Procrastination

Procrastination.

Don't do it.

I speak from sad experience. I planned on writing my post tonight but yesterday I broke my thumb. That makes writing quite a task right now.

If I had started earlier this would have been a fabulous insight on the writing life. Because I procrastinated, it's kind of not.

Anyway, hope you all have great productive weekends!

Breakthrough!

Woot! Woot!

I've been waiting for this for a long time, and to me it's almost as good as a hot biscuit fresh from the oven.

I finally figured out a way to stay creative at work, despite my exhaustion from working in a factory. (Sorry if I keep repeating myself about the factory. It's really created a bottle neck as far as time and energy for the rest of life.)

Some aspects of my job are very routine, almost like milking cows. Same thing over and over. I just have to keep moving. That gives me some big chunks of time to day-dream about my stories.

I started a new project about the time I discovered the "notes" feature of my cell-phone actually has a lot of space.

So, on breaks and at lunch, I've been writing myself notes about my latest story. If they are in my cell phone, they have to be concise, and they don't blend into the debris field of my purse like paper scraps would.

When I get home, I jot them down in the story document. I don't really have an outline or a snowflake, just a list of things to do in the story. I don't think this is going to change me from a seat-of-the-pants writer to an organized one, but it is helping me use my time.

The only issue is, what was I thinking? Here's an entry ..."Sofias gma n ggma dps, ggma a cook for army, overhears gi speaking dutch, is war bride." I think it is supposed to mean "Sofia's grandma and great-grandma are displaced persons after World War II. Great-grandma gets a job as a cook (?) (or doing laundry? Ask Pop) for Army, overhears a GI speaking Dutch, is war bride and they move to Michigan."

Anyway, I've been using my cell phone to capture a lot of ideas while they are fresh. I would love to hear other ideas for organizing stories.

See you after work!

Bunny trails

Is it research, or going down a bunny trail? What if the bunny trail leads me into conviction?

When I was young, sometimes I tried to follow literal bunny trails, little paths threaded through long grass almost always leading deep into a thicket of multi-floral ("wild") roses. It usually took longer to get untangled and out of the sticker bushes than it did to get in, leaving me with scratches, torn clothes and no bunnies.

So I have to wonder about my research sometimes. Internet bunny trails are just a link away. I don't have to worry about thorns, torn clothes or chiggers, but want to make the most of my time.

While looking for background on Indiana and the Civil War, I have collected several reference books, read on-line sources, leafed through old family letters, and visited re-enactments and Conner Prairie. I keep going back to some favorite sources, especially ones about farming with horses, and of course, hoopskirts, even Victorian jewelry and hair art.

Some of my research nuggets are thought-provoking, though. Uncomfortably so at times.

My WIP has a thread about Spiritualism, a belief that souls of the departed linger near loved ones and can communicate with them. It was a serious movement in the 1800s.

As a Christian, I have all kinds of objections to that, but my characters have to work towards those conclusions. Using the "Nineteenth Century in Print" collection of periodicals from American Memory Project, I found many articles about Spiritualism from the 1800s.

I also wandered to Beliefnet, a site dedicated to spirital life. Several articles covered modern Spiritualism. Some of its beliefs and practices have been renamed and merged into the New Age movement.

What surprised and saddened me was a survey on that site about beliefs about souls of the departed. While most Christians and Jews believed in an afterlife, so did the Wiccans.

Matter of fact, when the survey asked whether the living could contact the dead, the Wiccans were  most likely to believe that was true and to report having such experiences. At the other extreme were atheists, who believe it's all over at death.

As a Christian from a very grounded Midwestern farm family I find both extremes troubling. How do we as Christians share hope with such lost people? So lost that they have not a clue where they are or where they are going? How should I deal with someone with surprising beliefs?

I think fiction -- maybe not my historical romances written for other Church Ladies -- from some gifted writers could work through the thorny hedges around the hearts of such lost people.

A dog's life -- or pictures of grace

God does work all things together for good. Our dog's accident illustrated some Christian concepts so clearly. I'm sure in the future when I want to explain grace, mercy and even the wonder of the resurrection all I have to do is remember what happened to Josie ...

"I didn't even get to say goodbye to her," my son sobbed as we drove away from the vet's office.

We had tried to hold back tears the whole time. Something was seriously wrong with our blue heeler, Josie. Earlier that day she wouldn't eat or drink, acted sore all over, and worst of all, was wheezing and panting. Politely, just to please us, she took a baby aspirin wrapped in cheese and baloney. She could barely get it down.

Did she have a broken rib? Had she been kicked by one of the horses or head-butted by one of hte cows? Had she eaten rat poison? Did she have pneumonia?

We had called the local vet but they were closing within minutes and directed us to call an emergency service. They weren't open yet. Desperate, we called the cow vet for some advice. He suggested another vet's office in town.

These people didn't know us from Adam, but said they would see Josie.

I wonder what they thought when we rattled up in the farm truck with a horse's lead rope fastened to Josie's hunter orange collar.

That was our first picture of grace. We were strangers to them, but they offered to look at our dog.

The first vet seemed only a few years older than my kids. She got down on the floor with Josie and started to examine her, then took her away for X-rays, suspecting a broken rib as we did.

So we waited.

The X-rays, though, showed something much worse. Her lungs did not appear at all. Instead we saw  air pockets in odd places. The staff suggested barium X-rays, suspecting that her diaphragm was ruptured and abdominal contents were up in her chest.

My son and I waited longer in the exam room while Josie received more X-rays. I had to break it to him gently. "This is probably not good," I said. "At her age ..."

Josie came to us from one of my husband's hay customers. Eli was a rodeo rider from Texas who somehow drifted up to Indiana. He was moving back to Texas and feared old Yosefina (Josie) could not take the heat. So we didn't know exactly how old she was, only that she was the sweetest little thing and never met a stranger. When she was at the top of her game she was as good or better than most people at working cattle. She looked like a sawed-off German Shepherd with an alert face and big brown eyes, pointy ears, stocky wide-set legs and a bobbed tail

The vet came back with an older man, the clinic owner, who was in running clothes. He also explained the X-rays and said to know for sure what was going on, we'd have to let the barium work its way through Josie. So we could go home and wait for his call.

When he called, the news was catastrophic. She did indeed have a ruptured diaphragm often seen in dogs that get hit by cars or kicked by livestock. A medical emergency. But he guessed Josie was much younger than what we thought, and in great shape. Surgery, however, would cost thousands of dollars. We had to have a family meeting.

We were in agreement: We could not possibly afford surgery. When the vet called back, I was too upset to talk to him so my husband had to tell him all we could do was have the dog put to sleep. I was embarrassed to think the vet heard the kids (and me) sobbing in the background.

So she was gone, just like that, just as unexpectedly as she had showed up when she jumped out of Eli's truck and ran right over to the kids to play with them.

That night I went out to do chores without Josie. The stars were still big and bright but the farm seemed so empty without her. No Josie to chase rabbits or shout down the coyotes howling from the woods. Gone. Just gone.

We cycled through all stages of grief -- disbelief and anger at Josie for doing something foolish enough to get injured, then acceptance that she was an old dog and we could not possibly afford surgery. One of the boys went out and started digging a grave for her.

The next morning I called the vet's office. "We were wondering if we could pick up the body," I said in a tired voice.

The receptionist paused. "The doctor would like to speak to you."

What on earth?

"We mulled this over and decided, as a Christmas present to you, to do Josie's surgery for no charge."

I was sobbing (again.) "She's still alive?"

That was an emotional picture of the resurrection. Josie had not physically died but in our hearts we had given her up for dead. To find out otherwise was a great joy. Also, the vet's offer illustrated grace and mercy. We could not possibly pay for her surgery, but the vet did it anyway as a gift.

Then there was the power of prayer: After Josie's surgery, the vet said she had a 50-50 chance of surviving since her injuries were more extensive than he expected. We all prayed and so did family and friends. Four days later she was home with us, moving slowly, but back with her "pack."

Jesus used parables in his ministry to reach his listeners' hearts and souls. Now my family has a living, furry parable snoring on her Cincinnati Reds blanket on our couch.

God calls craftsmen

I came with a grain offering to the tabernacle. I saw the horns of the altar for the first time. We washed our hands with a laver, saw the bronze sea and finally went through purple, scarlet and blue curtains and gold pillars into the holy place. We found it dim, lit by a lampstand with seven oil lamps (a menorah in other words) and filled with incense.

Finally we saw the Ark of the Covenant.

Wow.

We went to see the Tabernacle Experience at First Baptist Church in Elkhart today. This is a traveling ministry that features a life-size replica of the Wilderness Tabernacle.

Of course they cannot travel with that much gold, silver, bronze and finely woven tapestries, not to mention the Ark of the Covenant. They use replicas to teach about God's dwelling place with the Israelites.

One comment about the Tabernacle craftsmen gladdened my writer's heart. God called the "master workmen" in the King James version. The master builders were called by name and their leader, Bezale-el, was filled with the spirit of God, in understanding, wisdom, knowledge and all manner of workmanship. Others were called wise-hearted as they helped create the structure and equipment of the Tabernacle according to God's plan.

While we are not working in gold, silver, bronze, fine fabrics, wood and leather, we are still craftsmen.

How encouraging that God calls us by name and equips us to create works for Him. As I work out plot tangles or other problems I can remind myself that the workmen received a plan from God but also wisdom and skills to carry it out.

Mighty Mo ...

Not the US battleship Missouri, but momentum.

How do I keep this writing thing moving forward?

I thought of this at work while trying to move a line of about 20 refrigerators. They were all sitting in a neat row on their little skids. They looked good and had passed testing and inspection. The next stops were packaging and shipping. But, they had missed their mark. They had stopped several inches short of a sensor that would start a motor to roll the line and send them on their way.

I thought of Buck, the sled dog in Call of the Wild. In a pulling contest, his driver called for him to lean to the left, then the right, to break an overloaded sled loose and get it moving.

That was all I had to do -- just get those things moving, just a few inches. So I leaned into them with my arms braced and tried to budge them just a little farther. If I had reached them earlier I might have been able to start pushing while they were still rolling, even slightly, just enough to continued making forward motion.

Sometimes I feel like my writing is at a stand still and that I have to do something to just get it moving, or keep it moving no matter how slowly.

For me that boils down to continuing to write, inspite of work, the farm, 4-H, band, Cub Scouts, Little League and all else going on. For instance, I am trying to work on more than one project at a time -- a novel, a novella, and had some ideas for more devotionals that I hope to sell. Hanging out with other writers inspires me.

I just have to keep inching forward.

In God's hands ...

A skittish paint mare snorted and her eyes widened as her trainer approached her with a terrifying object in his hand. The thing was big and noisy. He could wad it into a ball or unroll it and let it flap in the breeze. It snapped and crackled and crinkled, and moved chaotically. All those factors combined to horrify the mare.

She couldn't get away because he held her lead rope in his hand. She scrambled backwards and thrashed from side to side, but the ghastly thing was inescapable.

She had to face it, because the trainer would not let her run away. She was probably wondering why she ever trusted him in the first place.

After several minutes she braced herself and let him get closer with the thing in his hand. Then he brushed her with it, unfolded some of it and waved it around.

Finally she let him unfold it completely and drape it over her.

She looked pretty silly covered in a blue tarp but with the trainer's help, she survived the ordeal.

All the while horse trainer Lew Sterrett preached to a crowd at the Elkhart County Fairgrounds in Goshen, using horses to illustrate Biblical truths about faith, trust and leadership.

This illustration from Sterrett's "Sermon on the Mount" program stayed in my mind.

While he was working with the mare and the tarp he explained that everything is in God's hand, even trouble.

Everything is in God's hand, including but not limited to my worries about my family, the farm and drought and my writing career.

The trainer meant no harm to the horse. The exercise would de-sensitize her and make her more useful in the future, more trusting and more obedient.

I've been trying to look at my troubles that way -- that I can trust the Lord to lead me through situations, that he has a plan, that he is higher than I am and knows where we are going just like a well-trained horse going down a trail.

Just like every other part of our lives, our writing endeavours are in the Lord's hand.

Times and Seasons ...

Given that Indiana's two seasons are winter and road construction, of course I was in a "cone zone" on the way home from work. As I waited, the radio station played an old song by The Byrds, "Turn! Turn! Turn!" which is surprisingly based on Ecclesiastes: A time for every purpose under Heaven.



(Hoping that the linkie works!)

I had not heard that song in years. I remember listening to it as I drove down to Huntington years ago on assignment to take livestock photos for The Farmer's Exchange newspaper. At the time I was single and figured it was statistically improbable that I would ever marry and have a family of my own.

Some of my newspaper assignments made me feel like I was on the outside looking in as others lived more meaningful lives. People my age were married, had families and some of their older children were showing their animals in 4-H. "Lonesome me" took their pictures, then returned home to my little apartment and whatever the cat had fixed for supper.

Those years at the newspaper were one season of my life.

Seasons change as the Lord works in our lives. Along came my husband, and children of our own, cows, calves, a horse and a pony. Any and all of them could be at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair this week. Along with me -- the tired mom dealing out sandwiches, washing cow tails and keeping track of kids' show clothes and entry numbers.

Seasons can change over a long period of time, or in a day. Although we are in a drought, today the farm was blessed with almost three inches of rain. The season changed from certain disaster to hope that the hay and soybeans at least will make a crop. We're not sure what will happen to the corn.

And so it is with writing. For me there have been seasons of doodling and writing stories in long hand on legal pads. Then came college classes in English and news writing. After a brief season of unemployment I began working at the newspapers and thinking "All grist to this mill"as journalism took me way outside my comfort zone. Later I was a stay-at-home mom and farmer's wife starting on an epic 400-page romance about a farmer and a news reporter. That story is under the bed somewhere. But somehow I blundered onto the Internet, discovered ACFW and writing friends including Lisa Lickel and Mary Allen. So now I'm in a season of writing fiction.

You might be in a season that looks like a long drought, or worse yet, a permanent late February and early March mud season.

But seasons change, and the Lord guides us on our writing journey as in everything else. Sometimes it seems to take years for a season to change but other times just a day.

Theme ...

Last time I wrote, I thought about repeated elements in my stories. I found I often included a "churchy" character who was not really saved, just going through the motions. My heart aches for people like that.

This month I started thinking about some other main points or themes in my stories. Only one is published -- the others are in progress. Or under the bed!

I kept coming back to the authority of Scripture and was surprised to find it's a cornerstone of my stories.

As I was doing research about the Quakers in Indiana I discovered there was a major church split, "The Great Separation" in the 1830s throughout the Society of Friends. Some groups firmly believed in the Scripture above all, but others believed personal revelation was just as important.

A story I'm working on now includes a scene where a Friend tries to explain the controversy to a neighbor, who is surprised that such a question about Scripture would even come up.

In another WIP, a young Civil War widow is troubled as her mother-in-law embraces Spiritualism -- the New Age movement of the Victorian era. The mother-in-law is grieving the loss of her only son and feels there are better answers outside the Bible than in it. The daughter-in-law is troubled because she never questioned Scripture before. But Spiritualism sounds so modern and scientific. What if there is something to it? All this complicates her new romance with a cavalry officer.

In a contemporary one that I'm working on, a young woman who is a new Christian moves home with her parents to help them start an artists' commune. Her parents are post-modernists who believe all truths are equal and valid until she starts to date a conservative Christian farmer.

In all the stories the happy endings include most of the characters agreeing on the authority of Scripture.To me Scripture is like a light house shining through a fog of relativism and decisions based on emotion. The Bible is my anchor and that's one thing I want to pass on to my children as well as readers.

A repeated element

In art and photography, our eyes are drawn to repeated elements. Think of a graceful building with columns, or a flock of identical geese.

I realized recently I have a couple of repeated elements in most of my longer stories.

They include wild or misbehaving horses, bad weather and at least one character who believes she is a Christian because she goes through the right motions.

Wild horses are great for generating chaos. Bad weather -- not as bad as the Palm Sunday tornadoes or the Blizzard of '78 -- likewise are great for chaos.

But the lost "church lady" breaks my heart.

Once upon a time, I was that gal. Although I was raised in the church, went through catechism and confirmation, I did not understand the Gosepl until I heard it in church at college. I don't know if I just spaced out all those years or what. And no one is to blame but me for my situation.

During my wandering and wondering teen years I was fascinated by the occult, psychic phenomena, the supernatural, science fiction and fantasy. I must have worried my grandmother because she tried to get me to read books like "Christy" or "Joni." I passed on those two.

Instead, a pair of mismatched books and authors were like lights in my path and helped me get back on the right road.

The first was C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia." After I read them, no other fantasy books measured up. Aslan's watchful care over Narnia resonated with me.

The second book warned me away from the occult. In "A Magician Among the Spirits" one of my heroes, Harry Houdini, thoroughly debunked Spiritualism and some of its foundational occurrences and practitioners. He revealed how all the famous cases could have been easily faked. His crusade started after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle convinced him to attend a seance where a spirit claimed to be Houdini's late mother. She told him she loved him and was at peace but he was upset. The supposed spirit spoke in English. Houdini's immigrant mother never learned English and always spoke to him in her first language.

Spiritualism was all a fraud. I remember how stunned I was when his book revealed that. If Spiritualism was a fraud, so too must be all the other supernatural stuff I'd read about.

That left my heart wide open, fertile ground for the Gospel.

Because I'm afraid there are others in the same situation out there -- thinking they are all right with the Lord because they go to the right church, dress the right way, talk the right way -- I always find a character like that in my stories.

What other repeated themes and elements do we find in our stories? I will catch you all after work tomorrow. Have a great day!

Let's hear it for the boy ( ... man, actually ...)

Today is my 21st wedding anniversary to my cute, funny Christian husband.

Although I started out looking for a Christian man who liked children and animals many years before I met him, I never imagined Mr. Wonderful was kind of looking for a writer, as well as a red-head who was interested in farming.

My mom, of course, hoped I would find a Christian man who liked children and animals AND someone who came from a German farm family. I started to be amused during my single years how Mom would repeat the last name of current Mr. Wonderful and ask, "Now, is that a German name ...?"

Back to writing ... when we met and during our early years, I was a news reporter. Then when we started our family, I was a stay-at-home mom and farm wife.

All along, I kept writing and my dear husband kept being supportive. Next to my mom, he was the most sure I would be published someday.

We bought computers and printers and ink and piles of paper. (Let's not talk about the 400-page manuscript which I sent, unsolicited, in its entirety, to a very large Christian publisher.) He gave me a guy's perspective on many issues. He read summaries and excerpts. I did not subject him to whole manuscripts because dairy farmers' lives take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., or between rounds of milking and chores. He barely had time for news, weather and commodity prices. He even helped work out how an 1850s farmer would make hay in Indiana -- what equipment they would use and how many days a cutting would take to get in the barn.

He took care of the kids (and at various times, cows, horses and poultry) while I went to cluster meetings and writers' conferences. He kept everything running while I went on a research trip.

Turns out his love language is gifts of service.

Without quiet support like that, I would never have had a chance to pursue my lifelong dream of being a writer (and marrying a nice German farmboy.)

I can't wait to show him what just arrived on our porch: a box containing author's copies of the novella collection "Quakers of New Garden" that includes my story!

Who else supports us in our writing? We should give them a big thank you!

Time, time, time ...

I won't amaze anyone by saying this is written at the county fairgrounds on my laptop via WiFi while my kids are at their 4-H Dairy Club meeting.

These kinds of technological short-cuts surround all of us now. It's new to me, but sometimes my "Oh, wow!" reactions just earn me some eye-rolls from the kids.

To an extent constantly updated technology help all of us make use of our time.

As a writer, though, I often find myself longing for more time. Big uninterrupted chunks of time. Maybe in my sweats, hoodie, fuzzy slippers and with a hot cup of good coffee right at hand. I don't know when I ever experienced that, though. Before working in town, the kids were a lot younger and we had a lot more cattle and things happening on the farm. Now I have to grab bits of time when I can.

However ... so many evenings when I sit down to write, I wander off into the world of Facebook and browsing various sites for the latest news.

So how do I embrace the new normal of working in town and finding time to write and take care of my other responsibilities?

I have to make some choices. Lately I've been trying to "fast" from my favorite news websites, and only checking Facebook once a day. (Sorry, cousins!) I do try to take the laptop with me whenever I might have to wait on the kids at ballgames, 4-H meetings or appointments. I also try to keep a pen and scrap paper handy in case a cool idea crosses my mind. Actually, writing on the laptop while not online has worked out well.

I would love to hear other ideas for making more time for writing. See you all tomorrow afternoon after work!

Staying on track ...

My daughter and I were talking about "the perfect horse book" in her mind. Not one where an inexperienced rider is the only person who can tame an unbroken bronc, wins the race or show class and ends up marrying the stable boy.

So, what would be the perfect horse story?

She laid out some awesome ideas, including friendship and family relationships surrounding two cousins and their horses. In our story, one of the horses is an old but reliable beginner's horse and the other is a bronc-y (if that's a word) little mare, who, with some more wet saddle blankets, could be a winning barrel racer. We did throw in a couple of cliche's, including a mean girl and an evil ex-boyfriend.

What would it take to get this on paper?

We talked about Christmas break, our upcoming vacation, and writing a thousand words a day. Can we do it?

This reminds me of some of our horse-related talks about riding lessons, practicing for contesting and rail classes and finding time during the school year with everything else going on. "How bad do you want it?" I have often asked.

A lot of our time with the horses is not glamorous. There are stalls to clean and hay to bale. One of the most monotonous tasks ever was shortening her Quarter Horse gelding's mane from about a foot long to about four inches to prepare for the county fair. This took hours because manes should be pulled, not cut. If one of the horses gets sick or lame, sometimes there are shots or medications or soaking hooves or poulticing and wrapping legs. Sometimes there are late nights, walking a sick horse until the vet arrives. Other times we get to see our daughter and her horse in the ribbons at the fair.

So ... how badly do I want this? I have been asking myself this about not only the horse story but other projects as well.

Can we get a thousands words a day written on our horse story? I don't know, but it would be a good goal. What would we have to give up to make time for this? Is there any research involved? If we write it, then there is rewriting, revising, brain-storming, organizing and probably revising some more. Not as messy as a clay poultice for a gimpy horse, but still, some work involved.

How do we stay on track with our writing? Daily or weekly goals? I would enjoy hearing other ideas. I will be back after work!

Revisions

Over the weekend I got an e-mail from a copy editor at Barbour Publishing, which bought my novella, "New Garden Crossroads" earlier this year.

Revisions.

I dreaded opening the file for fear my precious story was bleeding red ink. I thought my story was perfect in every way when I sent it out. But I knew this was coming.

Not as bad as I feared, at all. She found no gaping holes in the plot. For that I have to thank my newspaper editors who would often quiz me on deadline about missing pieces of the story. Since I hated to have to call sources back at the last minute, I tried to cover all the bases in the stories that I turned in.

There were also tweaks to make my story fit Barbour's own style.

She suggested changes to sentence structures to use more active verbs. Those often helped tighten up the writing, a good thing.

Finally and most instructive, she made comments on points of view and times when I veered off into the "story teller's voice" which distanced the reader from the character. I did not realize when I wandered into those glitches. But since she pointed them out I had some "Ah-ha!" moments. For instance, at one point I said all the characters were surprised by one's comment. The editor said that the POV character could not know what the others were feelings. The POV character also could not know what the others could see out a window, for instance.

So this was a good lesson for me. I hope to apply what I learned to other work.

Hope everyone who is going to conference has a great time!

I will be back after work in case anyone has good stuff to share about copy-editing. I would love to hear more about the process.

History comes alive

Two little German farm boys edged up to a Union soldier at the edge of their camp. The young soldier was glad to tell them about his musket and bayonet. The boys were too bashful to say much but the young soldier, standing tall and straight in his blue wool uniform, filled in the gaps. His bayonet, by the way, worked out pretty well for roasting corn over a camp fire. That got the boys to laugh and ask more questions.

The freckle-faced boys and the rest of the family were actually visitors from the year 2011.

Our family took a trip to Conner Prairie this summer. While the kids saw a lot of Indiana history re-enacted, my writer's mind raced.

Living history events fascinate me. I so enjoy seeing period details brought to life. For instance, the young soldier was about 20, about the same age as many Civil War soldiers. He showed the kids percussion caps and heavy lead Minie ball bullets, then pointed out a surgeon's operating room in a farm out-building. Nearby, a lady store keeper struggled to sound calm as she described Confederate raiders plundering through her shelves and burning their store house. I couldn't help noticing the pretty shape that hoops gave to her calico dress, how her hair was done and how the store was set up.

We were able to go back a generation earlier in the 1836 Prairie Town settlement and restored Conner House. Mr. Conner balanced between two worlds, Indian and white, in his many adventures. A fur trader and scout, he married an Indian and had several children with her, but lost her when she took the children and moved West with her tribe. A lot of drama there. What did his second wife think of all that?

In the kitchen one of the volunteers told us all about cooking over the huge fireplace and using the beehive oven next to it. A Dutch oven sat on the hearth and she let me use a pot hook to take the lid off and move the crane around. How would an 1830s house wife prepare a Sunday dinner? We talked about that as well as the dangers of fire to women and children.

All of this suggested bits and pieces for my work-in-progress, set in Indiana during the Civil War.

For a burst of ideas, for me a living history event is an excellent source.

Unconventional writing tools

I can't get along without my laptop and some attempt at organization, but, there are some other things I use to unfreeze my mind when it seems locked up while writing.

I'm pretty sure I am a visual learner. So, I use Google Images a lot to see images and photos. For instance, I used it to figure out what 1850s farm equipment looked like, hair styles from the 1830s, fashions of that era, Civil War uniforms and flags and so on. Not every hit is what I am looking for, but some are useful. Just having a whole array of pictures to browse is a great help.

I listen to You Tube sometimes if I can think of the name of a song that fits where I am.

My favorite, though, is doodling. I can doodle anywhere and often do. This helps me picture characters and settings and block out scenes. By that I mean if it were a stage play rehearsal, the characters hit their marks and repeat their lines. Doodling helps me solidify their appearance in my mind. Does he have long or shot hair? Straight or wavy? Is she tall? Petite? Dressy or tomboyish? Sometimes I jot down a few words, too.

For me, doodling has another unexpected benefit -- for some reason drawing while listening helps me remember what I hear.

This is a win-win if doodling in church!

What are your favorite techniques for brainstorming? See you all after work!

Tools in my toolbox

A few weeks ago, a new laptop entered my life. And, right on time, my faithful desktop computer died. My local computer guru might be able to resurrect it, but for right now I am learning the laptop.

On the plus side, I can write almost anywhere: in the Lazy Boy chair, in bed, at the dining room table, on the couch, even in the stands during Little League games. (Only when DS2 is in the dug-out)

On the down side, it's smaller and touchier than my desk top. I'm using some new software, too, which is another change.

I used to write in long hand on legal tablets. I think the Great American Western Novel fills a ton of those in one of those boxes in the basement. (We've only been in this house for 20 years and I've got some other things to do first.)

Sometimes I'd use my trusty electric typewriter to put my long hand notes in a more readable form, but once the draft was typed, it seemed written in stone to my mind. I wonder if anyone else felt that way about a typed draft.

My first computer booted up with big floppy disks, and had a tiny screen like a port-hole with little green letters floating by. It was compatible with a dot-matrix printer.

As personal computers became more affordable, we invested (because it cost as much as a couple head of cattle) in a laptop computer. We putted out onto the Information Superhighway at the speed of a golf cart, but eventually made it.

With the ease of writing and editing on screen, my productivity soared once I switched to using a PC. Strangely enough, though, I found no takers for a 400,000-word contemporary romance novel.

Now these two tools seem irreplaceable -- both a computer and the internet. Recently when plot ideas came to me when I could not find pen and paper, I jotted them down as a draft of a text message.

I would love to hear about others' work styles and spaces. Does anyone still write in long hand first? Or e-mail ideas to themselves? I'll check back after work tomorrow. Have a great weekend, everybody!

What if ...

What if the lights went out in the factory in 2 a.m., and no one remembered I was still there?

Could I find my way out without falling or tripping or getting lost? A few work station lights were still on but the bright lights for the whole place were out.

That really happened a few weeks ago while I worked night shift to train some new people. Everyone clocked out but I stayed behind to finish up a few things.

When I turned around from my workroom and looked out into the main floor, it sure was dark! I have never been in the factory when it was dark and quiet at the same time.

Good thing I don't let my imagination runaway with me.

I found my flash light and started picking a careful path through the black, echoing industrial maze between me and the door.

I passed down rows of hulking two story equipment with randomly flashing lights. The machines made some occasional pops and hisses from the shadows, sounds I had never heard before because of all the other equipment, fans, voices and machinery.

Anybody could be in here, I thought with my mouth going dry. My next thought was, What a set-up for a story!

What if I had a stalker at work? Maybe an evil ex boyfriend? Or the evil ex-girlfriend of my current squeeze?

What if they lay in wait among the shadows?

How could I run through the darkness?

What if I dropped my cell phone, or the battery went dead, or I couldn't get a signal? Would I hear a stalker coming up behind me? Or would they trip over stuff as much as I was, and give themselves away?

I finally made it to the time clock about seven minutes after everyone left. I thought the situation would make a good incident for a story.

It was a pretty vivid experience. I don't know when or if I will ever use this nugget, but it did get me thinking about my favorite questions: what if, and why. One what-if leads to another, and pretty soon creativity kicks in. It's fun when that happens.

What are you guys' favorite ways to kick-start creativity?

PS ... I will be back after work ... only I am back on days and will be clocking out mid-afternoon as usual.

The best-laid plans

... of mice and men are often gone astray.

My blog entry today is non-existent and I apologize. I hope everyone will join me in praying for my father-in-law who went to the hospital for emergency surgery. He is in his late70s and pretty frail so we are praying for him and his doctors. Since Dad is a strong Christian we do have peace in this situation.

Good news!

My novella sold! I can hardly believe I am blogging these words:

This is it in a nut-shell: "Working on the Underground Railroad fascinates an idealistic Quaker until she must help care for an injured slave hunter, a former Friend who tries her patience and challenges all her beliefs."

New Garden's Crossroad is one of four novellas in a collection to be published by Barbour in February of 2012. It's set in my home town, Fountain City, with several scenes at the Levi Coffin House.

My agent, Terry Burns, suggested that two of us who had written on Quaker themes work with two other clients to put four stories together for a series of four-in-one books for Barbour. The other ladies are Jennifer Hudson Taylor, Claire Sanders, and Susette Williams. The stories follow a Quaker family from 1808 in North Carolina (Jennifer's) to Indiana in 1840 (my story) and the Civil War (Claire's) and then into the present (Susette's).

I like writing about the Friends because we all have to work out how to be in the world but not of it. They felt integrity, equality including plain speech and clothing, and non-violence all testified to their faith in Christ.

A year ago, however, I struggled through my first month at the factory where I still work. I was exhausted. It is hot, hectic, and loud. I told my husband it was like baling hay, all day, every day of the week. With that job and the kids getting busier all the time, I was tempted to set writing aside. But, the Lord had given some particular ideas to me. To be a good steward I had to try and develop them. The story set in Fountain City was only a paragraph of what-ifs until the idea of a novella came up, then it seemed to take off.

I'm so thankful that I met Terry at the ACFW conference in 2008, and for writing friends who encouraged me not to give up.

A whole new adventure begins. I am looking forward to the rest of the process. I wonder if our collection will sell well and if I will ever sell anything again. For right now I am still sort of pinching myself.

I'm not ready to quit my day job yet. My secular humanist boss and cynical group leader have cheered me on. My story is probably one that those tough guys would never read except for knowing the author. (They still might not read it!) I hope the book can go places I can't, and touch people I will never meet. What a privilege.