Tis the Season to be... by Diana Flegal

Tis the season to be Jolly. But instead many are sad, discouraged, wounded, lonely, hopeful yet pessimistic or grieving the loss of a loved one. And this is just a glimpse of what my writer friends are going through. Imagine the emotional roller-coaster of emotions the rest of the world is experiencing, especially the un-saved who have no hope.

When I was young, my mother and dad made every Christmas wonderful. Lots of cookie baking, present wrapping and closets temporarily off limits as gifts stacked up. There were many family gatherings, youth group sled rides and bonfires.

Then we had to grow up. The responsibilities of adulthood became our norm and visions of bills due and end of year wrap-ups replaced visions of sugarplums, wishes and dreams.

Recently Joyce Meyer and several other men of God reminded me how to escape the pond of despond at this time of the year. Yes, even this optimist is prone to sink into doom and gloom.  I thought I would take this post to share this timely reminder as an encouragement to you.

Be stable. Show the world your ultimate hope is in God and you will continue to trust him despite your present circumstances. Be good to others. Be the bearer of good news. Focus on the positive. And keep doing what is right.

Acts 10:38  tells us Christ went about doing good.

Give yourself permission to keep things simple this year. Pray about what small thing you can do for others. I have found the solution to my heartache is doing for others. Takes the focus off myself and helps to put things in perspective.

Count your blessings, name them one by one...

Remember the things God has done for you. List them off and realize, He is still able to deliver you. The old testament saints practiced this by telling and re-telling themselves and their families their spiritual history. Sit your family down and do the same.

If you or someone you know and love is standing in the need of prayer, let us know in the comments and we will be glad to pray for you. We can get through this time with the aid of one another. And perhaps we might exhibit to the world what is the real reason for the season.

...and they will know we are Christians by our love one for another.

Your Best-Known Work by Andy Scheer

Something you create may cast a long shadow. I hope it's a work you like.

Burl Ives had an amazing voice and a career that spanned many decades. I'm sure he never suspected that of all his performances, the one that would become most popular would stem from a little gig doing the narration and a few songs for a made-for-TV production of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

This Christmas season, like every one for decades, you can't escape Ives singing “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.”

A friend who has getting published for decades says her most-reprinted article remains one of her first. A marriage magazine held the manuscript for years before finally printing the piece. Today it remains one of the most popular on the magazine's website.

Those thoughts motivated me as I completed a week's worth of devotions. The assignment included the daily Scripture readings, so I only needed to provide some personal reflection. Just another writing job – but potentially much more. A year from now, thousands of strangers will read my words.

Will one of those themes cast a long shadow? Perhaps. All the more reason to treat everything I write as though it will.

Things are Slooooowing Down! By Linda S. Glaz

It’s the start of the holiday season and thing are slowing down. For the next month, there won’t be a lot of offers, folks getting ‘the call’, or a lot of decisions being made on submissions even from agents. What can a writer do to stay busy and avoid worrying about whether or not their baby is about to win the diamond tiara?

Write! Take this time to start a new work, edit the WIP, or proofread for a friend. Enjoy the season! Stash your work on a disk and take a mini-vacation from writing. Meet a deadline early. Get together with other writers and talk about the dismal state of the industry…just kidding. Enough of that negativity takes place accidentally. Get together and enjoy the opportunity of sharing with other folks who ‘get it’.

Head on over to Amazon or another book outlet, and pick a Christmas read from an emerging author. Someone you haven’t read before. Let this be the year that you discover a wonderful new talent and then go back and leave a review

Give away a copy of your book! Give away a copy of a friend’s.

Whatever you do, enjoy every day from St. Nick’s to Christmas to Three Kings. Let the entire month have special meaning for you. Let Christ slide into your heart in places you’ve never allowed Him before.

Things are sloooowing down, but you can enjoy this time in very special ways!

Thanksgiving Blog – 2013 Joyce Hart

On Facebook people have been writing 10 things you don’t know about me, or 9 things, or 8 things, etc.  It is interesting to read facts about your friends that you really didn’t know.  I was supposed to write 9 things, but haven’t had the nerve to do that yet.

However, I was wondering, what ten things am I thankful for in 2013?  Can you list ten blessings rather quickly?

1. My Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ 
2. Family, husband and sons, daughters-in-law & grandson
3. Church
4. Friends
5. Literary clients & agents
6. Home
7. My country
8. Books to read
9. Shopping
10. That I’m able to walk after surgeries

As Maria said in “Sound of Music,” these are a few of my favorite things.     

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving season?    

We’re having about nine guests for dinner today.  I told them “come early, because I need help.”  I’m glad I have the freedom to say that to my family and friends.  We have lived in our home for 30 years this month and for most of those years we’ve had Thanksgiving here.  It’s a privilege to be able to do that.  Often we invite people who don’t have family in the area to join our family. 

I was looking through the grocery ads last week, looking for the best buys on turkey, potatoes and all the trimmings.   It made me remember one year when the boys were small, we were pastoring in Grand Island, NE and didn’t have much for Thanksgiving dinner that year.  Another pastor from out of town dropped by the day before Thanksgiving and brought us a large roasting hen and all the fixings for dinner.  We were so thankful.

Ps 100 is a Psalm of Thanksgiving. Verses 1 through 5 says:

“Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.  Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of his pasture.  Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,and into His courts with Praise.  Be thankful to Him and bless His name.  For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting.  And His truth endures to all generations.”  NKJV

May you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving and Lord help us to be truly thankful for all of the blessings that we enjoy!

The Traditions We Hold by Diana Flegal

When I think about the traditions of the season I hearken back many years to a much simpler time.

 

At Thanksgiving, we ate our meal in shifts, there were so many of us at my grandmothers house. If the weather was decent we would play ball outside, or if it had snowed; sled or build snowmen until we were called in. Television football games served as background noise in the packed living room. Many  Polaroid photos of my various uncles sleeping off their turkey stupor testify to the good cooks in my family. But don't try to change the channel on the  television. A quick, "Hey, I'm watching the game!" would ruin our plans.

Recently I read a heart warming, nostalgic fiction manuscript. With it's small town community, neighborly 'over the fence' talking, I realized when considering it's target audience, it would not have provoked the same sentiment in my 25 year old son as it had in me.

 

How do the new traditions impact authors today writing stories?

 

A scene might include a group of cousins playing wii, or using the T.V. for a digital game of karaoke or dance hopscotch.   Maybe grandpa could suggest a game of outdoor tag football or the old standby, I SPY. 

 

A great book that can offer all kinds of creative things to do with your family and friends this holiday season is J. J. Ferrer's book  titled, Skipping Stones and Other Fun  Old-Time Games. With chapter headings of; Ball games, Brain games, Car Games etc., your sure to find something you all might enjoy.

So while things change, and quicker these days than of old; it is still all about family and friends being together and making and keeping  our memories.

Do changing traditions affect how you write 'story'? What new traditions have you added as your families have changed?  

 

 

     

 

Leave Out the Good Stuff by Andy Scheer

That principle served me well on my latest book project.

I'm assembling a photo gift book for my father-in-law, based on the 10-day, 2,700-mile trip we took this fall in his 1930 Ford Model A. I served as navigator, co-driver, and photographer. Along the way we explored five antique car museums.

At the end of our trip, thanks to digital photography and a pair of cameras, I'd shot some 2,700 photos.

How could I make the decisions to assemble a photo book? Simple. First eliminate the bad stuff: photos with poor composition, focus, or exposure. But that still left more than 2,600 photos. So I had to eliminate the good stuff.

My book would have no room for images that are merely good. Or that overlap with better photos.

Today as I saved the final draft, my photo book has 56 pages and 203 photos. Each earned its place by telling an essential part of the story in a distinctive way.

I expect my target reader will keep turning pages, all the way to the end.

Do I Want to be Your Friend? By Linda S. Glaz

Our social medias pursue us like hounds on a burglar. It’s impossible to open the email in the morning and not find dozens of invitations to join your “friends” on the social media of the day. And those are constantly changing. New ones popping up, old ones figuring out new ways to connect you with more people. And all in the name of advertising. Did you think they did this from the kindness of their hearts?

The more you are interconnected, the more they can find just the right items to sell you. If you post about someone lying, suddenly all sorts of messages about people lying crop up along the side of your site. Mention a food blog…and you are inundated with food sites.

So what does it benefit you to become friends with John Smith and Suzie Jones? You’ve never met them and all they really seem to do is take up space on your site. Do you NEED to know each time Suzie’s two-year old goes potty by herself?

Recently, the buzzwords for an author are: platform, platform, and platform. So what’s a person to do if they want a chance at the brass ring?

There comes a time when balance, as with anything else in life, is key. You want to write, but you’re told you need to have a platform, and soon, platform takes over. You are spending more time checking your social media than you are writing.

Balance truly IS key. Set aside x-amount of minutes per day: check in with your ‘unknowns’ on social media, check your email, write blogs, check others’ blogs, but more importantly—write! You can’t promote something you don’t have.

Balance! Moderation. We learn as we get older that moderation is paramount to living any type of successful life. Staying slim, avoiding addictions, work, play.

Do you want EVERYONE to be your friend? Do you want to ‘stay connected’ 24/7? Do you need to have everyone like you, like your interests?

There comes a time when you have to make the decision: Do I want to be your friend?