The Reader in Me

Throughout the year we devote most of the space on our blog to discussions about writing. But like most writers, I'm also an avid reader. Occasionally, I hear a novelist or editor say they don't have time to read fiction, and honestly, I don't get it. I know time is precious, but I'd give up an hour (or more) of sleep a night before I'd give up reading fiction. It's the nightcap I look forward to. In 2009, I began keeping a log of the novels I read throughout the year. So far in 2010 I've read 52 novels. The total will probably be close to 60 before the year is through. Plus I read all the entries for our Audience with an Agent Contest, and judged 21 entries for the ACFW Genesis Contest. That doesn't count the non-fiction books I read, or the books on the craft of writing, which I place in a division all their own.

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This year I added a grade score to each of the novels I read. Of the 52 novels on my list, 15 received an A, which includes plus and minus; 18 received a B; 9 received a C; 3 received a D; and 7 received "no grade," because, in my mind, anyone who has the tenacity to write a novel and get it published deserves not to get an F, even if I don't care for the book.

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So today I'm going to put on my reader's hat and share with you my favorite novels from 2010, those that received an A in my book. I have to start with Where the River Ends by Charles Martin, because it received an A++ from me, as do almost all of his books. Charles is one of my favorite authors, and this is an excellent novel. He's interviewed this month on She Reads, our sister blog. You can read the interviews here, but be sure to scroll all the way down to get all the installments, including a great interview with Charles' wife, Christy.

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I'll also add A Conspiracy of Breath by our own Latayne Scott, which also received an A++ from me. Sorry, it's not yet published. (Don't mean to tease.) The others I'll list alphabetically by author:

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Try Darkness by James Scott Bell

What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (read 2 x in 2010; gave it an A both times ; )

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Lost Mission by Athol Dickson

The Sea Wolf by Jack London (I've read at least 5 x over the years)

To Dance in the Desert by Kathleen Popa (3rd time)

The Last Sin Eater by Francine Rivers (3rd time)

They Almost Always Come Home by Cynthia Ruchti (2nd time; 1st time I had the privilege to read an endorser's copy)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (2nd time)

Some Wildflower in My Heart by Jamie Langston Turner

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On my wish list for 2011: (believe me, this list is only in its infant stages)

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Paradise Valley by Dale Cramer

Life in Defiance by Mary DeMuth

Wonders Never Cease by Tim Downs (loved his Bug Man series)

Almost Heaven by Chris Fabry

The Rivers Run Dry by Sibella Giorello

Listen by Rene Gutteridge

The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin

Resurrection in May by Lisa Samson

Anything by the amazing women I blog with

The last page of my WIP

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So what about you? What were your favorite novels in 2010? And what title/author would you add to your wish list?

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As a thank you for your invaluable contribution to the discussions here, I'd like to offer Every Good & Perfect Gift, Lying on Sunday, and/or A Heavenly Christmas in Hometown for $8 each between now and December 15. Email me through my website if you'd like to place an order.

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And just for fun, for any Bill Cosby fans, you might enjoy watching these videos. They take a few minutes to load, but they're worth the wait. Here's part 1 and part 2.

In Lean Times, We Learn to Give All the More

Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all Humanity

Thanksgiving Roundtable

We love spending the bulk of the year exploring different aspects of the writing process and publishing industry, and today we want to take time to recognize what we are most thankful for.

Okay, so I'll start, and I'll begin at an unlikely spot: rejection. No one wants it - that feeling of failure and disappointment when someone calls your baby 'ugly.' You get defensive and you take it personally.But rejection can also be thought of as re-direction. The experience is more about what isn't right than what is wrong. It can determine the direction your book will take through a process of elimination until it finds the right place to land. I am grateful for the rejections that channeled my books to the homes they found and that God's intention for my story will be accomplished, even if the writing of it was for my own benefit alone.

I am especially grateful for fellow writers who challenged me to begin the writing process and to persevere over the years. For those who were brave enough to be honest and straightforward. For those generous with praise and encouragement, perhaps even in the midst of their own discouragement. For fellowship along the way, I am thankful.

Thanksgiving was last month for us eager Canadians, but I'm happy to add my cheer to the U.S. Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for change. I've gone through many changes in my adult life (bet you have too), which I found difficult, uncomfortable, tragic, sometimes terrifying, and always too frequent. But those changes brought me here. If I

hadn't changed my life I wouldn't be risking it all as a writer. I wouldn't be part of this community of writers on Novel Matters. If my life hadn't changed I would have missed out on so much today. So via la change!

I once had folders brimming with hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips. You know the old writers' threats about papering their offices with rejection slips? Well, I literally could have done it. I kept them from the time I was in high school until my mid-forties. I had a card catalogue too, with the names of magazine articles, poems, and books and kept meticulous track of to whom I submitted, what dates, and when they rejected me.

I had this fantasy that there would be a future date in which I would be so famous that people would pore over my rejection slips in some museum and be amazed at my persistence. Maybe some beginning writers would be inspired, I mused.

Where are those cards and rejection slips now? I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed to share this.

I reached a point about ten years ago when that dream of being so famous seemed idolatrous to me. It seemed self-focused to imagine anyone would care about my path to publication. So one hot August day I threw away all those rejection slips. I even threw away the hand-written first drafts (about 15 spiral-bound notebooks, as I recall) of The Mormon Mirage. To be honest, to this day I don't know if I was getting rid of an idol or depriving someone in the future from an insight into some legitimate history. I don't know if it was humility or depression that fueled that decision.

In some landfill in New Mexico, those papers from my past are gone, but for me, not forgotten.

They are a memorial in my mind, of what God has brought me through to this day.

I am grateful for my failures and what they have taught me. I am grateful for my hard-bought redemption by Jesus, for my family and faithful friends, for a church that has put up with me for 38 years, for incredible material blessings, for readers and last of all for Bonnie, Debbie, Katy, Patti and Sharon.

Somehow my part of this post disappeared overnight, so I'll try again. I'm extremely grateful this Thanksgiving season for my husband, our family, and a loving God who has taken good care of us through a very difficult year. But in regards to my writing life, I'm so very thankful for you: my NovelMatters sisters, who strengthen and encourage me, who keep me going when discouragement would easily set in. And you: who visit our blog and add to our discussions through your thoughtful and stirring comments. I pray your dreams come through as you continue to use the gifts and talents God has given you. I pray you all have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Redeeming the Time

The morning after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, my husband, George broke an orange pitcher.

I came unhinged. I screamed things and threw things better left unsaid and unthrown. I tore at my hair. I wailed. I collapsed to the floor.

I over-reacted in grand style.

In my defense, I'll add that this was a vintage Bauer Pottery piece of a type I've seen listed for seventy-five to a hundred dollars. More than that, it was the pitcher I'd dropped ladybugs into for safekeeping when I was four. This pitcher was special.

Still, I'll bet you've already guessed that my meltdown had less to do with broken pieces of pottery and more to do with broken towers, broken lives, and a broken sense of security.

Weeks later, George walked in from the garage and presented me with the orange pitcher, now mended with an industrial epoxy resin he uses for auto body repair. Sound far-fetched? Take a look. I think you'll agree it's more beautiful and more meaningful than it ever was before, and for the first time ever, it's a one-of-a-kind, fresh and unique new creation. It now sits in my office as a reminder that my husband is a wonderful man, and that redemption happens, all the time.

Have you noticed? We are told, in Ephesians 5:16 to redeem the time. This time we're living in now. We're supposed to redeem it. To mend and re-name it, just as Jesus re-named Abraham and Sarah, and Peter and Paul, and you and me.

"For the days are evil," it says, and it does seem so. No matter where you live, you see and feel the uncertainty, the diminished hopes brought on by a global economic crisis.

If you're a writer, you've spent years struggling with the tension between a perceived pressure to write to the market, and a desire to write something fresh and unique. The truth is that the market loves fresh and unique things if they strike the right chord (you and your publisher get to guess what will do that), but if nothing strikes that chord, the market will settle for the familiar. Fewer and fewer publishers still in business are in a mood to guess, so more and more seem to settle for familiar names, familiar styles, familiar themes.

"Ha!" I hear you say. "Redeem that, if you can."

A few months ago, there was a big fire in a nearby town that destroyed several homes. Many homeowners were devastated, but one woman, I am told, felt an unexpected sense of freedom. It seemed that someone had dumped her entire box of blocks, and now she had an opportunity to put them back, but better, more thoughtfully this time.


Is it possible we have the same opportunity?

I was recently inspired by the article on the Harlem Renaissance, in The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim:

"Much of the foundation of the Harlem Renaissance was set by the African-American historian and social theorist W.E.B. DuBois (who) asserted a new sense of black cultural consciousness and pride, inspiring a generation of young writers and artists to create a distinctive African-American voice."

A distinctive voice, woven by many, among them Langston Hughes, who wrote his poems to the beat of jazz music.

Might it be time for a Christian Renaissance? I mean, don't those two words just fit together?

Do we have (can we find) a culture distinct from the wider society, something we can take pride in and nourish into something new? A distinctive Christian voice that we can cultivate, infuse with a music all our own?

Now that our blocks are dumped, can we take a few risks, experiment and play? Could we start a movement?

The impressionists did in the 1870's. They rejected the photo-realism of previous artists and painted reality with movement and light mixed in. Their paintings, they believed, were more realistic representations of what the eye actually sees.

The post-impressionists agreed, and they didn't like it. Where was the spirit? The emotion? These artists, my beloved Van Gogh among them, filled their paintings with meaning, with realities the eye can't see. (Can you imagine a world without Starry Night?)

The modernist authors of the early part of the last century explored ways of depicting objective reality when recent thought had called into question the existence of objective reality.

The Inklings, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien among them, sought ways of writing stories so infused with spiritual realities that readers might feel that they'd been touched through the veil by something - or someone - holy and transcendent.

Throughout history movements have been propelled by artists and authors in bad times with little to no hope of recognition, but with an insistence on new ways of creating that allowed them to say things that screamed to be said.

So much screams to be said right now. Of course, we may have to sort out what it is, in order to write it (or while we write it) but what higher calling?

And what better place to redeem than the desert? Didn't God say so himself?

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." Is. 43:19

If we started a new Christian Renaissance, how might it sound on the page? What might be different? If it were an art movement, what colors and what strokes?

What is our culture, anyway?

Do join in. We love to read what you have to say.

A Universal Grammar

One of the things I do when I’m not writing or scaring people at shooting ranges is my studies on Representational Research.

Basically, it involves the triadic structure of the Godhead, of reality (the part you see, the part you don’t see, and the links between the two), and even of language.

We communicate information through three methods – the iconic (through the senses such as sight), by indexing or pointing, and linguistically.

Quit yawning, I’m about to get to the relevant part, the part about writing.

You see, the Bible depicts all kinds of communication, and not all of it is through words. Some of it is iconic. You learn from seeing something: The Israelites were told to pile up rocks from Jordan’s depths to commemorate the crossing of that river. And that would provoke questions, the linguistic part where the parents would explain the rocks. The same thing took place every Passover: The bitter herbs and salt water and unleavened bread teach.

I’m always amazed at the passage in Psalm 19 that says:

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech;

night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language

where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world.

Look at the language words: declare, proclaim, pour forth speech, voice, words.

Here’s what I’m thinking. This psalm shows that the inanimate skies communicate. What do they communicate? About God, who He is and what He does. (Romans 1:20). And they do it in a way that supercedes English or Chinese or even the Hebrew or Greek in which the Bible was originally written.

There must be a universal grammar, we might say, for communicating the things of God. Something that can carry the message even without words, across cultures, into hearts.

How much more precisely do words carry that message!

I hear people talking all the time about trying to catch market trends in writing. Nothing wrong with that.

But the novels that end up communicating to people at a level like the resplendent night sky, in the universal language of God, with deep eternal truths that feed the souls of readers – that’s what I want to write, don’t you?

From Life Comes Fiction

Thanks to Sharon, Monday started a little brighter. If you missed her post about her close encounters of the spider kind, scroll on down to read her hilarious story. But you better empty your bladder first.

At the end of Sharon's post, she suggested her experiences may become part of a story. I believe all fiction is at least part autobiographical. According to John Truby (Anatomy of Fiction), the theme is how the author believes the world should work. Right there you have deep personal involvement of the author in her story. But that's a topic for another day.

Our lives do seep into our stories--in language, what our characters value, and the details of life that allow our readers to suspend disbelief. My youngest son once said, "Mom, it's a little weird to see parts of my life in someone else's story." True but family life is too rich to not use.

While I don't use personal experiences verbatim, I certainly draw on my life experiences--but only when it's more interesting than usual, like Sharon's beasts. Almost always, anything from life has to be cranked up a notch to make it story worthy. (Before I forget, here's my pitch to keep a journal handy at all times. You never know when Spider Wars will commence.)

Here's an example of how a piece of my life made it into one of my books. In my Garden Gate series, Mibby is left a widow with a young son and an unfinished remodeling project. I know remodeling well. We've lived in our house for 24 years, and, well, I watch too much HGTV. This was a natural cross-over.

A few years back, we added on a master bathroom. I made sure I was showered and dressed each day of the project before 8 AM when the contractor and his minions arrived. I was running late one morning, but it was only 7:45, so I jumped in the shower. I had just worked up a lather of shampoo when I heard male voices outside the bathroom door.

[Expletive!]

My primal brain reacted quickly. I stepped out of the shower without rinsing or drying and stepped into my clothes, naked no more! I stood like a post, praying HARD the men would finish their business and go away. God, oh so graciously, answered my prayer within minutes. The contractor left with the subcontractor moments later.

Take note: I did not have to write this situation down. It was burned into my wee little brain, and I showered, from then on, by seven.

Back to Like a Watered Garden--when Droop (protag's contractor named for his low-slung jeans) needed to talk to Mibby (I know, another weird name), here's how my experience morphed into in Mibby's world:

I had just worked the shampoo into a lather when I heard the heavy rapping of knuckles on the bathroom door and a male voice calling my name. I turned off the water to listen.

"Is that you, Mibby? I'm back."

Suds flowed down my forehead. With my eyes closed, I stepped out of the shower and pulled on my shorts and T‑shirt before I felt decent enough to answer him. "Uh, Droop, I'll be out in a minute."

"I don't need nothing," he said. "I just didn't want to scare you again."

The shampoo stung my eyes. "Thanks, Droop. Thanks very much."

"No problem." His heavy boots moved away from the door and then returned. "Mibby?"

"Yeah?"

"We got a problem with the flooring."

A bubble of worry tingled along my spine. Whenever Droop had a problem, he fixed it and continued working. If we had a problem, it meant I would be spending a lot of money. Either way, I wasn't dressed to kill, or to think.

"I'll be right down."

People I know and love--or watch in restaurants--also make it into my stories. My sweet friend, Nancy, is the basis for Louise in the Garden Gate series. I gave Louise a Louisiana drawl and shaped her like an orange, but her heart is all Nancy.

I taught with Nancy. She made it her mission to slow me down and love me like crazy. One day, she stopped me in the hall (no kids around) and turned her back to me. With a twinkle in her eye, she looked over her shoulder and nodded to her bum. She asked, "Do these pants make my butt seem too small?" You can see how someone like Nancy needed to be fictionalized.

These are pretty "light" examples. Most of my books address some burning question or fear I'm wrestling in real life, yet another topic for another day. How has your life made it into your stories? Tell us how you've drawn from the people you know to develop characters?

A week in the life of ...

Where is a man when you need one? It's a question I often ask myself. Out loud. The answer this time? Cuba. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

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My husband Rick is a commercial builder. We have banked at the same bank in our small town for many years. We know the tellers, the managers, the president, and they know us. Well, most of them anyway. I was at the bank last week, being helped by one of the tellers, when another of the tellers stepped over to chat after she finished with her customer. "How's Rick?" she asked. "Is he home or away?" For 25 years Rick has traveled the world for missions, building churches, Bible schools, orphanages, etc., and everywhere I go people ask about him. He's been in Siberia in December, and has had a lot of wild adventures. I have the luxury to pick and choose which trips I tag along on (I opted out of Siberia), but mostly I stay home, write, and enjoy a time of solitude.

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So in answer to Joyce's question, I replied, "Rick's in Cuba this time." She got a funny look on her face, then she began to laugh. "Did he come in to get cash before he left?" "Yeah," I said. (He always does. The cash is from whatever team he takes with him, for whatever project they plan to work on, and it's usually a fairly large amount.) "That explains it," Joyce said. "Yeah? Explains what?" I asked.

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A new teller waited on Rick--one who's not familiar with him or his ministry--and just to be conversational as she was helping him with this large amount of cash, he mentioned he was leaving for Cuba that night. When he left the bank she turned to Joyce and said, "Someone taking that much money to Cuba? It's gotta be drug money!" Joyce had been tied up with her own work and had no idea who the new teller was talking about, but after talking with me Joyce put 2 and 2 together, and we had a good laugh. "Please," I said, as I prepared to leave, "tell her it's A: drug money or B: a missionary going in to build a church." I know, Cuba/church building? Drug money is more believable. But it's the truth. I swear.

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But back to my original question. Where is a man when you need one? Mine could be anywhere in the world, but I can pretty much guarantee if something's going to go wrong, it will go wrong when he's out of the country. Like the time the phone rang at 6 o'clock one morning when he was in the Philippines. We were living in the country on 5 acres and I wasn't one bit happy about it. Though I loved the house he'd built us, I didn't like how far out in the country it was (I'd write 'Back Side of the Moon' as my return address on all correspondence), and certainly didn't like being left alone out there. I answered the phone that morning and a rude woman who did not identify herself said, "Your cows are in my yard." Not being a country girl or a morning person, this took a minute to compute. Your cows are in my yard ... your cows are in my yard ... your cows ... MY COWS!!!! Yes, we (spelled R-i-c-k) had two longhorn cows--named after our granddaughters, so fat chance they'd ever become steaks--and they'd gotten out of our pasture. I leapt out of bed, threw on some clothes, stuck my contacts in my eyes, and jumped in my car. But where was I going? I had no idea who'd called. So I drove around the "neighborhood" looking for Rick's cows. I felt like Little Bo Peep. Not having any luck finding them I went back home, wondering what on earth I was going to do, when my phone rang again. This time--I swear I'm not making this up--it was a friend who lived on the 5 acres behind us, and she says, "Sharon, are you looking for your cows?" Am I looking for my cows?!? How did she know that?!? "Yes, as a matter of fact ...!" And she told me where to find them. Amazingly--and I'm not making this up either--a used-to-be-cowboy-turned-carpenter worked for our company, and he came and rustled up the herd and mended the fence. When Rick (who'd made the mistake of laughing about it when I told him over the phone) got home, there was a For Sale sign in the yard. Not making that up either.

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But back to this time, and Cuba. A week ago Sunday night I was in my bedroom watching TV and addressing Christmas cards when a racket shattered the relative quiet--and it came from right above my head. Startled, I jumped up and tried to assess the what and the where as I speed dialed my daughter, because, as we all know, misery loves company. I had no idea what was going on, I just knew it was LOUD. It sounded like a whole family of something had moved into our attic space. With my daughter on the phone, I went outside, hoping against hope that whatever it was was on the roof, and not somewhere INSIDE my house. Alas, it was not to be. I declined my daughter's invitation to spend the night/week on her sofa, and listened in fear and trembling as this thing moved around upstairs above my head till after 3:00 a.m. At one point it sounded like it was dragging something across the floor up there. I kid you not.

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I called Clark Exterminators first thing Monday morning. A young man--who was my new favorite hero even though he wasn't a cowboy--came within the hour, but alas yet again, he could open the access to the attic space, but he couldn't actually go in and do anything about what might be up there. It seems they have rules, and that, in my opinion, was the stupidest. What he could do was set a mega-mouse trap just inside the attic space, which he could reach while standing on the very top of my 6-foot ladder, without actually being in the space. Well fine. But let me tell you, A: this was no mouse, mega or otherwise! And B: out of 3,100 square feet of living space, the 16 x 20 inch opening in the ceiling that goes into the attic space happens to be right above the chair I sit in at my computer. So now not only was I afraid of whatever had moved in, I was terrified I'd hear a SNAP! while sitting here trying to write.

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So this...whatever it is...had me on edge all week. I'd hear its nocturnal wanderings after the sun went down, and was jerked awake at 2:00 in the morning Wednesday, while it carried on above my head till after 4:00. Elizabeth Berg, bless her heart, kept me company.

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As if that weren't enough, I walked into my kitchen one evening to find a spider scurrying along the edge of my island. By now you must be thinking I live with the Addams family, but no. I grabbed my broom and swiped at the spider...and knocked it right into my purse. A brown spider in a brown purse. @*##+##@. So, using the handle of the broom, I upended the purse and shook out all the contents--checkbook, lipstick, cough drops--and sifted through everything, with the broom handle. But no spider. Then, using the sweeping end of the broom, I pummelled the snot out of that bag...but never found the spider or its remains.

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You don't even want to know the one-sided conversation I carried on with my absentee husband all week, who was blissfully without cell phone or email access. Trust me, that bliss lasted only until he landed back in the USA, at which time he had the sense not to laugh. And I'm very glad, because I love where we currently live.

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You may be wondering what on earth this has to do with writing. Maybe nothing. Then again, if you come across a mad woman in a cowboy hat with a broom in one of my novels you'll know exactly where the inspiration came from.