Category: Encouragement

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Already Loved: Encouragement for This Writing Life

file9431319827916Another rejection. My agent gently relayed that though my dream publisher had said “yes” to a proposal all the way up the chain of command to the last committee, they finally decided to nix it.

As I hung up the phone, tears spilled down my cheeks. Two years of canceled book contracts, low sales figures, and repeated “thanks but no thanks” emails had left me discouraged, frustrated, and confused. Writing—and the marketing tasks necessary to be a professional writer—now seemed like drudgery, not play. No matter how many marketing rules I tried to follow, my efforts failed.

I felt like a failure, too.

I still believed God wasn’t through using me. But I couldn’t help but wonder, Will I ever get another book contract? And what happens if I don’t? Is God trying to tell me something?

Later that day, I sat at my desk, playing a computer game with my three year-old son. As Jackson sat in my lap, I kissed his ear and inhaled his little-boy scent; a combination of milk, grime, and chocolate. Nearby sat a copy of my first book, which I had referred to earlier in the day for a radio interview. Jackson looked at the illustration of a frazzled mom on the cover and asked, “Is that you?”

“No, sweetie,” I said, “but I wrote that book. See, mommy’s name is on the cover. It says, ‘by Dena Dyer.’ “

“Oh!” Jackson said, grinning up at me. “I love Dena Dyer!”

Stunned, I blinked back tears. “I love you, too,” I murmured.

After a few minutes more at the computer, I found a quiet corner and prayerfully pondered Jackson’s simple expression of love. He didn’t care if I published books or not. He simply loved me for me. He loved me the way God does.

In all my disappointments, I had thought more about selling books than surrendering my heart. It was painful to admit that somewhere in the midst of trying to serve Jesus, I’d become goal-driven instead of God-driven. I seemed to care more about what the publishing powers-that-be thought than what my Heavenly Father thought.

Satan is crafty. He takes our God-given talents and twists them into temptations. Gradually, my calling had become an idol. Who I was became less important than what I did.

“Lord, I’m sorry,” I prayed, crying for the third time that day. “My heart is so full of sin. I know you couldn’t care less how many books I sell. You just want ME.”

In the weeks and months to come, as I asked God to help me believe the truth of His unconditional acceptance, I began working freely and joyfully again instead of writing just to be published. God continued to close some doors, and another book proposal was rejected, but He gave me other opportunities–ones I hadn’t even known to pursue.

The truth is, though, I will probably always have a tendency to think I must perform to be loved. So I’ve ask God to whack me upside the head (as we say here in Texas) before I get too far off track.

If experience is any teacher, He’ll be faithful to do just that.

(This article first appeared at The High Calling. Used by permission) 

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Getting Better—As a Writer and As a Person

I am trying to teach the students in my novel workshop how to read as writers. The goal is to learn how novelists do their craft—how they integrate exposition into a scene, how they move in and out of the foundational tense into others, how they make us believe in a character, how they get us interested in a conversations, what they include, what they leave out.

DIN_CR~2“Pay attention to what’s working, some specific thing you like, and then try to articulate that as a more broadly applicable strategy toward some narrative end,” I keep telling them.

It’s slow going. My students can identify what they like, but they struggle to see whatever it is outside the context of that particular novel. Or, as the literary critics they’ve been trained to be in their other English courses, they notice symbols or metaphors or some unusual word and then write in their reading journals, “I want to use more symbols in my writing” or “I want to use more impressive diction,” and I am so seized up in apprehension of the heavy-handed artsyness of their next chapters that I dread reading them.

Every once in a while, though, one or the other of them has an electrifying insight, and everyone sees it and gets it and wants to do whatever it is, and my fears about being a terrible teacher are becalmed.

In class yesterday, we talked about one such insight that Sarah wrote in her reading journal: “STRATEGY: Don’t drag characters from point A to point B. Have changes take time. Have them want to do one thing but back out at the last second. Make them change their mind and turn back around to go right back to where they started.”

“Wow! What a good observation!” I said in class. “Why is a slow change, two steps forward and three steps backward, so much more effective in fiction than an instantaneous change, do you think?”

“Because it’s more believable,” one student offered.

“But why?”

“Because it’s how we change in real life,” someone else said.

That’s certainly how it’s been throughout my spiritual life. Reading scripture or having a conversation or listening in church, I’m confronted with some failing of mine and see, very clearly, how I might address it, and I’m resolved—no, genuinely eager—to take action and become a better person. Two steps forward. Then, months or sometimes weeks or only days later, I find myself failing in precisely the same way, having forgotten all my eager plans for improvement.

Or, I’m looking something up in my Bible—the same old, falling-apart one I read for the first time twenty years ago—and I come upon an emphatically underlined passage and a note from me to me scribbled in the margin in the excitement of some forgotten moment of revelation. I knew once exactly how to fix me, evidently, but then, just, never did.

As Paul complains, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15 NIV). It upsets him—and I share his anguish—so much that he repeats it again and again. “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out” (Romans 7:18), he wails. “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19).

Thank God for Jesus, and that’s Paul’s point here.

But there is another hope I want to consider today, and it is this: Change—however slow, however miniscule, however hesitant and hobbled by failure—does happen. Because of Jesus, we are, as Paul also promises, “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Strategy by strategy, attempt by attempt, failure by failure—so gradually that we ourselves may not even notice—we believers in the One God Sent are advancing, with ever-increasing glory, into the perfect people we all want to be.

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Pitch Your Book Like it’s a Movie (The One Sentence Synopsis)

I recently attended a screenplay writing seminar with Publishers and Writers of San Diego. It was taught by writing coach Marni Freedman and focused on taking an existing book and developing it into a screenplay.  Screenplays are extremely concise – they average around one hundred pages. Being concise means really having to know the infrastructure and outline of a story. There are several aspects of screenwriting that are helpful in book writing, and one of those aspects is the creation of a logline.

A logline is a one sentence synopsis of your story. It is like the cover of a book. A good one makes you want to open it immediately to see what is inside. Before you can create a logline, you will need to understand where your book is going. When you try and select a movie on cable, you see loglines all the time. They are very brief descriptions of the show’s content.

For example, let’s look at a logline for The Godfather by Mario Puzo: A 1940’s New York mafia family struggles to protect their empire from rival families as the leadership switches from the father to his youngest son. Although The Godfather is an epic, the plot can still be boiled down into a one-sentence pitch. Audiences have short attention spans and you only get one chance to make a first impression. Effective loglines are compelling: they draw people in and make them want to know more.

Ready to create your own logline? It can be comprised more easily if you are able to supply the following story formula that Marni will be publishing in an upcoming book – 7 Steps to a First Draft:

Story idea: Who – Unique Problem – Goal – Ending (Marni Freedman 2010)

  • Who do you want to write about? Why are they interesting? Why should we care about them and want to follow them?
  • What unique problem does this person face?
  • What is this person’s goal? How will the person solve it? Who or what will try to stop them?
  • How does their journey end?

Writing coach Marni Freedman (www.thewriterinyou.com) encouraged our group to create loglines, as they are not just for the authors to be able to quickly explain the heart of their story, but also serve as a pitch that can be used when interacting with agents, entering contests, meeting with producers, or anyone with whom you want to engage. If you would like to practice this exercise, think about one of your favorite stories (which can be the form of a book or movie) and create a one sentence synopsis of the plot and action.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Four children travel to the magical land of Narnia where they must battle an evil queen with the direction of the Lion, Aslan.

Citizen Kane: Following the death of a publishing tycoon, news reporters scramble to discover the meaning of his final utterance.

Toy Story: A cowboy doll is profoundly threatened and jealous when a new spaceman figure supplants him as top toy in a boy’s room. 
Clapper Board
The creation of a logline takes time and effort. It’s hard to boil down your story to a one sentence synopsis. It may take you several attempts, so don’t beat yourself up if you find it a harder process than you originally anticipated. You will know that you have stumbled on your perfect logline because it is fun to pitch and rolls off your tongue. Try it out on your friends and watch their reactions. If their eyes light up and they say, “yeah!” then you know you are on the right track. Just start giving it a shot, and you may find that you understand your story with surprising clarity.

Can you see how creating a logline might add value to your writing?

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A New Year’s Revelation

Photo/KarenJordan

“If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help … Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought” (James 1:5-6 MSG).

“You know what killed that squirrel?” my husband Dan mused as we drove through our Arkansas neighborhood.

Duh, I thought, a car ran over him.

“Indecision,” he explained.

Dan always seems to think in black or white terms, no grey areas. “If you don’t like carrots, don’t eat them. If you hate working as a secretary, find another job.”

“Indecision?” I exclaimed. “Wait a minute! Are you comparing me to that squirrel?”

Dan and I are living proof that opposites attract in relationships, especially marriage. But after 41 years of marriage, I think I’m finally learning a few decisive tricks from my husband—like how to organize my office and how to follow through on my dreams.

Confusion. For example, every year I make several New Year’s resolutions. But I’m usually like my friend, the squirrel—before he became road kill. My mind darts around as doubts and fears plague me. Is this plan even possible? What about my failure to follow through on all those other resolutions? Will this just be another waste of my time and resources?

Matthew 6:27 asks, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

Could my worry and indecision close the doors to many of my dreams and my plans?

Revelation. Jeremiah 29:11 promises, “For I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future…call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you” (NIV).

Can I discover God’s plans for my life as I seek Him in prayer? Could it be that simple?

God’s Word says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you…” (Jeremiah 29:13-14).

Resolution. What have I resolved for 2013? Well, I’ve decided to not worry about making another New Year’s resolution. In fact, I’m still not sure about some of those projects that I’ve been dodging. And I know that I can’t do anything about my failures in the past.

But I am certain of one thing–if I seek God’s Kingdom above all else, He promises to give me everything I need (Matt. 6:33).

Have you made a firm decision to do or not to do something this year? 

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My New Word Focus — Six Weeks Later

Like many others, a few years ago I switched from making resolutions to fixating on a single word focus at the beginning of a new year. All of my words tied to specific passages of Bible scripture, equipping me with a support system for my resolve. And they enhanced my writing, as well as general life choices.

In the past, various encouragements came to mind:

Joy by Anita Brooks
One of my past Word Focuses — JOY

All very positive affirmations. And each one transformed me more into the person I wanted to become.

But this year, I’m compelled to focus on a very different word. Mostly opposite of concentrated efforts in my past. This year, I guess God’s using a little reverse psychology on me. My New Year focus word?

Lazy.

As in, don’t be the wicked and lazy servant who buries her talents. Matthew 25:14-30.

Besides the spiritual application, there are practical applications as well. Especially when it comes to succeeding as a published writer.

  • If I fritter my time away on television, or other useless endeavors, I can’t be about my Father’s business of writing.
  • It takes practice, learning as a good apprentice, to become a professional. 
  • Allowing myself to wallow in tiredness stifles my ability to be a doer, and makes me a dreamer only. (I’ve learned I can talk myself out of being tired, can move around for a few minutes, or even allow myself a short nap to revive. Sometimes, fatigue is a mindset.)
  • A person has to start where they are in order to get where they want to go.
  • I only get so many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months in a year, and wasting them will only leave me discouraged, guilty, and depressed. This can spin me into a hamster wheel of failure.
  • Publishers don’t like working with lazy writers.
  • Being lazy with my marketing means missed opportunities to get my message into the world.
  • Building a writing career takes time, energy, and persistence. Laziness steals momentum from what we’ve invested thus far.
Anita Brooks Ready to Write
Crawling Into My Writing Cave

The reason I’m writing about this now, versus week one or January 1, is I know myself. Often, about six weeks into a focus of this nature, I start getting lax, allowing apathy to override my renewed concentration on a specific act. I need something to propel me into my Writing Cave.

So this post isn’t just about you, although I certainly hope it encourages you to revisit your resolution or New Year’s focus, but it’s also about me. I’m creating a tickler for myself, to help me avoid the pitfall of so easily forgetting the promise I made to me, before God.

Ecclesiastes 5:5 says, “It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.” A resolution or word focus is a vow you make to yourself.

I’m not saying this to make anyone, including myself, feel guilty. But I can’t ignore the truth of the statement, and the reminder that I need to do a better job of acting on my God-given ability and opportunity. After all, a lazy attitude toward learning new things, or accepting new challenges, will make me stagnate.

Anita Brooks, Dare to LiveAs the tagline on my website says, “It’s Never Too Late for a Fresh Start with Fresh Faith.” I believe it, and I live by it.

So this year, my focus is on the word lazy — something I hope to learn to live without. Each day dawns bright with new hope, and each moment burns deep with opportunity.

What have you resolved? How are you doing in your renewed efforts?

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Pet Peeves And Grace

????????????????????????????????????????If you’ve been in a writer’s support group for any length of time, you’ve certainly seen it before. It’s an evergreen discussion that makes a pass every year or so. When a professional association has covered all the topics they can think of—Saying No to a Mentor Request, Keeping Social Media from Eating Your Time, How to Have a Book Signing that Doesn’t Look as Though it Occurred Post-Rapture, there eventually comes a lull in which no one can think of a fresh and original topic to pose to the group. So we pull out that good ol’ standby—Grammar and Spelling Pet Peeves. These are words which–if misspelled or misused–will send a usually stout-hearted editor into a quivering literary swoon. Announcing such a topic is a siren call. It’s like the ice cream truck tune of the writing world; it brings everyone running. We gleefully fly to our keyboards, our mental pockets stuffed with dangling participles, contractions that shouldn’t be contracted, and the horror that is the “vulgar singular they” (best delivered with the affectation of English Royalty).

Our pockets soon begin to empty as we showcase our favorites of the misused, abused, and confused of writing errors. Lead instead of led. Its instead of it’s. Less versus fewer. And let us not forget the useless and hapless apostrophe seen with so many CDs, DVDs, Dos and Don’ts. Everyone has a favorite peeve and we share with gusto. (Feel the confetti flutter by your head)

Then we get to the fun of misspelled word crimes.

The police poured over the evidence looking for the culprit, which unfortunately would give them no new insight, but would make for a very messy crime scene.

I turned my paper into my professor. Imagine his surprise. But he’ll thank me later when he notes the ample margin I’ve provided, which as we all know is essential to a balanced and enjoyable life.

She excepted Christ as her savior when she was 9. Her poor parents were horrified to learn that while little Petunia was open to all other gods, she had strangely ruled out Christ at such a young and impressionable age.

I have yet another set of words that can annoy me. These are not words that are misused, but rather which, even when properly used, seem poorly designed. Some words just don’t sound at all like the things they’ve come to mean. I have tried my whole life to grow comfortable with the word “pithy” as meaning “brief, substantive, powerfully expressed.” But all efforts to the contrary, I continue to feel I’m listening to someone with a speech impediment who’s in a really foul mood.

“Bucolic” is another word that instantly goes in the wrong direction. Instead of thinking of lovely farm scenery, I think bucolic, alcoholic, diastolic, metabolic, even vitriolic. You can’t take a word like colic, made up of nasty sharp consonants, and believe you’ve rendered it lovely, peaceful, and rural just by throwing a byoo at the front. If that works, then saying you byoosgust me should be a sign of extreme endearment.

The truth is I love words. But I also love the people who are doing their best to express a new thought or idea by using them, even if they don’t always do so perfectly. So I feel the sting, right along with them, of the language sometimes used in pointing out their errors.

Things like. . .

“I’m so annoyed by. . .”

“I find it unforgivable that. . .”

“It makes my ears bleed to hear. . .”

It strikes me a tad on the haughty side. Certainly there was once a day, many years ago, when each of these purveyors of perfectly used English also had to learn to use led instead of lead. But rather than feeling some sympathy for the person still making these mistakes, they now find themselves in the enviable position of being able to cast literary impropriety stones. They’ll tell us that these folks should be ashamed for not learning their craft before venturing forth. The problem of course is that one often doesn’t know what one doesn’t know until one has ventured forth. I also know that every one of these critics has looked at their own work—work that passed before a minimum of fourteen pairs of eyes before finally making it to print, and always they find something that slipped by them.

I think it’s okay, even important, to point out errors and encourage improvement. But as we each grow in our craft, I hope we also can recall that one word that never annoys, that flows perfectly off the tongue, that has a beautiful lyrical sound when spoken, which perfectly matches the beauty in its meaning. Grace. Ah, may we see and hear (and dispense) more of it. And if that doesn’t suit, I think byoosgust is still up for grabs.

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What Do I Write About? Tendering Your Witness

IMG_3241

Like many of you creative writerly types, I have a new book or essay idea about once a week. Any casual observer will know when this happens. My eyes gain x-ray vision, I will wear mismatched clothes for a day or two. I’ll start pulling books from my library, organizing them into Useful Research Piles, and I create a new folder on my computer, into which I start shuttling and dumping uncountable necessary articles and links.

But it is not long before the writing deadlines I am already under reassert their authority. I follow meekly to my office to tending my previous fires that once sent me into fevers, but with a new light gleaming from my forehead.

Some of those gleams turn into books, essays, and blog posts. But some of them sputter into oblivion, snuffed out by the realities of life, the most pressing of which is—There Is Never Enough Time.

running with clock

The question we all face is: Out of a plenitude of possibilities, yet with limited time and energy, what do we choose to write about? How do we decide?

The stakes are high. If it’s books we’re talking about, for me it’s at least 2 years of immersion in the writing, and then once the book is released, several more years follow of spreading the word. So I had better love it, believe it, and be willing to soap any box with its message.

woman on soapbox

How do we decide, then? I have followed a simple rule most of my writing life: TENDER YOUR “BURDEN OF WITNESSING.”

The phrase here is not mine. I’ve lifted it from Patricia Hampl’s wisest of words, “ . . .  For we do not, after all, simply have experience; we are entrusted with it. We must do something—make something—with it. A story, we sense is the only possible habitation for the burden of our witnessing.”

What has God entrusted to you? What “burdens of witnessing” have been given to you?  Start here.  My first book of prose was about commercial fishing women, because there I was, in the midst of a life I was trying to live and understand, mostly unsuccessfully. I moved to memoir next, writing about my life on a wilderness island in Alaska, then onto other topics I had “witnessed”: motherhood, unplanned pregnancy, the spirituality of food, forgiveness of my schizoid father. I have never regretted a single project.

When you write as a witness from these hard places, you immediately avoid one of the greatest weaknesses of beginning writing, and even “successful” writing: writing without “mattering.”  Over the years, I’ve met students and writers who can fashion beautiful sentences in their sleep—–but talent and beauty alone does not make them “matter.” Without heart, without an urgency that comes from deeply lived experience, your words on the page will only be words on a page. (And, take note: Because they matter to you doesn’t automatically make them matter to your readers. You must make them matter to the reader as well.)man reading book

There is yet another reason for doing this. And forgive me now for going sermonic on you, but I pull it out now because I know you are reluctant to excavate the stash under your bed and in your closets. One of the graces of believing in a God who inhabits the hearts of his people is the certainty that all events—celebrations, dirges, dangers, and feasts—come to us through His hands, and they are hands with purpose. They are hands that intend our trials to be tended and eventually tendered for the good of others. The New Testament spells out the program: God, who is the “God of all comfort,” comforts us in our troubles for this purpose, “so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” Pass it on, brothers and sisters.

Don’t worry if there’s blood. As Red Smith has written, “For my money anyway, the only books worth reading are books written in blood . . . “ [Red Smith].     bloody book

Write about what you MUST write about. Write about what has been entrusted to you alone. Write about what matters most to you. Write about the things you cannot turn away from. Write about the hurt, the cheating, the doubts, the hopes, the comfort, the sickness. Our time is short—make it count.

Tender the witness you’ve been given.

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Hello? Who’s Calling?

Businessman talking on cell phoneOne of my favorite stories in the Bible involves hearing a call, but not knowing where it came from.

Young Samuel is learning the ropes of serving God when he hears a call in the night and assumes it is Eli, his mentor. Obediently, he runs to the old man and says, “Here I am; you called me.” (1 Samuel 3: 5) Eli denies calling Samuel, and only after it happens a third time, does Eli realize that God is the one doing the calling, at which point he tells Samuel how to answer. Following Eli’s instruction, Samuel responds to God and enters into conversation with the Lord.

There are three reasons I love this scripture so much: 1) like Samuel, I don’t always recognize who is calling me;  2) it reassures me that I get more than one chance to get it right; and 3) when I finally do get it right, God doesn’t hold my slowness against me, but launches into conversation.

I’ve also learned that this is a great way to understand my writing career – it takes discernment, effort and openness to write what God gives me, and thankfully, He’s very, very patient with my slowness!

Discernment can be a journey in itself.

I’ve always been a writer. But it wasn’t till I was pursuing my master’s degree in theology that I felt the urge to write books, and specifically, fiction. I remember telling one of my instructors about this new desire, and how odd it was for me, a trained journalist and researcher, to suddenly feel like I should write a novel. Her response was that I should not dismiss the urge, that God speaks through fiction as well as nonfiction. I tucked the idea away, thinking it was momentary insanity…until three years later, when another instructor told me I should write a book.

“But I don’t know what to write – I have so many ideas I’d like to explore,” I confessed to him.

“Then pick one and get to work,” he told me.

I chose the concept of vocation, and wrote my first book, a short theological reflection on Christian vocation. I enjoyed the work and the book was published. It felt right, and it felt safe. Nonfiction, I could do.

But I still felt the draw to write fiction. One day, I decided to give it a try when a friend told me I told great stories about my kids. Since I loved mysteries, I chose that genre, and surprised myself with how immersed I became in the writing. I felt like it was what I was called to do.

In my experience, God does speak to us through others, even when we’re not listening very well. Samuel was lucky – he had Eli to help him discern God’s voice.  In our lives, I believe we have help, too, but we have to be open to those messengers of discernment, because they can come in many forms and voices, and they can be very persistent (thank goodness!). After all, it took Eli three times to recognize God’s call for Samuel.

Who helps you discern the call of God in your writing life?

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Why I Don’t Believe in Writer’s Block

It’s one of the most oft-asked questions I get as a writer and teacher: “What can I do about writer’s block?”

“Write,” I say. (I was going say, “Simple. Write.” Alas, I realize it isn’t simple. It isn’t easy.)

I tell people I don’t believe in writer’s block.

The PCT heading toward Oregon's Collier Cone.
The PCT heading toward Oregon’s Collier Cone.

Do the words sometimes come harder than at other times — or hardly at all? Sure.

Do you sometimes need to change things up to feel the mojo again? Sure.

Do you sometimes crave the idea of skipping that 5 a.m. appointment with your keyboard? Sure.

But this idea that we can’t move forward until the muse returns with open arms — no, that’s a crock. Basing your writing on feelings is no better than basing your life on feelings.

Sometimes you just have to power your way through.

It’s that way with anything we do. But writers seem to have created something of a self-fulfilling failure prophecy, a challenge apparently so insurmountable that we’ve given it an official name. And once something is named, it becomes an official malady.

Read: An excuse.

I don’t believe in writer’s block anymore than I believe in “plumber’s block” should the guy fixing my pipes suddenly find the going difficult. “Sorry, pal,” he might say as he gathers up his tools — and, of course, hitches up his, ahem, jeans. “Just not feeling it today.”

I don’t believe in writer’s block anymore than I believe in “surgeon’s block” should the doctor doing my knee operation find herself stymied. “Hey, Bob, hang in there. I’m going to flex out the rest of the day. Maybe catch a matinee to see if I can get back in the groove, you know?”

That’s not to say there aren’t things you can do to get yourself “unstuck.” Sometimes I’ll go back and read my piece from the beginning. Explain my plight to someone who knows my story with hopes they can jar something lose. Maybe even take a walk.

But this idea that you somehow need to wait until the “feeling” returns is bunk.

Ernest Hemingway said it well: “Easy writing makes hard reading. Hard writing makes easy reading.” Jack London claimed to have written 20 hours a day.

Part of writing is discipline. Is doggedly moving on. Is writing on even if the results aren’t perfect. Even when it hurts. Even when you’d rather be doing something else.

So, today’s efforts might not have rung your literary chimes. But they count for something. You persevered. To quit whenever it hurts it to make it that much easier to quit the next time. A lesson I learned while hiking the 452-mile Oregon portion of the Pacific Crest Trail: “You must go when your body says no.” With writing, you must go when your mind says no.

Just last week, after a speech, someone in the audience asked me which of my books I’d written was my favorite. “They’re like children,” I said. “Each one is my favorite for a different reason. But the one I’m proudest of is American Nightingale because nothing in my nearly four decades of journalism has come with more difficulty. Nearly four years from idea on a Wendy’s napkin to seeing it on a Barnes & Noble shelf.” (I captured that research, writing, and promotional experience in a subsequent book, Pebble in the Water.)

Sometimes I draw inspiration from fellow writers. I do a lot of 5-a.m.-to-9 a.m. book writing before I go off to be a newspaper columnist. If my alarm goes off and I don’t want to get up I remember my novelist friend Jane Kirkpatrick and think this: Jane has already been on her keyboard for an hour.

Or because I write a lot about inspirational people, I’ll think about something they soldiered through — war, disease, the death of a loved one — and think to myself: Buck up, pal. This is just stringing together words. You’ve got it easy. 

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Living More Renewed in 2013

Did you make any resolutions for 2013?  Okay, now the convicting question, are you keeping them? Whether 2012 was a fruitful year for you, a dry, challenging season, or somewhere in between, the new year offers a fresh start—a new beginning filled with a renewed sense of hope for the future. However, our 2013 won’t look much different from past years unless we make some changes. Resolutions are often our way of acknowledging the aspects of our lives that need a little tweaking.

This year, I made a resolution to live life more fully renewed and spiritually refreshed through a greater commitment to prayer. Would you consider joining me in my quest to become stronger and more fully devoted to Jesus than ever before?

DaffodilsI must caution you that is just the kind of commitment the apostle Peter claimed to have before he denied His Lord three times.

Check out this adapted excerpt from my new Bible study on Peter—Eyewitness  to Majesty: Abandoning Self for Christ:

“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them…”But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not.
“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “today—yes, tonight—before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times.” –Mark 14:27-30

Peter was claiming greater allegiance to Jesus than that of all the other disciples. Just like many of us, Peter desperately wanted to be strong and fully devoted to Jesus. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was overwhelmingly weak.

Peter didn’t realize a test of his commitment was coming. Satan had asked to sift him like wheat. Grain is purified by sifting. In Jesus’ day, the grain was placed into large sieves that were shaken vigorously, allowing the grain to pass through. Undesirable pieces or weeds were left behind.  I believe a sifting by Satan occurs when everything in our lives is shaken to the point where we have nothing to cling to except our faith, but trials of any kind can bring about some level of spiritual sifting. We come through those circumstances stronger and some weeds, such as discontentment or pride, have often been sifted away.

Just before Jesus was arrested and then crucified on the cross, the Son of God knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed to His Father in such agony that He was sweating blood.

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” –Mark 14:37-38

Jesus was not just informing Peter of his weakness. Jesus Himself was being tempted to flee the cross. His spirit was willing, but His flesh was weak. Jesus gained the strength He needed to overcome His flesh through prayer. If Jesus needed to pray to overcome temptation, don’t you think we should do the same?

Jesus’ sorrow overwhelmed Him to the point of death. Yet He was able to pray, “Not what I will, but what You will.” He got up from that prayer time strong and in total submission to God’s will. In contrast, Peter slept and rested while Jesus prayed. He had emphatically proclaimed he would not fall away. He wasn’t prepared for the sifting about to take place in his life. Jesus had warned him, yet Peter wasn’t listening. His spirit truly was willing, but his flesh was tragically weak.  Copyright © 2013 AMG Publishers, All Rights Reserved.

If Jesus needed to pray to overcome His flesh, we cannot possibly overcome temptation without prayer. Like Peter, our spirits may be willing, but our flesh is tragically weak.

To make prayer a priority this year, I’m setting two alarms to make sure I get up early enough to have my prayer time each morning. I’m also posting a prayer on my author Facebook page every Monday morning for accountability and to pray regularly with other believers. And finally, I’m meeting with three other women once a month for a time of focused prayer.

If you’re making a greater commitment to prayer, what are you doing to make that pledge a reality? Let’s live 2013 more fully renewed and spiritually refreshed—together.