Today, I welcome friend and author Carol Barnier to my Words with Friends feature. Earlier this week, I posted this review of her latest book, Engaging Today’s Prodigal. Although I first met Carol at the Florida Christian Writers Conference back in February of this year, I’ve known her name for some time. We’re both homeschool moms, and Carol is known as an expert on dealing with children with hyperactivity (check out her SizzleBop website for more information). We’re both members of Word Weavers International (Carol serves as a mentor, helping start new chapters) and work together to produce the group’s electronic newsletter each month. So yes, I consider this author a friend, and I’m  delighted to share both her work and her responses to some questions today. Carol, in your latest book, you’re not just writing about prodigals in general; you’ve been one, an atheist at that. Take us into the mind of an atheist. What was your journey like?                                    I’m a pastor’s kid. And lots of people think “Okay, that explains it.” But I really don’t think it does. My parents were really pretty good parents. My father, in particular, was this amazing Christian model for me. He was brilliant, humble, and the real deal. What I heard from the pulpit was exactly what I saw in this man’s daily life. Someone approached me at a recent conference and said, “Yeah, but was he intense at home? You know, bringing lots of tension into that house?” And that’s when I realized that not only did he not bring tension in the home, on the contrary, he was funny. Truly funny. He was the thing that broke tension in the house, and anywhere else for that matter. He was a Barnabas, an encourager. So I can’t look to my parents as a reason for losing faith. Like a lot of kids today, I just wanted my faith-based world views to make sense. I needed to be able to comfortably and reasonably defend what I was told to believe. That was part of it. Then there were some things that I look back upon and feel they were truly bad theology. But I didn’t know that at the time. And so when I wasn’t easily able to find answers to my many questions, I stepped away from the Judeo-Christian beliefs I’d been taught.  I began looking at other religions. Finding them lacking, I turned to philosophy. After several years of exploring many other world views, I was indeed left an atheist. I jumped into this new belief with all I had. I joined...

“I can’t believe it! They changed the whole meaning of that paragraph!” Had you lived in the Pieper household during the first few years of my professional writing career, you’d have heard many similar rants. If my long-suffering husband disagreed, he never told me. In fact, he did everything possible to sympathize with his wounded writer wife. What I did wrong: I failed to recognize the value of the editor’s work. What I did right: I never took my comments to the editor. Everyone needs an editor, as I mentioned to one of my blog regulars who found an error in a recent post. “Develop rhino skin,” the more experienced among us like to tell new writers. We mean it. Even the best writer or the strongest grammarian needs a second pair of eyes. An editor provides those eyes along with the experience to know what to cut, what to change, and when to cut or change it. “So what?” you may wonder. Today, I want to encourage acceptance and adherence to an editor’s fixes, critiques, and comments because on too many recent occasions, I’ve witnessed a dangerous syndrome: arguing with the editor. This happens when a writer (usually via e-mail) takes the rants from the privacy of home or office back to the editor’s desk. She complains about the removal of sentences. He moans about the lost voice. She whines, “But I thought you’d work with me.” He grouses about the posted editorial guidelines. And everyone loses. Since I sit behind both writing and editing desks, I experience this issue from each side. But whenever I consider it, I land on the side of respect. As an editor, I respect the writer’s expertise on a story, a subject or situation. I recognize the source of the story, and I’m not it. When I work with experienced writers, I recognize that their voices won’t—and shouldn’t—sound like my own. But as a writer, I must also respect my editor’s expertise. If eliminating a word here or a phrase there helps communicate truth, so be it. If reworking a paragraph or changing a chapter makes the teaching or story flow, let’s do it. In the end, both editor and writer must respect the reader. If we can work together to produce a product that lives, moves, and communicates truth, we’ve both reached our goal. Yes, minor changes can seem major. Some editors are less sensitive than others. Your article may not seem as much your own work after editing, and your book may not appear in print quite as you had envisioned it. But remember that someone cared enough to edit it. Someone also cared enough to publish it. And, as any writer knows, a...

Brrr! Fall arrived in Florida overnight as temperatures dipped into the lower 50’s. I know, I know. Where my mother lives in Ohio, they had snow flurries yesterday. We have nothing to complain about. Today, I’m helping welcome fall for the Christian Authors Network through this delightful interview with fellow Florida author Crystal Bowman. Check it out between spoonfuls of hot...

Today’s post continues a topic we began earlier this week when I posted a picture on Facebook of some meals I’d prepared for the freezer. Feel free to read the first set of FAQs here before you read these. Do you have to cook as much without all of your children at home, or is it just habit? As I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, our meals have gotten smaller now that our three older children have left the nest. But I’ve noticed our remaining family members still like to eat. And mega-cooking is the most practical, efficient, and cost-saving way I’ve found to feed our family and keep up with my other responsibilities, too. I need a workshop on this! I’ve taught workshops on this topic several times but only once in the past few years. I would be glad to do so again. It’s a great topic for a church group, MOPs group, homeschooling group, etc. How do you decide what meals to freeze? I have a battery of recipes I’ve used and developed through the years. I also like to change things up every once in a while and add something new or different. Not all meals work for the freezer (celery is a popular ingredient, for example, but it holds too much water to freeze well in bulk). Whenever it’s time to do our mega-cooking, we have a family meeting and discuss what to prepare. Like any other family decision, meal-planning often involves compromise. Allowing family members to help make the list cuts down on future complaints, too. I would add that you don’t want to use a new, untried recipe in your mega-cooking rotation. If your family doesn’t like it once, they won’t want to see it five or more times. And yes, I speak from experience. When our oldest two daughters were small, I tried a Sweet-and-Sour Chicken recipe that my husband and I enjoyed but our children despised. We made the mistake of calling it “Chinese food,” and for years afterward, our older girls were sure they hated any kind of Asian cuisine! My spouse (children, grandchildren) won’t eat casseroles. Can this kind of cooking still work for me? Yes and no. If you read my recipe list from Tuesday’s post, you’ll notice a few casserole-type dishes there. The soups and sauces used in casseroles work well for freezing. But I also freeze entrees like Taco Meat and Marinated Chicken. I would say not eating casserole-style dishes might limit, but not prevent, mega-cooking. You shape your mega-cooking to fit your family’s budget, needs, and preferences just as you do whenever you cook. How does mega-cooking save you money? It seems as though the...

Writers write. That may seem like basic information, but that simple phrase sets the professional apart from the amateur. If you write full-time as I do, you write—no matter what. Sometimes other people or things take precedence, but in order to keep publishing, writers keep writing. I have a secret weapon in my homemaker/homeschooler/conference speaker/full-time writer and editor arsenal. We call it mega-cooking, a project our family accomplishes over a period of a few days. During this time we (or, as the children have grown older and busier, I) buy ingredients, prepare, and fix more than fifty main dishes for our freezer. That provides the base for our dinner meals for the next several months. Yesterday, I posted a photo and shared a comment on Facebook about our latest sets of meals. It drew so many questions and comments that I decided to respond where I have a little more room. I’m condensing and compiling some of the similar questions, so don’t think I’ve omitted yours. How do you do this? First of all, I don’t cook fifty or more individual meals. Instead, I make each of several recipes six or seven times over. I follow a simple procedure in which I multiply the ingredients and list them according to type to help me compile a grocery list. After I have all the ingredients, I make a task list that shows everything I need to do to make every meal. I combine common tasks such as chopping vegetables or browning meat and do those as early on in the process as I can.             After I finish the basic prep work, I start going through the task list to prepare individual meals. I also try to accomplish more than one thing at a time. I might bake the potatoes for Loaded Baked Potato Soup while I’m browning the meat for Tacos, or cook up some veggies in chicken broth while I’m mixing up a soup base, etc.             Mega-cooking is (of course) both easier and more complicated than this, but you get the basic idea. Do you have a big freezer? Yes. And no. We do have a chest freezer in our garage (I think it’s about cubic feet, but I’m not sure). But the meals take up less room than you might think. I freeze the majority of ours in gallon-size zip-top bags. I load my soups, sauces, and even casseroles into the bags, push out as much air as possible, and freeze them as flat as I can on a cookie or other baking sheet. Once the meals freeze, I can stack the bags high without taking up much room. One year when we moved and had...

Today, I’m teaching a continuing class for new writers, WannaBe Published, at the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference. But you can also find me over at the Christian Authors Network blog, posting an interview with author Davalynn Spencer. Check it out, and...