fill it. I used to laugh at that. Not so much anymore. Perhaps it is old age, but I don't remember as I once did. Time or attention given one place is taken from another. This is the curse of the flesh. I cannot be everywhere at once. My focus turns toward manuscript submission; everything else suffers.

This hard lesson is with us throughout life. We start to learn it as children. We cannot both go swimming and watch the movie. We must choose.

Dave Ramsey calls it "gazelle intensity." When you are focused on and committed to a goal, you funnel all your resources to achieving it. I have never been one to experience "gazelle intensity." Call me type B, call me too comfortable, call me chemically imbalanced (my personal favorite), but I do not rise to challenges. I sink to them.

It is that "weak" reaction I once referenced. I am not a fighter; I am a scholar. I will think myself to death before I pick up a sword and attack a dragon.

Part of this journey to publication is re-training. I am teaching myself to fight my instincts and "just do it." Even if I fail. Even if I make mistakes. Even if I accidentally mortally insult the wrong person along the way. I must just do it.

It is absolutely contrary to who I am, but that is what must be done if I am to become published. I wish there was someone else to do it for me. That is the wish of every child. It is the reason I am not published yet. It is not my writing that holds me back. It is me. I intend to discover if this year I can change that.

I do not know what it will mean for the rest of my life. I suppose it will mean, for a time, balance will be skewed. My farm may suffer (although I have plenty of 1, 2, 3 and 4 day crops yet to master). My social life may be more non-existent than usual (at least the cats can sit with me as I type). My political involvement may be walking neighborhoods instead of blog posts. So be it.

Slow and steady is my mantra. Today, I will walk that way (she points to the distant horizon of publication). It is all I can do.

Thinking About Evil

In his excellent book Fiction Is Folks, Robert Newton Peck has a chapter called "Black Bart Sniffs a Daisy (or something to that effect. I loaned my book to a writer friend so I can't look it up)." The chapter is about giving your bad guys some redeeming qualities. After all, they weren't born bad.

Let me say I have great respect for Mr. Peck. His book is one of the best, funniest and most memorable books on writing I've ever read. I would never presume to argue his point that many bad guys are two-dimensional, being bad just because the good guy needs someone to foil.

I draw a distinction between bad guys and evil characters. A bad guy is the enemy, the Antagonist, if you will, who for whatever reason causes the Protagonist great angst. The bad guy is an obstacle to overcome, and as such can be good, bad or indifferent. He just needs to be in the way.

But evil characters...Those are a horse of a different color. An evil character enjoys being evil. Maybe she didn't start that way, but she's evil now and loving it. She likes causing pain and chaos and grief. She gets off on it. Drusilla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer springs to mind. Yes, she was once a virginal psychic, but she is now one crazy-evil queen of the undead. You cannot appeal to her good side; she doesn't have one (unless you count Spike). Falling into her talons is a drawn-out death sentence. If you're lucky.

I've always been fascinated by those behind-the-scenes interviews where the actor playing the villain explains why the villain is just an okay guy with a misguided vision, a victim of circumstance, really. I have never heard an actor say, "Yeah, he is one evil dude, and I love playing him."

TT: This supports my theory of why many actors are Liberal Progressives. They over-identify with people to the point of excusing any behavior as misguided. Any behavior except conservatism. That is condemned as intolerant and bigoted. Oops! Wrong blog.

Most of my bad guys are evil characters. Like Joey says, "If you're gonna do it wrong, do it right."
My nasty ladies love the violence. My evil dragons eat first and ask questions...well, never. People do reach a point where evil is an end in itself. The quest for power or pleasure or knowledge becomes all-consuming and that's when you don't want to be between them and their goal.

Of course, that's exactly where my Heroes end up.

Good times.

A Year In Review

Today is this blog's one year anniversary. I have to do it.

WOO-HOO!

Ehem. With that out of the way, let's review.

My journey began July 2009 with The Roaring Lambs Writer's Conference in Texas. There I met Gene Getz, Allison Bottke and Mary DeMuth. Because of that conference, I created the brand Ranunculus Turtle, started this blog and tried very hard to be open to new opportunities.

Elder brother gifted me my website http://www.robynntolbert.com/ aka Ranunculus Turtle the website.

In the last year, I submitted Star of Justice for publication, entered one contest (those were the same thing, actually) and finished Elementals. I started Past Ties.

I gained a wonderful critique partner, The Lioness aka Kristin Steiffel. I joined an online critique group. I followed the journeys of other writers and encouraged them as best I can.

I wrote 3 book reviews, which means I read 3 brand-new books. I haven't done that in a loooooong time. I hope to continue.

I attended 3 webinars about marketing and making money online (something I would never have done previously). Several changes were made to this blog as a result and I intend to make more, specifically to my website.

I posted 223 times on this blog. More than I thought I would, but less than I could have by a hundred.

I got side-tracked when I realized I was not as popular as the morning paper. No matter. I needed that ego-bruising, too.

Altogether, not the most active year. Dave Ramsey would chide my lack of "gazelle intensity" and I would let him. It's hard to get a word in edgewise when Dave gets going. If only I could get him to be proud of my FV achievements. I have been gazelle-intense there.

What have I learned?

I have a "down time," which appears to be Winter, Spring and Summer. I'll have to work on that.

I like blogging. I like it so much I have 3 blogs on completely different topics.

I need a goal or I have no drive. I must therefore set goals if I am to move forward at any appreciable rate. I would like to attend a conference specifically for my genre interests. Roaring Lambs was great, but I was a turtle out of her shell among those blessed folks.

In my preparations to submit Elementals to a publisher next month, I have revised my website, created a Ranunculus Turtle FB page (just this morning, so please go "like" it) and jumped back into The Sandbox. I am trying to add book-buying into my budget. Alas, vet bills keep interfering.

I chose the turtle as my brand in the hopes she would impel me forward. I haven't been heeding her that much. Slow and steady must be my focus. Turtles don't stop. Neither must I.

Boy, spellcheck hated this post.

Less and More

During the MLS contest I marveled at the obsession with word counts. Having never counted my words, I didn't understand the big whoop. I don't plan my stories ahead of time; it shuts me down. I have a goal, I aim and I write. When I hit it, I'm done.

I do revise. Writing the way I do, I have to, but those revisions are generally adding words in the form of description, and almost never major plot revisions. That, to my understanding, is weird. Most writers can't do that. I don't know why. Maybe their real lives get in the way of their imaginary ones.
In the year or so since I've taken up the writing gauntlet again, I'm learning why editors are obsessed with word counts. Sometimes a story is so thin it can be told in 80K words (or fewer). Anything more is fluff.

Wow. Could I be more arrogant? I'll try.

If the skill isn't there yet, more words are a bad thing. More words don't get the job done. They slog up the pace and confuse the reader and generally get in the way.

For all those critique partners who might read this, I am not talking about your stories. I've been looking at all kinds of stuff over the past year, and I have no particular person or story in mind. If anything, I'm remembering some of last year's contest entrants and comparing them with things I've read more recently.

It is about skill. George MacDonald conveys in any of his 20 page short stories more wisdom and eternal truth than I could in three books of 300 pages. That is the mark of a true master writer and thinker.

Dare I say it? It's not what you have, it's how you use it. More words won't solve the problem if the story is weak, or the skill is lacking. But I would also say fewer words aren't always the solution, either. I've run my way through books before and arrived panting at the last page and wishing I'd had a moment to look around and enjoy what just happened.

One thing I've learned to watch out for is author assumptions. Just because I can see the scene in my head doesn't mean I've conveyed it accurately to the reader. I remember having to rewrite a scene in Star Of Justice because I realized after the fact this was the first time two of the characters had ever met, and I'd completely failed to acknowledge it (Raven and Gamaliel, for those who've read the book). In my brain, I'd already moved on to what happens later. I had to pause and pay attention to "the now."

This is where I would encourage an author to have different people/non-writers read their mss and ask questions. I would also warn an author to consider those questions very carefully. If someone is asking them, it's because you haven't made the answers clear in your writing. This is not the time to explain what you were trying to convey. You won't be in the room with your readers while they're reading. Your real readers won't be able to ask you what you meant. Make sure all the info they will want or need is clearly on the page.

I flesh out my worlds, but that is what I like to read. I want the details. But those details have a purpose. Sometimes they set the scene. Sometimes they convey important information. Sometimes they clarify and sometimes they intentionally muddle the picture so the later surprise is more surprising. On occasion, they get in the way, and that's when they have to go.

Finding the balance is a measure of your skill.

So Many Thoughts

I want to post about marketing (specifically some new thoughts prompted by Jim Paris), balancing my budget, the movie The Fountain, and some things I've noticed while playing in The Sandbox. I don't think I can give due attention to any of those topics this morning.

Once again, life conspired to awaken me before my alarm clock could. At 2:24 AM Central Time, a thunderstorm with a lot of bark and little bite rolled over my house and took 15 minutes to shut up about it. That means instead of my normal 8 hour sleep cycles, I've had two inadequate naps per night for the last four days. I'm a little scattered this morning. I'm also out of my dark chocolate bars, so I'm a little cranky. And my hair has reached a new horrible phase where it seems to be all bang - impossible to curl, flatten or control in any kind of reasonable manner. On the other hand, Fringe premieres tonight and it's a two-hour episode! Calloo-Callay! I'm desperately hoping that thought can get me through the day.

The cats were awakened early, too, if their current states of sprawled unconsciousness are any indication. The storm was very loud with some spectacular lightning. I'm pretty sure Skamper took to the basement ceiling in his distress. Now, he won't get off my lap. Thankfully Mica is asleep in her box.

Princess Glorya in Elementals goes through almost a month of starvation and sleep-deprivation. She does better with it than I would, but she is a Hero. I just play one on...well, actually, no. I'd be the comic relief and not the plucky kind.

The revisions are not going well. I have plenty to cut in Dyana's sections, but I want to add in Glorya's. I've always felt this way, and I still feel it. Last night, I added almost as many words as I cut. I can't get rid of 8K words if I keep this up, which plops me right back at square one. Most likely, I'll submit anyway, but it will have to be with the "you tell me what goes" kind of plan. That's not useful.

In my renewed quest to prepare for submission, I've re-entered the writing world. This is seriously cutting into my farming time. I knew it would but I don't like it. I've exchanged FV time for Sandbox time and revision time. Time...time...

How do you start an uncomfortable topic? My therapy training tells me you just start and the conversation will pick up from there. That's easier to do in person than in print.

I've noticed something on The Sandbox, and it bothers me a bit. Of course, I only see through a glass darkly. This blog isn't the place to bring it up. I'll send out a generic Post if I have the courage. It's nothing horrible, just one of those moments when you have to ask a "is the VCR plugged in?" kind of question and those can be quite offensive if phrased wrong. Some take offense no matter how carefully the question is phrased. It isn't about any one person. It's just one of those things I've seen throughout my time there, and I'm wondering if anyone else wonders the same thing.

I do my best to be quirky and irresistibly impish in my written dealings, but my default is cold analysis that too often impersonates arrogant contempt. Sigh. I prefer my life to anyone else's but there are moments I wish I were different than I am.

The trouble with an online critique group of strangers is that it is an online critique group of strangers. I believe all of these people mean well, and are competent, capable writers, and would never purposely be mean or spiteful about anything (as I hope I would never be or even seem), but they are strangers. I know them as a name and a writing style. I've lamented before how sterile this kind of long-distance communication is. I would much prefer gathering in a real circle, with real coffee (even if I do have to smell it) and just talking. But that isn't how our world turns now, is it?

Oh dear. I may be a little depressed this morning. That means I should not talk about anything with anyone.

I really hope Fringe starts off well.

Running Late

I am so far behind this morning I wish I could go back to bed and it would be tomorrow. I've been waking up at 3 AM again (not because of Mica, as far as I can tell). I might as well just get up.

I've been playing in the Sandbox the past few days. That's why I'm behind schedule this morning. We're having an interesting overseas conversation about swear words and racial slurs. Interesting to me, anyway. I don't know what the rest think.

My new computer has finally stopped giving me pop-up warning after pop-up warning about Sandbox emails, so I can be a reasonable part of things again. I'm re-reading the rules about posting and such. My unfamiliarity with Yahoo groups has made me too cautious about breaking rules or doing it wrong to be of much help to others. For now, I'll err on the rash-side until I get slapped down.

It's raining this morning. We need it desperately, but I may be electrocuted in the shower. Do you ever wonder who will pay the water bill if you die in the shower? I wonder that a lot.

I've been listening to Dave Ramsey in the mornings, and I decided it's past time to make a will. I don't want the State of Kansas deciding what happens to my critters since they (unjustly, I think) fall under the legal heading of "property." I have no idea where they'll go. I'm hoping having a Will will prevent my death until a few of them die off first.

And puckernuts. That reminds me it's the first of the month and I still have bills to pay before work.

Heavy sigh. Maybe I'll luck out and get electrocuted. It won't make any difference to my hair and might actually improve my skin tone.

Later.

Petit Mal Panic

Last night I dreamed I was on a cruise ship in a storm and I almost spilled my drink (chocolate milk, I think, or iced tea. It's a little fuzzy). I was a bit confused since, in my dreams anyway, my life is normally represented by a house. Then I remembered PYP and its sea-themed offerings and it all made sense. I guess my brain needs to work out this new tack in my writing journey.

I suffer from petit mal panic. I don't know exactly when it started. Seems fairly recent, though, maybe a year? Maybe since 2008. Humorless chuckle.

It's a sudden and unreasonable sense of dread that starts in my stomach and spreads to my heart and lungs. The physical symptoms are clenched muscles, faster heartbeat and shorter breaths. It happens at any time, in any place, for no reason whatsoever. I can be in my house reading a book with a cat in my lap and it hits me. It's happened at work, at church, in the car, and at other people's homes. It seems to happen most when I'm alone, but that could be just because I'm alone most of the time.

I call it petit mal because it doesn't seem to be a full-blown panic attack as I've heard them described. Sometimes, it feels like an over-active conscience pricking me about some sin I've forgotten but which has the power to ruin my life. Other times, it feels like a premonition of some horrible future I cannot avoid. Maybe those are the same thing. Sometimes, it's just an upset stomach.
This may be a side-effect of growing up. Now that I'm noticing the real evil in the world, I am bound to be affected by it. It may be a learned response, an echo of some other time I had reason to fear popping up at unexpected times. A sort of Post-Traumic Stress Lite.

My solution thus far has been to stop and pray. Most times, my prayers are of repentance and praise. Repentance for doubting God and praise, well, because He's God. I don't know the future. I don't remember all my sins. I know God has me covered, and most of the time I remember it. The panic comes when I forget.

Oh, and when it's an upset stomach, I eat some peanuts.

Marketing

Ask and you shall receive. One day after posting the conundrum of developing a marketing strategy, what should happen but my old friends at Point of View invite James Paris, web marketing guru, as guest for the next two days. Even better, he's offering another free webinar tonight about new forms of web marketing.

Calloo-callay!

I sit poised with notepad at the ready. While I'm waiting...

Earlier today, I emailed PYP about their definition of "book proposal." According to my Everything: How to Get Published book, a non-fiction proposal is what you write before you write the book. It contains a hook, marketing figures for your target audience, comparable best-selling books and an author bio. I don't think this is what PYP wants since some of those things are covered by the questionnaire and they do have one place under "Our Guidelines" where they limit an "e-query" to one to two paragraphs. We'll see.

I do need to write a hook, though, and a synopsis. And an author bio, for that matter.

Anyway, I don't expect an immediate answer. Judging from the website, they tend to do "public interaction business" on Fridays, and real work the rest of the time.

Rule Number One for this turtle is and always will be "Don't annoy the editor." Judging by a blog post on their FB page about 10 things never to do when submitting, I think the cautious approach is more likely to catch fish here.

One odd thing I just realized today...The spirit beings in Star of Justice who create and maintain the magic of Ah'rahk are called "Elementals." Twenty years ago, I titled a book about two princesses Elementals. These two books have nothing whatsoever in common with each other except that word and me as an author. Weird.

I don't know if that will confuse people or if I should use it as my marker, like "I'll be back." I bet I could work the word "elementals" into every future story.

Turtle Steps

Excellent news! The Lioness has agreed to copy-edit the first 3 chapters of Elementals! Yea! I just added a layer of accountability to my goal of manuscript submission. That's important, since my first reaction is to retreat into my shell until October is over.

More excellent news! Blogspot has returned my spell-check button. I can't believe the spelling errors I've been making lately. I can see them only after I've published the post, and, unless I write them down, I can't find them when I sign on to edit. Weird.

I've been doing some reading at PYP's website and FB page. It's important to "know your audience," after all. I like this editor, but it's possible I like all editors. Anyone with the gumption to start a small business in our current economy is either a real scrapper or a real idiot. Maybe a little of both. I respect the former, and, hey, who hasn't been an idiot at one time or another? Without the entrepreneurs, our free market would collapse. So, go small presses!

Yeah, that's a topic for Old-Fashioned Thoughts.

The one thing concerning me most about PYP is the very clear disclaimer that marketing will pretty much be up to me. That's true of small presses, by the way, even Marcher Lord. They don't have the money for extensive advertising. On the other hand, it's not much different than if I self-published, so I'm trying not to freak out too much. If this is the deal-breaker, so be it.

They want to know my marketing plan. I don't have a plan. Well, I kind of have a plan. Once upon a time, Elder Brother gave some excellent marketing advice in a comment on my first whiny-butt post. I'll start with that. I also have some time to read up a bit on marketing. I bet Dave Ramsey has a few recommended books on the subject, or Seth Godin.

They recommend a FB page. Got that. It's currently coated in FV posts, but I have one. I will probably try creating a "business" FB page if this goes well. No point in creating one until I'm ready to use it, and I'm not quitting FV to look serious about writing. Of that, I am certain. I will farm less, but I will not stop until The Users pull the plug (God forbid). I also don't want my FB page to be open to just any yahoo who claims to be a fan. Only real fan yahoos need apply. A business page will, I think, take care of that.

A website is recommended. Got that. Spent yesterday updating it. Now that I have a printer with a scan option, I want to upload some of my illustrations for Elementals. I have a few drawings of Caissa, too.

They want a "book proposal" along with the chapters. I'm not sure I know what they mean by that. I should probably ask.

There's a questionnaire to fill out if I catch their interest. It's posted on their site. It doesn't concern me too much. For all my arrogance, I don't think anyone would classify me as a "prima donna," and that's what many of the questions seem intent on probing. My first reaction is always "no!" and "run!" but I rarely commit to my first reaction. I know my instincts suck. I do need 24 hours to process, but does that make me hard to work with? I'd rather balk at the beginning and do it, than agree first and not do it. Didn't Jesus have a parable about that?

When PYP first came to my attention, I intended to write a post about "timing," and how I'm either early or late. I realized, for once, this seems to be right on time. That doesn't mean it will work out. It just means for me, "poor timing" seems to be a subjective issue not an objective one.

We'll see how it goes.

Weak Reaction

At the risk of incurring Elder Brother's wrath, I will indulge in a little whiny-buttism under cover of musing.

Last year's MLS contest showed up when I wasn't ready. I suppose I could argue I was totally ready since nothing came of it, but I didn't feel ready.

Last night, a new small press appeared on FB, PYP, which is looking for YA fantasy of 50 - 100K words. Sound like a book you may have heard about recently?

My first reaction? Panic. Reluctance. Uncertainty. A strong desire to go to bed and not think about it.

This is my first reaction to every new situation: panic, reluctance, uncertainty. In therapy school, I learned it's a "weak" reaction as opposed to a "strong" reaction. Removing the negative and positive connotations, the words in this context simply mean rather than charging like a bull, I slip away like a rabbit when confronted. How about snake? I'd rather be a snake than a rabbit. I slip away like a non-poisonous snake.

So, this PYP is brand new and looking for books that almost exactly match Elementals.
Where do I focus? On the issue of cutting 8000 words to qualify.

I'm already cutting words. What's the big deal about cutting more?

I don't want to. Why don't I want to? Because someone else wants me to. How immature is that? I could only act worse if I thumbed my nose and shouted "nanny-nanny, boo-boo." It's that old sin nature rearing its ugly head to say "you can't make me."

I could also say cutting 500 extraneous words is one thing, but cutting a chapter or two is something else entirely and I don't know how I'd do it. That would move the immaturity factor back into the realm of problem-solving instead of knee-jerking.

As I think about it, October is a whole month of 30+ days away. I should be able to revise this book in 30 days, and maybe if I get close enough to 100K, the editor will have some suggestions on what to cut. Or not. Maybe she'll bend and say okay to what's there. Hey, if I'm going to go with arrogance, I may as well go all the way, right?

I could always get rid of the prologue.

Favorite Books? Hmm.

Autumn approaches. This happens after every summer solstice, but I dread it more each year. Yes, I love sleeping in the cool, but I hate waking up to cold air. I hate it when the sun takes a bit longer each morning to arrive. I do not bounce out of bed in the dark months. I will have to rearrange my FV schedule.

Yesterday Wordcrafter posted his top 10 favorite books. If he's anything like me (and we share some personality traits) he had a hard time winnowing down to 10. I have a special shelf with about 30 books on it, and I would be hard-pressed to pick even 10 to qualify as my favorites.

Each book on that shelf taught me something - something about life, something about writing, something about imagination. So, this isn't an exhaustive list, but here are some of my most cherished.

In the Something About Life category:

Anything by George MacDonald. The Lost Princess is probably my most quoted/mulled/applied, but I love his short stories -"The Light Princess," "The Day Boy and The Night Girl," "The Golden Key" - as well as his longer books like The Princess and the Goblins and Lilith. He has a way of illustrating deep principles in memorable characters. I do not wonder why C.S. Lewis admired him so greatly.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. My copy is almost entirely underlined. I might as well memorize the thing.

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. I've posted on it before, so I won't elaborate here. It even made a fairly decent movie.

In the Something About Writing category:

Anything by Anne McCaffrey. No other author has influenced me so heavily. Yes, all her books have some obvious themes/characters - the extraordinarily gifted yet misunderstood and persecuted youth, the ambitious slut, the psi-abilities. Still, she has wonderful descriptive turns of phrase and her worlds are fully realized, if only because she's written like a 100 books. The White Dragon is probably the one I've read the most.

Jerusalem Fire by R. M Meluch. This was the first complicated sci-fi book I ever read. It has numerous characters and character back-stories, plus an alien world and culture at once familiar and totally unknown. Fascinating.

Dune by Frank Herbert. Another complicated sci-fi book. Maybe it had something to do with Kyle McLachlan playing Paul Mua'dib, but I love this book. I hate the rest. I learned too late I didn't want to know what happened to Paul.

In the Something About Imagination category:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. How a book with a nihilistic worldview can be so funny continues to puzzle me, but I laugh out loud every time. Especially when listening to the audio book read by the author. Irony and a British accent are made for each other. This is a book where the weirdest, most horrible thing will happen next, but since it isn't happening to me, I'm okay with it.

E.T. The Book of the Green Planet by William Kotzwinkle. Don't laugh. Ever wonder what happens to the little guy after he gets on the ship? He goes home to a world of plant-based technology, that's what, and with the help of his friend the Flopglopple works his flat bottom off to get back to Earth and Elliott. This is one cool planet and one surprisingly good read.

Golem in the Gears by Piers Anthony. I could put almost any early Xanth novel in here, but this is my favorite because I love Rapunzel of the magic hair. Xanth was something completely new, and while the stories are all basically the same characters with different coloring, the original idea is sound.

I have one book I love that doesn't fit into these three categories. Maybe that makes it my favorite.

101 Dalmations by Dodie Smith. Because of this book, I will not watch the Disney movie. They got Missus' name wrong. See, the happy couple are Pongo and Missus Pongo. Perdita was a liver-spotted Dalmatian who got brought in as a wet-nurse to help Missus with the original 15 puppies. Thanks to this book, I love tea with milk and hot-buttered toast.

While I'm thinking about it, I suppose I should add Elfquest. It's a series of 20 comic books, not a novel per se, but it influenced me in all three categories.

You'll notice Tolkien isn't on my list. While he did set the standard for almost all fantasy books to come after him (and several generations of role-playing geeks) and created a world and characters I love like family, I don't actually like his writing style all that much. He's long-winded, and I just plain skip over his poetry. The Hobbit is the most readable, but some 60% of the population can't get past the first 100 pages of The Fellowship of the Ring. I've read the series three or four times, but it isn't on my special shelf.

A Pox on Love

This is another post on marriage. Ready?

Love should have nothing to do with the decision to marry or the decision to divorce, for that matter.
Yep, that right there almost makes me unAmerican. 'Cause everybody knows love is the only reason to marry. Be sure to use the sing-song-y emphasis on that italicized word, like this: luuuuhve.
Do I have to resort to the Greek lesson here? Does anyone want to hear another sermon about the difference between eros and agape?

I don't know when it started. Maybe with movies. Probably before that. We Americans seem to think being in love is a requirement for marriage and falling out of love is a reason to quit.

I flatly disagree. I don't believe in soul mates, or love at first sight, or only having one chance at happiness. Happiness is a choice. Unless you're married to Satan, a marriage can be good. And if the father of lies is willing to make it work, even that might turn out okay. Hmm. Maybe not.

Love isn't blind, it's stupid. People who marry are "stupid in love" not "blinded by love." They are intoxicated by some kind of chemical wash overriding reasonable brain activity and making them determined to forge ahead despite all warning signs to the contrary. My time in therapy only cemented this belief.

This same kind of chemical wash keeps us from smothering crying babies the first night. It has to be God-designed to allow for propagation of the species. So I can't fault people for thinking the presence of this feeling is a reason to marry or the lack of this feeling is a reason to leave. Oh wait, yes I can. We ought to know better.

Dare I offer a Biblical example? Deut 22:13-21. If a bride's virginity is doubted and then proved, the husband has to pay the parents a fee for dishonoring their daughter and keep her as a wife. Can you imagine how much fun that house would be to live in? Yet God commands His people to do it. Why? Because He's serious about the commitment of marriage, and He understands love is a verb, not a noun.

TT: All you Biblical scholars who want to give me grief about misapplying Biblical texts, feel free. It is an example of the importance of solid marriages to society, whether we practice it today or not.

Have you noticed love is the main argument in our current culture war concerning marriage? If love is the only requirement for marriage, why not allow anyone to do it? Oh wait, we are.

I read a story years ago about a Swedish woman who married a dolphin. How does that work? I mean, if she dies first, does the dolphin get everything, including the car? If that dolphin gets caught in a tuna net and drowned, is it murder? What constitutes adultery in that relationship? Where exactly are they supposed to live? Whose parents do they visit on holidays, and who gets custody of any children they might adopt?

Am I making my point here? Love has nothing to do with whether or not to marry.

Love is a symptom of a good marriage, not a precondition. Love grows. As children are produced, as problems are faced, as good time are had, love grows. You should love your spouse more at the end of your life than the beginning, and that only happens when the feeling of love isn't the main goal.

Now, I will acknowledge some kind of mutual attraction is useful. I would not care to enter into a marriage where I did not see the possibility of love growing (hence, "no" to Satan should he ever ask). But it is by no means impossible to have a great marriage even when love is sparse at the beginning.

So, if you possibly can, marry first, fall in love afterward. If it's too late to do it the smart way, don't worry too much. You have the rest of your life to really fall in love with the spouse you have.

Gore

I cannot seem to stop myself. I write gore.

I don't intend to do it. I don't start out with a blank screen and think, "How gross can I get with this?" It just happens.

I'm typing along, a battle scene comes up and heads start flying. Eyes get gouged, limbs are severed and blood spurts with arterial regularity.

See? I just did it again.

Irony? I'm squeamish. I couldn't watch any of this stuff happen. If I saw it on screen, I'd have to turn away or get sick. Maybe both. I can't stomach (heh) the thought of doing any of the things my characters do. I would never eat a person's heart out, even if he did try to kill my dog. Well, maybe. Hmm.

The gore trips a lot of folks up, too. Perfectly nice people turn green and skip pages. You'd think that alone would make me stop writing it.

But I can't. I mean, if a fire-breathing dragon attacks a city full of flower-clad civilians, there's gonna be some gore. I would argue, there's going to be a lot of gore, and, yes, I seem to write it all down.

This is one of those things that got debated during the MLS contest. I'm afraid I don't remember the name of the entry, but it began with a battle scene involving demons and swords and cowering humans. Things got bloody, as I would expect when swords are involved.

TT: Is that why Lucas invented lightsabres? To get around the gore factor that might catapult Star Wars into the dreaded "R" realm? On the other hand, lightsabres are just cool, so maybe it was a two-for-one.

My biggest issue with the whole entry was it wasn't bloody enough. After a second read, I saw a few more demons going squish, but it was a bit clinical for a fight to the dismemberment. I was in the minority on this one.

Now, I'm not one of those who would argue for writing incorporating such things for the purposes of realism. I would never justify foul language in my writing using that argument, and I am shocked when I read foul language in literature labeled Christian. I also tread carefully around the use of sex in a story. I'm a firm believer that some things should be private (and that goes for real life, too!). But gore is an area where my hypocrisy runs rampant.

Can I blame the Bible for this? Remember left-handed Ehud and the sword through the fat king's belly? I love that story (Judges 3:15-25). Or the prophets who challenged Moses during the Wandering and got "consumed" with fire from heaven? God directed the Levites to go among their "smoldering remains" to collect the melted bronze censors and turn them into the altar cover (Don't believe me? Numbers 16:36-40).

I'm not writing scripture, so I will not claim God directs me in my gory details. No, it seems to be my own black heart that spits up this stinky, slurpy goop. Another irony? It doesn't affect me when I write it. I'm like a chef wearing goggles while chopping onions. I have no idea what kind of stench I've created until someone else walks in and yells about it.

So, I'm sorry for the gore. I don't see it going away. I'll try not to bury too many important details in the steaming pile of entrails, but that's the best I can do.

Camping Out in Reviews

Yesterday, my blog's Google Ads had something about learning how to kiss. I suppose they think that relates to marriage. It kinda does. Focus on the Family interviewed an author who said one of the most important tricks to maintaining a marriage is the good-bye kiss, and it should involve the swapping of spit. Grossed out, I walked away for a bit, but for those married folk who aren't as germaphobic as I am, have at it. On with the post.

I recently read a warning from an author about how writers like to "camp out in reviews." I'm not sure that's the exact wording but it's close. It got me wondering "Is that true?"

Do writers prefer to review other writers' stuff? Prefer it to what? Writing their own stuff?

I don't like to write reviews. I don't mind discussing bits of a book, but I'm not good with the "summing up."

On the other hand, many of the blogs I follow regularly review books, movies, video games, whatever. I have reviewed some movies and TV show episodes myself when excited or disgusted enough.

TT: Fringe should be starting up soon. Woo-hoo!

Studying someone else's writing is beneficial. If you've put in the time, why not write about it? 
I see two caveats, and this is probably what that author was talking about.

One, review-writing could be a way to avoid writing your own stuff. That would be a bad thing, if you think you are supposed to be writing your own stuff.

Two, readers might get tired of reading reviews all the time. Fact is, I get tired of it. I don't have the money to buy all the recommended books I've seen, so I tend to skip reviews unless I'm bored or avoiding work.

In the blogs I follow, I haven't noticed anyone neglecting their own writing in favor of writing reviews. (How could I possibly notice that? I can't, really, but the discussions about their own writing journeys don't seem significantly impacted by the presence of reviews. Plus, it's possible review-writing is the current leg of their writing journey. I can't fault anyone for that.)

As for Caveat Two, well, that's the risk we all take when we pick a topic of the day.

I've already decided I need to read more. I don't know if this will translate into more reviews.

I don't read like I used to. My eyes get tired faster, and my attention wanders more. I've been working on that Agatha Christie book for two weeks, and its about 100 pages. I just can't bring myself to care. I will admit, though, she has a few "gem" sentences in there, like "she followed her bust out of the room." Classic. If only she didn't use so many exclamation points!

0 : - )

Conclusions?

One, it may be a true statement that most writers like to camp out in reviews.

Two, I'm not most writers.

But we knew that, didn't we?

Prologues and The Longest Sentence Ever

I never paid much attention to prologues. To my mind, if the info was that important, it would turn up somewhere else in the body of the story. I tended to think of them as trivia repositories, and, oddly enough, avoided them unless I was really bored.

This was a matter of some debate during last year's MLS contest. Sword of the Patron started it all with an action-packed prologue detailing events three months prior to the action in the first chapter. Some folks were annoyed with this. I would normally have skipped the prologue altogether and been unaffected. Since it was a contest, I had to read it.

This was the first time I saw a use for the prologue. Sometimes, an author has important info that doesn't fit smoothly into the body of the story. A prologue can introduce that info in a way the reader accepts. It's kind of like "telling" without offense.

The prologue should be well-written, and hopefully have the flavor of the rest of the story, but it doesn't necessarily have to make sense right then. I'm more open to reading them now, and using them if I wish.

In another of those great ironies to which I am prone, I had written a prologue years ago for Elementals. Since the story is about two sisters who each have their own adventures, I wanted to introduce them at the same time. A little "quick background," as it were, to set the stage.
After the prologue debate, I decided to keep the prologue in the story. I actually intend to record myself reading it and post it as a file on my website on the Elementals' page (I have not yet decided if I will read it in my own voice or Stuffy English Guy voice). It's not very long, only a few hundred words, really, but it does contain a ridiculously long sentence. Here's the first paragraph:

  The Aveesan sepulcher is the heart of the mountain city. All occasions of notice are honored within its hall - births, betrothals, judgments, and, most importantly, deaths. Carved from living stone first by water then by the industrious hands of the first Aveesan settlers, the semi-circular tomb reaches through layer upon layer of rock until the mountain itself ends and the sky gleams through a hexagonal opening above. This was the first of three openings into the sepulcher and not meant for the living to use. The spirits of the honored dead would escape to the heavens through that gate.

I bolded it in case you hadn't noticed how ridiculously long that sentence is. I've cut it down, actually. It used to have another modifying phrase. Word's Grammar Check hates this sentence. Maybe it's just the dangling preposition at the end.

TT: I just noticed some tense issues. Is it okay to start with a present tense sentence and shift to past tense in the same graph? I have found this kind of issue throughout the mss as I'm revising. I suppose some moments I felt closer to the action than others. Ah well. I'll pull out my English for Dummies textbook and figure it out.

I could argue that sentence is my zooming set-up shot. The camera begins at the ground and pans up to the highest point of the ceiling. It is definitely the kind of sentence Stuffy English Guy would read. It is representative of the ornate, ritualized culture of the Aveese. It is not representative of the tone of the rest of the book. Does that make it wrong?

I suppose it's one of those things I could present to a critique group. I have several of those things in this story. The problem, as my Best Friend pointed out, is I trust my own skill too much. I control my story worlds, I decide what happens there, and my brain often coughs up things I don't understand at the time but somehow work to my advantage later. If I doubted myself every time that happened, I would never write again.

Wow, I just got more arrogant than usual. Sorry.

I am not attached to this sentence. It is long. I just can't decide if it's too long. Since I don't have to decide at the moment, I'll move on and come back to it if I must.

Now, if I can just keep the cats quiet for two and a half minutes, maybe I can get it recorded. While I'm asking for a miracle, Lord, can I have a Suburu Outback, too?

Who's Telling The Truth?

When I read Christian fiction, I've noticed a tendency to wonder which character is speaking or exemplifying the author's worldview.

I don't remember ever questioning the motives of secular authors. With secular books I look for universal truths, but I don't expect them to be presented with intention. That's an odd thing to say, I suppose. I just realized it's an odd thing to think. I expect a secular author to tell a compelling story, but I don't expect him to radically change my understanding of Life, the Universe and Everything.
This bias may be the result of worshipping at the bookshelf of C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. I seem to believe a Christian author should tell a true story, i.e., a story that expresses some universal truth.

I also seem to expect that truth to come from a particular character, usually the hero.

I don't think I'm alone in this expectation. In the critiques I've received for Star of Justice from authors and non-authors I've gotten questions about "What really happened?," "Are you trying to say...?" or "So, who's the Christian here?"

Ready for the irony? I expect something from others I don't do myself. I cannot point to a single character in Star of Justice who embodies my entire set of beliefs as a Christian. No single character has a complete understanding of God as He exists in the story, let alone a complete understanding of what really happens during the course of the book. Each character has pieces of truth, but none of them has it all.

As an author, I wanted to answer the most pressing questions, but leave room for speculation, too. Maybe I'm the only person in the world who thinks about a book after I've read it. Maybe. At the rate some of my new writer friends turn out reviews I don't know they would have time for processing a book.

(I don't mean that as a slam. Maybe they process faster than I do. Maybe they don't need to process. I have issues with mastery. Part of my OCD. I want to know the why as well as the what. I know why things happen in my stories, whether I state it or not. I want to have those answers to the obscure question at the book-signing.)

There seems to be a tendency in Christian writing (or possibly Christian assumptions about Christian writing) to make the main character The Hero, the good guy. Technically, the main character is the Protagonist. The Protagonist spends the most time in the spotlight but is not necessarily the good guy. The word itself (while being remarkably difficult to type quickly) is neutral.

Caissa is a Protagonist, not a Hero. She does follow the Hero's Journey as outlined by Keven Newsome of The New Author's Fellowship, but I would not classify her as a Hero in the traditional sense. I would not expect any reader to find universal truths about God spilling out of her mouth. Truths about human nature? Absolutely. About God? Not so much.

She also does not overtly express my beliefs about God. She might express my beliefs about what some people believe about God, but that's not the same thing.

I suppose my conclusion is to relax and let the story unfold. I should allow the characters to be themselves and not little projections of the author.  I'll be thinking about the story for days afterward anyway. Why worry upfront?

More on Marriage

I got a little crazy last night. Seems many couples I know are experiencing marital difficulties right now. Some of them are about stupid things. Some of them are serious. Some of them could have been prevented. All of them are painful.

Perhaps yesterday's post belonged in Old Fashioned Thoughts, but my beliefs about marriage are so much a part of who I am they will appear in anything I write.

The sanctity of marriage is a major theme in Elementals. The seriousness of the arranged marriage is the driving force of every character. Divorce is not an option in that society, no matter how complicated or uncomfortable a marriage may be.

I wanted that idea in the book because I don't see it anywhere in today's society. Maybe with the Amish. I don't know. I don't read Amish romances.

Operation Rolling Thunder places marriage as one of the seven major issues needing prayer today. I encourage you to pray for marriage as a whole. Satan understands how important it is. That's why his efforts are focused on destroying it however he can.

Support marriage. If you are married, work at it. Remember your first love - your wife or husband. Remember why you got married in the first place and tend that spark until it once again burns in your heart. If love has faded it's because you let it. Shame on you.

Support married couples, young and old. When someone comes to you to complain about a problem, remind them of their commitment and help them see the long view. Don't commiserate with selfishness. One of the major causes of divorce is friends who encourage it. Don't be one of those.

If you're not married, consider long and hard before you make that commitment. Don't stay in a relationship where marriage is not an option, and for goodness' sake, don't remain unmarried when you have children together. Put on your big boy pants and man up to your responsibilities. Give those children a real name and a real place in your life. Then do the man-lier thing and make your marriage work.

And, women, don't you settle for less than marriage. Marriage is the safest place for you to be - financially, emotionally and physically, and no Femi-nazi has yet come out with a legitimate study that says otherwise. Don't believe the lie that you can have it all with no responsibility. That's nonsense.

Can you tell I'm passionate about this? I may not practice Marriage and Family Therapy anymore, but I know how important strong marriages are.

Dear friends, tend your marriage. Pour your energy into loving your spouse and encouraging other married couples to do the same. Let's turn our society around before it's too late.

And for those damaged by divorce, love them. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a marriage cannot be endured. A selfish, unreasonable spouse is like dragging a dead ox while plowing a field. If society itself is not structured to force that spouse to conform, divorce may be the only remaining option. Just be sure it's the last option, not the first.

Well, I don't know how to end this second rant in a row. Perhaps with a prayer:

Lord, strengthen marriage. Grant each spouse Your grace and patience to practice within the marriage relationship. Help us to fight for marriage as You fight for us. Help us to remember marriage is representative of your relationship with us The Church. Bless our marriages and keep them holy, as You are holy. In Christ's precious name, Amen.

Marriage

Prepare for a rant, my good readers. I am ready to blow.

"Mawage. Mawage is what bwings us togevher today." For the seven people in America who don't know, that's from The Princess Bride. It's a joke, an ornate priest with a funny voice and speech impediment.

It's not funny today. When did he become the symbol for marriage?

People seem to think marriage is all about love, and happiness, and feeling good. What a load of rot!
Marriage is about commitment. When you say "I do," you commit to do it. To work at it. To suffer through the horrible parts, even when they seem too horrible to bear.

Love helps. Love is why you continue to work, because you love that spouse. But commitment is the reason.

A marriage is the basic building block of society. Marriage - one man, one woman - leads to family, the next building block. Family provides a safe place to create children and rear them into adults.
Most animals don't mate for life because they can't. If a finch only took one mate, we'd be out of finches in a generation because finches die all the time. A finch's life is hard and short and they have to pop out baby finches while they can with any male available at the time. Finches don't get sexually-transmitted diseases, by the way, which means nature intended for them to act like that.

Humans mate for life because it takes a lifetime to teach that little alien what it means to be human. A human child becomes physically mature between 11 and 18, but it spends its entire life becoming mature in other ways. A human needs its mother and father, and grandparents, and siblings to teach it to become human.

Marriage is how that happens. Marriage provides a safe place for a daughter to see how to be a wife and mother, for a son to see how to be a husband and father. Marriage is how children learn to contribute to society within a partnership. Marriage teaches vulnerability to another person, and solidarity when the world is against you. Marriage increases income, shares responsibility and stabilizes society as a whole.

When did it become the norm to view marriage as something you do while it feels good?

You can't trust feelings. If I followed my feelings, I'd eat ice cream and cake for every meal and die of complications from diabetes at 50. Come to think of it, that fate awaits many Americans right now.

Don't trust your feelings. God gave you a brain to use. Humans aren't finches. We are a higher order of animals, able to master our feelings and do the right thing, even we when don't like it.

I'm so sick of hearing "Well, I'm not happy anymore." It makes me as sick as "abortion is the woman's choice," another example of following feelings into a decision that will dramatically worsen her life and eliminate the life of another.

It's not about feelings. Feelings change like the wind.

Marriage is a choice. Once it's made, it should be made forever. 'Til death do us part.

My parents had a saying. "Divorce, never. Murder, maybe."

We need a little more of that kind of commitment today. From everyone. Our society is falling apart because our citizens are putting their own selfish wants ahead of their commitments. Our government pays woman to have children out of wedlock, removing the man from the house and leaving him free to join a drug gang instead of honoring his duty to his children and the woman who should be his wife. Our courts allow divorces of "no fault," so any drunken idiot in Vegas can undo what they shouldn't have done in the first place. Our "friends" council us to leave that terrible situation instead of working through it. I mean, who could possibly put up with a husband who wants to buy a motorcycle? What a jerk!

Good heavens, people, wake up! Don't you see how selfishness is destroying us? Families with layers of step-children and ex-spouses. Children who won't allow themselves to get close to a parent because they don't know how long that parent will be around, a trait they repeat in adulthood, by the way. Adults who would rather live together outside of marriage because the taxes are lower and it's easier to leave when things get too hard. Just pack up whichever kids you like or get welfare checks for and move on.

I don't have the words to express my frustration with that kind of thinking, that kind of selfishness. I don't need the words. The chaos rages around us, and yet we wander along, whistling and staring at clouds.

You've heard "marriage is 50/50."

Wrong. Marriage is 100%. From you. If you can't give it, don't offer it. And you don't give it only if the other person is doing the same. It's your commitment. The only one you control is you.

I am not a "stay married no matter what" advocate. Some things cannot and should not be endured.  But I do believe most of the problems that plague marriage today could be solved if both people believed their only choices were solve it or live with it for the next 60 years. You aren't motivated to work at something when you think you have an out.

Divorce should be hard. It should be harder and more painful than marriage. It should cost money and social standing. It should leave a stigma on its practitioners that warns others not to choose it as an option.

It used to do that, and society as a whole was more stable for it.

Yes, horrible things happened then. But horrible things happen now, too. Divorce doesn't stop violence, end arguments or increase the safety of children. Most of the time, it multiplies those things. We have 30 years of "no fault" examples to prove that.

We will never solve the human condition of fallen-ness until Christ returns. I wish we could stop adding to it.

Marriage is serious. Marriage is hard. But when done right, marriage is the closest two humans will ever come to understanding the Trinity this side of eternity. It is worth fighting for.

Please, please, my friends, fight for it. Encourage your friends to fight for it, too.

10 Hours

I picked up Elementals. I read the whole thing in about 10 hours.

I was a bit annoyed.

Not with the story. With the story, I was pleased. It's been a year since I looked at it, and it's okay. I have some tense issues to work out, and some details to smooth, but for a first draft? Not too shabby.

No, I was disappointed with the amount of time it took me to read it.

I don't remember how long it took to write. I didn't have any huge events by which to mark the time as I did with Star of Justice. I'm thinking between two and three months. That's sporadic writing.
Heavens, when I think about how I labored over that story, it's a miracle it got written at all. I was more inclined to throw my mouse at the wall than tackle one more battle of wills with the Achnoi Queen. Sheer cussedness got me through it. That and a feeling Dyana would slap me if I didn't woman up and finish.

But 10 hours?

That's a pretty fast read. Right now, it's about 108,000 words. Simple words, too. No big plot complications. No mysteries. No in-depth character back story. No plans for other stories with these characters (although I might be able to squeeze one out if I had to). I don't even have a name for this planet.

But 10 hours?

I tried to keep it short. My goal was "fast and easy." I suppose I achieved it.

But 10 hours... It doesn't seem like much, does it? That's shorter than the LoTR extended trilogy. Way shorter if you watch the special edition items about fashion, horses and weapons like I do.

Maybe 10 hours is okay. I mean, that's a weekend book. A "start it in the reading room and take it with you into the living room" kind of book. A book that keeps you up to the wee hours on a work night because the chapters are so short you imagine you can afford to turn one more page.

That's the trick, after all. The page-turning. You want a reader to become absorbed in a story. That leads to word-of-mouth promotion and happy thoughts the next time she sees your name in a bookstore.

I expect this to publish before Star of Justice. I kind of hope it does. My greatest concern with my first book is that readers would expect me to always write books like it. Frankly, I don't know if I could.

But books like Elementals? Yeah, I have a few more of those up my keyboard.

Right now, I need to polish this rock and see just how shiny it will get.

When Did I Stop Reading?

New writers hear it all the time. Good writers are good readers. Read all the time. Never stop reading.
So when did I stop reading?

I'm gonna have to blame college. Pre-college I had spending money (spelled A-L-L-O-W-A-N-C-E), I had time (spelled N-O-J-O-B) and I had no friends (spelled L-O-S-E-R).

During college, I had money only for textbooks, a whole dormful of people who started to become interesting the longer we spent together, and a brain full of my own story ideas demanding to be written on my newly purchased for college laptop computer.

TT: If only I'd had the maturity I have now, I would have finished those stories then instead of revisiting them now. Oh well. I choose to believe those stories will find new depths. Yeah, that could be arrogance talking.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I stopped reading altogether. I read about 6 textbooks in their entirety in my 6 years of college, and most of those were for the same class.

I could also blame Mr. Freidline, I suppose, from 7th grade. He was the first teacher who made me write a book report that included a critique. I remember telling him I wasn't qualified to judge someone else's writing. He said I was the only one qualified to give my opinion about it.

Wrong thing to teach me. That's when my "journey of disgust" began, but it took college to really get me climbing that mountain of disdain.

I have become that "two pages or else" reader. Pre-college I always finished a book, thinking if someone took the time to write it, the least I could do is read it. No more. I have thrown books away after a chapter. I don't tolerate inconsistency, poor grammar or stupid characters anymore. I called that an "occupational hazard" in an earlier post.

I doubt I'll find much argument that the quality of literature as a whole has declined in the last 15 years. Many books nowadays are garbage, plain and simple. I blame the writers, of course. When you write from a post-modern worldview of "nothing matters" and "everything is meaningless including grammar," your writing will be garbage.

Cost was another factor. Pre-college books were $2.95 or $3.95. Post-college books were $7.95 and part of a series of 12. That's a lot of money to invest in something I might throw away after 20 pages.
You might argue I could go to the library, but I've explained before I keep books I like. You can't keep library books, and most of them are out of print, which leaves me out of luck. Why would I do that to myself?

And the topics! Again, the post-modern worldview shows up as immorality as a matter of course, unquestioned macro-evolution in the sci-fi realm and goddess/pantheism in the fantasy realm, and I can't blame myself for not reading anymore.

At least, I couldn't.

See, college was where I got broke and gained friends. Now I'm alone and occasionally have a little spending money. I've discovered some good writers are out there if I'm willing to look for them (my thanks to Splashdown Books and Marcher Lord Press for giving them a chance). My only reason for not reading now is I'm out of the habit.

And FV is free.

Difficult People

Yesterday's sermon was presented by a guest pastor on 1 Sam 24. He introduced his sermon with the sentence "This is a passage about dealing with difficult people."

Difficult people? Yeah, right. I Sam 24 is one of the numerous occasions Saul is trying to kill David and David spares his life.

Saul was a homicidal maniac. That seems a bit more than "difficult" to me.

However, the pastor's points were valid, possibly even for dealing with homicidal maniacs.

His point, and I would agree it is one of the points of the passage, is forgiveness trumps revenge. I might argue other historical accounts show it better. Joseph's treatment of his brothers, for example.
The desire for revenge is so strong God limited it in his legal code for the Israelites. "An eye for an eye" wasn't a command to take someone's eye. It was a limitation of you can only do as much as was done to you. Even that isn't God's desire for us.

According to Jesus "You have heard it said 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I say love your enemy and do good to those that hate you."

Jesus knows forgiveness is the only way to regain power over your own life. To hate another person damages you far more than it damages him.

One of my favorite statements from yesterday's sermon was "Hatred is like acid. It destroys its container before it destroys its object."

Forgiveness doesn't come easy to Turtles. Doesn't matter. It is imperative to master it. My own life, my own health, my own eternity depends on it.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors..."

It is in my best interest to forgive others. Even homicidal maniacs.

TUTAW: Not Everyone Makes It

It's been a while since I wrote one of these. So long, I had to rack my brain to remember the meaning of the acrostic The Ugly Truth About Writing.

Nature gives us plenty of examples of "the survival of the fittest." Probably one of the reasons macro-evolution seems to work at first glance. Salmon, rabbits, sperm...whales. Just kidding. I meant sperm. In fact, almost everything that exists does so in large numbers because life is hard and things die in all manner of ways. I've figured out rabbits are the popcorn of the wild kingdom. Not terribly filling unless you eat two or three buckets' worth. Poor little bunnies.

The concept applies to people, too. Not that we're getting eaten, but that in any given situation very few "make it." Not every good sports' player makes it into the professional world. Not every job applicant gets hired. Not every writer gets published.

Nowadays, the odds of getting published are better in some ways and worse in others. Someone determined to see his name in print can always self-publish. The Internet has opened up a whole new way to connect with that niche market you want to reach. According to...oh, what's his name...Seth Godin? you only need a certain number of devoted fans to maintain you. The trick is keeping them happy enough to remain devoted.

However, the same Internet that opens possibilities to you opens them to others. More people than ever may dream of publication, and now they can submit as easily as you can. The market is flooded with baby writers looking for a break.

Of course, I'm speaking of people determined to get published. I haven't taken into account writing skill, storyline, marketable audience, or any other factor.

The fact is, you can be a fabulous writer with a great book, but if you never submit, you can't be published. And I've read enough horrible books to wonder how many of the authors are related to the publisher or sleeping with the editor. There is no other explanation for how they got printed.

I've become convinced of two things.

First, getting published requires perseverance. P.A. Baines of The New Authors' Fellowship is a perfect example. The man has written for 14 years (if I remember correctly) and is finally getting his first book Alpha Redemption published by Splashdown Books. Congrats on that, P.A.  He persevered and soon he'll be a published author. The hard part will be Book II. Good luck with that.

Second, sometimes it doesn't. We've all heard about the lady who tells her book idea to the guy in the elevator who ends up being the head of a major publishing company and she gets published without even sending a query letter. Hey, it's the exceptions that prove the rule, right? Don't assume that'll be you, though, even if you spend your free time loitering in the elevator at major publishing companies.
Fact is, most of us who write will never get published. We'll get eaten by something along the way, even if it's only our own indolence.

But that's how it is. As Tom Hanks said in A League of Their Own: "Of course it's hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it."

Frankly, I'd rather see the prize go to someone who worked for it than someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. But I'm funny that way.

Call Me Samson

Not really. Samson is one of the more despicable people in the Old Testament. He was a terrible judge and a terrible person. If anybody deserved to get his eyes gouged out and spend his life grinding wheat, it was that guy. I suppose he's proof that God uses anyone to get His will done.

He is a bit of a puzzlement, though. I mean, God picked him. God told his mom to follow the rules of the Nazarite because Samson would be one. But Samson sure didn't honor God with his life. One of those stories of the Bible where you get to work at it. Lots of places like that. Study is good for growth.

That Samson and I should have anything in common is not flattering to me.

However, my mood has brightened in direct proportion to the length of my hair. Now that I am able to pull it back into a -albeit stupid-looking - queue, the depression has lifted and I can view the future with optimism. My strength is returning, as it were.

How sad! I knew I was vain, but I had no idea my hair was so much a part of who I am.

When watching V for Vendetta, I couldn't understand what the big whoop was about Eve getting her head shaved.

Totally get it now. Lord grant such a fate never befalls me. This is as close as I want to get. I can promise you, I won't get this close again. Not deliberately.

It's Not You

You've heard the same rumors I have. Sometimes authors put real people into their books. They put that little disclaimer in there - you know the one - to assure people they aren't the bad guy or the village idiot or the hunky studmuffin, but we don't really believe it.

Well, believe it with me. 

The reason is simple. I'm far too self-centered to know anyone else well enough to put them into my books.

All characters are me. Different bits of me but definitely me. Me as I am, me as I wish I was, me as I could be if... All me.

Sorry if I burst your bubble. Happy if I prevented a lawsuit.

Just relax and enjoy the book, okay?

'Cause trust me, you're not in it.

Unless I tell you you are.

Agatha Christie? Really?

I've heard from two sources (both British, so maybe "grain of salt" time) that Agatha Christie is the best-selling author of all time.

Is that true? How can that be?

I have 3 Agatha Christie novels: Poirot Investigates, The Patriotic Murders and Why Didn't They Ask Evans? I must have gotten them on sale somewhere.

These are not what I consider classic literature. Granted, I've heard she wrote 39 books featuring Poirot, so maybe these aren't top quality, but I don't see it.

The format is odd. Everyone but Poirot is written in broad, stereotypical strokes. The story is advanced by sacrificing detail. I'm not impressed. I put Poirot Investigates back on the shelf, and I'm forcing myself to read The Patriotic Murders just to see if it gets any better.

Maybe it's the volume of books she wrote that make her the best-selling. Maybe all British schools require a class on her. Maybe she has a head start on other writers because she wrote in the 1940's.
Maybe it's that the books are short. A 100-page paperback is hardly intimidating. It fits neatly into purse or briefcase for those unexpected waiting room delays.

Whatever. I suppose, to be fair, I should find some of her better-known works, like Murder on the Orient Express, before pronouncing judgment on all her writing. Obviously, if she's The best-selling author, she did something right.

I'm just not sure what it was.

Interruptions

I stood on a street corner yesterday in the middle of the day and waved a sign for a candidate I support. It was hot, although thankfully God sent a lovely breeze and partly cloudy skies. I took my green umbrella as a sunshade, and I was glad to have it.

I had plenty of time for reflection on that corner. I've participated in the Chain of Life Network twice, so I know how to stand and pray in public while holding a sign. My sign this time was far less controversial than those times.

I prayed for those cars passing by. I prayed for our country, our judges, our President, our lawmakers, specifically those fighting the good fight. I prayed for family and friends and their futures. I asked for mercy on those who will sooner than they think feel the full force of this administration's terrible laws.

I couldn't help but wonder why I stood mostly alone. There were some other campaigners there, but my candidate had only me. Where were those who said they supported him? It was only two hours. Yes, it was hot, but not Mojave Desert hot. Could no one be interrupted for two hours on a Saturday? What else was so important?

Now, I don't have a lot of room to throw stones here. Actually the one who throws stones is generally the one with the most stones to throw (I think that's a quote from one of my books). We emailed almost a 1000 people about this event and got one "yes" back. I don't think that "yes" even showed.
I don't like to be interrupted. Call it my "linear nature," but I move in one direction at a time, and I don't care to be knocked off course.

But Jesus got interrupted all the time. He didn't whine or pout or snarl about it. He adapted. He used the time to good advantage and advanced the kingdom.

I am trying to be more open to interruptions when they happen. After all, is it more important that I harvest my FV crops or visit my remaining grandmother? I try to plan my day to do both.

It's called Eternal Perspective. It's hard to maintain in a time-limited world where life flies at us from all directions, but maintain it we must.

So, even when it's hot and annoying, I'm going to go wave that sign or hand out those water bottles or attend that judicial committee meeting. Does it interrupt my day? You bet. But it's important.

When I can apply this to sharing my faith, I'll really have achieved something.