READ: Review, 31 Days to a Younger You by Arlene Pellicane
I’ll begin this review with a confession: I didn’t read this book the right way. Author Arlene Pellicane intends 31 Days to a Younger You: No Surgery, No Diets, No Kidding (Harvest House, 2010) as a 31-day adventure in looking, feeling, and living young. Because of my planned review, I read it in only two or three sittings. Although the title points to outer beauty, this wise author instead highlights practical, biblical steps to true beauty, which flows outward from the soul. She fills her bite-sized presentations with positive, personal encouragement; transparent stories; beauty tips that don’t involve medications or elaborate surgical procedures; and expert advice. All this combines to make 31 Days a fun, helpful, and positive read. Each chapter ends with a Thought for Rejuvenation (question to consider) and Act of eXpression (suggested actions for renewal). Kudos to Arlene for helping me examine some areas of my life that needed a fresh touch. I recommend you take 31 Days to consider your own. If you could read a book that promised to help you look and feel younger, what would you want to find inside? OR If you could write a book like this, what type of advice would you...
read moreWRITE: Interview with Susan Meissner
Susan Meissner is a multi-published author, speaker, and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include The Shape of Mercy, named by Publishers Weekly as one of the Best Books of 2008, also received the Christian Book Award for fiction. She is a pastor’s wife and a mother of four young adults. When she’s not writing, Susan directs the Small Groups and Connection Ministries program at her San Diego church. 1. Before you wrote novels, you wrote and edited for an award-winning small town newspaper. Can you describe how that experience helped prepare you for your writing work today? Writing for a newspaper teaches you to hook your reader with the first sentence and to write economically. I was told to think of each word as costing me a quarter so that I would be stingy with my words! Newspaper stories are all about brevity and yet completeness. Readers absolutely want to know the who, what, where, when, why, and how –it’s not like you can skip a couple–but you can’t be longwinded. Readers won’t read a newspaper story that goes on and on and on. Novels of course are longer and readers want their money’s worth in terms of length but the lesson is the same – When you can tell a story in ten amazingly good words instead of 20 just plain good words, you draw your reader in and they don’t want to let go. 2. How and why did you choose to designate your work as “Fiction for the restless reader”? When I began writing for the Christian market in 2004, I had a hunger for literary fiction from a Christian worldview, which can sometimes be different than Christian genre fiction. I was restless for it and there didn’t seem to be enough of it. So I wondered if maybe there were others out there like me who wanted fiction from a Christian world view, but not necessarily Christian fiction. The difference might be described as one having an overt Christian theme and the other having a subtle Christian theme. It was the latter I was restless for more of. I figured there other readers out there like me. 3. Lady in Waiting ties together the stories of two Janes: present-day antiques store manager Jane Lindsay and 16th century Lady Jane Grey. Which story proved more challenging to write, and why? Strangely enough writing the contemporary story of Jane Lindsay was the harder one because she plays a very passive, deferential person and I am not like that at all. I struggled to make her likeable. Sometimes I just wanted to slap her! But that was her flaw, you see. Every character has to have a flaw that they rub against in their quest for whatever it is they want. Her virtue was like it – she is a very patient, compassionate person – but it was her fatal flaw that I struggled with in the early drafts. I am thankful for great editors who helped me see how much Jane Lindsay needed to be liked. I created the character of the psychologist after I realized her passiveness needed to be exposed by someone who could help us care about her. 4. I know research is one of your special joys. Can...
read morePRAY: Prayer for those with Hidden Hurts
I’ll post the promised WRITE blog featuring an interview with Susan Meissner next week. I appreciate her willingness to fit my questions into her busy writing and ministry schedule! In the meantime, I’m praying today for those with hidden hurts (yes, that means all of us) and want to share my heart and my words. Father God, I come to you today weeping with those who weep and aching with those who hurt. So many times we smile on the outside as we mourn on the inside. And so often we believe the enemy’s lie that we’re alone in our pain. Lord Jesus, one of your promises is that you will not leave us alone, that you will come to us. I ask you to come to these dear ones now and bind up their wounds. I ask you to touch them with your Spirit, to bring healing and hope to their hearts. Father, I praise you for your mercy that surrounds and flows over all your works. Would you pour that mercy out in these specific situations today? Where people need to talk, let the words drop like gentle rain. Where they need to grant space and time, let them do so with a large measure of your peace. And where words remain unspoken and conflicts unresolved, I ask you to pour out your grace. Lighten burdens. Remove the sting from each wound so its poison spreads no further. Thank you that you understand each moment, each measure of our pain. Thank you that you endured much worse at much greater cost. Thank you for your love. Please pour it on those who are hurting and hiding this day. In Jesus’ holy name I pray–AMEN. Do you have thoughts or prayers to add to mine, or a way this prayer has touched you? Feel free to share. I’ll keep...
read moreREAD: Review, Lady in Waiting by Susan Meissner
(Leave a comment below for the chance to win my review copy of this book). Layers of meaning captivate me. I think it has to do with my love of words. Double entendres, puns—anything with two or more layers always makes me smile. In my own writing, I take delight in creating titles or subtitles that hold two meanings whether or not readers notice them My love for doubles is one of the many reasons I fell in love with Susan Meissner’s latest offering, Lady in Waiting (Waterbrook Press, 2010). This gentle but powerful work shares the story of two ladies in waiting tied together by a mysterious ring. Present-day Jane Lindsay, people-pleasing manager of an antiques store, finds the ring in a box of scrambled items from a British jumble sale. Captivated, she begins her quest for its original owner. In the process, she confronts both her troubled marriage and the choices she alone must make. Lady Jane Grey of 16th-century England also has choices to make and a destiny to fulfill. In love with one man but pledged to another, her life seems as subject to the whims and wishes of others as Jane Lindsay considers hers to be. Meissner sets the modern-day story alongside the story of Lady Jane Grey as seen through the sympathetic eyes of her dressmaker, Lucy. As the two stories unfold, they have much to say about choice, desire, and truth that sets free. Meissner’s skill as a writer is evident as she weaves the two stories together with a firm but gentle hand. Each carries its own unique voice and leaves readers contemplating their own choices and relationships—and wanting more from Meissner. And that makes this reader a lady in waiting, too. Want a sneak peak at Lady in Waiting? Click to check out a sample chapter. If you’d like, take a moment and rate my review on the Waterbrook site, too. Thanks! What other books have you read that carry layers of meaning or perhaps a dual story? Share your comment for the chance to win my review copy of Lady in Waiting. And watch for a WRITE interview with author Susan Meissner later this week! I’ll draw names from those who comment on either post before midnight this Friday night, February 4. (FTC disclaimer: I received a copy of this book free from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for this review. I was not required to post a positive...
read moreWRITE: Interview with Linda W. Rooks
Today’s WRITE blog features an interview with Linda W. Rooks, author of Broken Heart on Hold: Surviving Separation which I reviewed in Tuesday’s post. Remember, if you’d like a change to win an autographed copy, please leave a comment on the book review. About the Author: Linda W. Rooks has a passion to help heal marriages, a passion that is fueled by the hope she and her husband found together when their own marriage was restored after a three-year separation. Since that time Linda has shifted much of her energy to bringing hope and understanding to couples experiencing crisis in their marriage. An almost native Californian, Linda received a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She met and married her husband, then a Navy officer, and moved to his home state of Florida to put him through law school. Linda and her husband Marv, an attorney and assistant professor at Barry University School of Law, now live in Central Florida and have two married daughters and five young grandchildren. 1. For readers who haven’t yet met you, can you share a bit of your background? My love for writing goes back to my elementary school years, and I have been writing in one form or another ever since. I majored in creative writing at San Francisco State University but didn’t start publishing on a national level until about 12 years ago. In my personal life, my husband and I started our marriage deeply in love. We had two lovely daughters, and thoroughly enjoyed our family life. Unfortunately though, we were not good at resolving conflicts, and as a result too many unresolved issues began to eat away at the fabric of our relationship. Things continued to deteriorate until 1995 when my husband left me. We were separated for three long years. In 1998 after each of us had looked into our own hearts and made some needed changes, we restored our marriage. The strong marriage we have today is a testimony to what God can do with two hearts that are submitted to him. 2. During your own time of separation, what resources helped you the most? The Bible, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, What You Feel You Can Heal by John Gray, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray, Men in Midlife Crisis by Jim Conway. I also listened a lot to Christian music and Christian radio teachers like Chuck Swindoll and Charles Stanley. 3. How did you make the decision to turn your painful experiences into a book? When I was dealing with some kind of issue during our separation, I would often sit at my computer and write about what was going on until God brought me to some level of peace. When my husband and I got back together and I went back to look at what I’d written, I discovered I’d done this around 40 times. As I read them over, I realized my writing might be able to help others going through something similar. When I showed them to my husband, he agreed and said that if they were turned into a book it would be a way to turn our bad experience around into something good. Because I’d looked for books to...
read moreWelcome
I've asked God to use my writing and speaking to count for eternity. I'm passionate about relationships and creativity.
