I have had a super busy week!! So I am taking a blog break for today’s Word Wednesday post. I will see you on Friday where my topic will be: “Writing: Inspiration or Perspiration?”
🙂
Routines
I’m working on creating a weekly routine. I’ve had some in the past but they didn’t fit me. Instead of having a full blown routine for the week. I would build one slowly, adding as I go along.
Right now, I have designated Mondays as laundry and floors day. All the laundry will get done for the week, carpets vacuumed and non-carpeted floors swiffered or mopped. That’s enough for a day of housework! Tuesdays, I’ll work on cleaning the kid’s rooms.
Do you have a weekly routine? What does it consist of?
fiction fridays: guest post by jane kirkpatrick
Stitching New Stories
The offer for my first novella required a Christmas theme, a log cabin, a romance and less than 20,000 words. Known for writing longer historical novels – from 80,000 to 130,000 words – based on the lives of actual women, I wasn’t sure if I could write something both shorter and without the spine of an historical woman to show me the way.
“This is a good for you,” my agent of 16 years told me. ” You always do better with a challenge.”
She might have been referring to how I felt the first time I wrote a series. The second book needed tons of revisions because I didn’t really understand that readers want to know what happens next to the characters they’ve met in book one rather than be introduced to new characters who might be dealing with the same landscape, problems or even goals. Readers want continuity. It took courage for me to rewrite that second book and then the third but The Kinship and Courage Series went on to be my biggest seller and I wrote three more series after that.
This log cabin novella would be a new adventure overcoming the fear of looking foolish. But as writer Annie Dilliard once wrote, “You can’t test courage cautiously.” So I plunged in.
I gleaned my idea from a Bible Quilt book given to me by a friend cleaning out her closet and a story I’d read about an 1850 quilt made up of signature blocks given to a man who had courted all the signature women. He married none of them but kept the quilt blocks. His new wife quilted them together.
What if I created a thread salesman hoping to help his employer, a widow trying to keep her log cabin store from going under? And what if he decided he’d sell more thread if he suggested to several women on his itinerant route that they each make a Bible Quilt Block and hint that he might just wed the creator of a well-stitched block. Of course he didn’t tell any of the women about the others and he didn’t tell his employer either. What if the widowed owner of the log cabin store found herself falling in love only to discover her thread salesman’s thread-bare scheme. What if her customers held her responsible for being rejected in marriage? What if at the Christmas bazaar, all the individual women involved discover their Bible Block competition? Could I bring those events to a romantic, humorous believable conclusion in less than 20,000 words? That was my challenge.
“A Courting Quilt” was finished and accepted near my 65th birthday. It’s part of nine author’s works in what is now a New York Times Bestselling collection called A Log Cabin Christmas (Barbour) released in September. My foray into new territory stretched my skills, introduced me to new readers and reminded me that we are never too old to learn new ways. New risks can keep us writing.
About A Log Cabin Christmas:
Penned by an exclusive selection of Christian fiction authors—including Margaret Brownley, Wanda E. Brunstetter, and Jane Kirkpatrick—this collection of nine romances will become an instant treasure. The American pioneer history comes to life within rough-hewn walls where faith, hope, and love flourish, especially at Christmastime.
word wednesdays: counting it all joy
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4, NASB)
What do you do when you encounter a hiccup along your life journey?
You count it all joy.
This has been tough biblical command for me to follow. Usually, when I encounter difficulties I want to complain, worry, fret and try to get things done my way. But here, James says we are to count it all joy. Doesn’t make sense, does it?
In this passage, trials means “periasmos” in the Greek. It means: “adversity, affliction, trouble: sent by God and serving to test or prove one’s character, faith, holiness” It denotes events and circumstances which haven’t been caused by you. Some trials are caused by our own poor decisions. Other trials are sent by God to test our character, faith and holiness. They are like pop quizzes sent from heaven to test our maturity.
I had a trial like this when I had a miscarriage years ago. My husband and I wanted to have a child but nothing happened. When I finally was pregnant, I miscarried. I was so sad and distressed, I didn’t know how to pray aboout it. I felt my faith failing.
Then I read this passage from James. Afterwards, I mustered up my inner strength and said aloud to God: “I thank you Lord for this trial which you have allowed in my life. Now, I have an opportunity to mature my faith and trust in You. Lord, I thank you that you are the Father of spirits and that little one’s spirit is now with You. And I trust and thank you in advance for the little ones you will send to our family in your perfect timing.”
Aferwards, I stopped complaining and bemoaning my situation to others. It was tough but whenever I felt worry and fear creeping at the door, I thanked God for the opportunity to mature my faith even more. In the process of time, God blessed us with a child and now we have another one on the way.
If you are encountering a trial right now, count it all joy. Verbally thank Him for the opportunity to exercise your faith in that situation. It’s tough but by His grace, you can do it.
