Sunday Devotional

It happened last Saturday. I let Max out to chase away some cows that had wandered into our yard. Streaking off like a shot, Max ran toward the nearest cow, barking and snarling all the way. Closer and closer he got, scaring me by his proximity to the cow’s sharp hooves.

“Max, get away,” I yelled, running as fast as I could to catch up.

Max ignored me and kept snapping until the cow stopped and kicked up both heels, his left foot catching Max on the hindquarter. Max yelped, but instead of running away, he went after the cow with renewed fury. Finally, I managed to distract him long enough to get my hands on him. He was shaking and exhausted but otherwise, relatively uninjured.

That’s when it occurred to me.

Despite what God has to say about sin, we go after it, ignoring the hurt we cause ourselves along the way, thinking with each step we take that we will somehow conquer it. Blinded by our own lust and temptation, we barely feel the scars left upon our flesh until, shuddering and shaking, we fall exhausted at the Father’s feet.

It is not a victory to keep placing ourselves in situations where we are tempted to fail. Instead, God warns us that doing so puts sin at our very door.

Genesis 4:4-7 (New International Version)

4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

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Winners!!

It's always so much fun to give away great books!! Congratulations to this week's lucky winner:

Julie (juliewrites) - The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould

Julie, please use the button in the upper right side of this page to email me with your mailing address so I can forward your information to the authors. Then, sit back and wait for your book to arrive.

Thank you all so much for stopping by The Borrowed Book and thank you, Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould for your generosity in providing a book!

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Weekly Drawing

Entering our weekly drawing is easy:

1. Leave a comment on Fridays or...

2. Sign up to follow The Borrowed Book. Followers will automatically be entered for a chance to win that week's drawing!

This week, The Borrowed Book is giving away:

The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark and Leslie Gould ~ A dusty carved box containing two locks of hair and a century-old letter regarding property in Switzerland, and a burning desire to learn about her biological family lead nurse-midwife Lexie Jaeger from her home in Oregon to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. There she meets Marta Bayer, a mysterious lay-midwife who desperately needs help after an Amish client and her baby die.

Lexie steps in to assume Marta’s patient load even as she continues the search for her birth family, and from her patients she learns the true meaning of the Pennsylvania Dutch word demut, which means “to let be” as she changes from a woman who wants to control everything to a woman who depends on God.

A compelling story about a search for identity and the ability to trust that God securely holds our whole life—past, present, and future.

Winners will be announced on Saturday, 03/12/11.

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Natasha Kern Talks About Talent vs. Perseverance

I am thrilled to have my awesome agent Natasha Kern as a guest blogger on The Borrowed Book today. I know you will benefit from her words of wisdom and will find encouragement in what she has to say about the journey that writers take to the goal of publication. Welcome, Natasha.

In talking with Sandra about this blog, we agreed that it would be good to write about the necessity for talent vs. perseverance in having a publishing career. Is success a matter of expressing a gift or working hard to achieve your goal? I have been in this business a long time and have sold over 1,000 books so I have had an opportunity to come to some conclusions about what leads to success.

There really is such a thing as a gift. As the late great editor Kate Duffy used to say: Life isn't a level playing field. Some people have perfect pitch. I don’t. Some people ‘got rhythm.’ I don’t have that either! The talents of writers vary widely. I represented a writer who was a fantastic storyteller, but had not conquered grammar or spelling. Because his readers were spellbound, his editor and publisher didn’t care whether he paid attention to structural nitty gritty and were glad he got film sales. Other writers, especially literary writers are wordsmiths who create beautiful metaphoric language and imagery. Readers may be so enthralled by the writing itself that they forget there isn’t much of a plot. Yet other writers have a gift for deeply understanding people and what makes them tick. Their characters are unforgettable and can be the basis of a series.

The craft of writing can be taught and this is where perseverance comes in since absolutely no one, even someone very talented, is born knowing how to write a novel. And usually the author has to have enough life experience to write a novel so it is rarer to be a success as a novelist in one’s twenties. There is so much to learn about plotting, chapter or scene structure, pacing, point of view, motivation, conflict and much more. I think it can be helpful to pick out one aspect of the craft to master in each book.

The art of storytelling is an innate gift, although often writers do find certain ideas or themes that capture their imagination and which they excel in writing about. Sometimes it can take a while to figure out what they are. It is not uncommon for writers to first try a genre that doesn’t work for them like Stephen King having to give up writing thrillers and tossing those he had written when he finally sold Carrie. I don’t agree with the idea that everyone can write a novel if they just work at it any more than I think I’m going to be a ballet dancer one day or anyone can compose a sonata. Some people really aren’t very good at it and practicing won't help. I think we've all learned this from American Idol.

The question is: How do we know who the talented are? I used to tell writers that anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first. You do have to start somewhere. And if you have a burning desire to write, chances are you do have a talent that can be developed. And that is where the hard work part will come in. I can look at a submission and know in a few lines if it is going to work, certainly in a paragraph or two. Am I pulled into the story? Does the writing work? Everyone can do this as a matter of taste-¬pick up a novel and read the jacket blurb or the opening and know if it is something you are likely to enjoy reading. It is also easy to tell as a matter of craft and I do this often at writing conferences by having a writer read from her work for a few paragraphs and then tell her what the problems are with the entire structure of the novel.

Getting back to how we know who the talented are. We really don’t! I can tell if a particular opening or synopsis or chapter work. Does this writer have a real gift that might be developed? I can’t know that for sure. There is a well known list which I will reprise here defining Who Are the Gifted that substantiates how rarely gifts are seen and acknowledged. I can't know until I see that submission that simply WOWs me and I can't put it down! So go ahead and persevere assuming that you will discover more about your gifts as you continue to write.

Creative and imaginative people are often not recognized by their contemporaries. History is full of examples. Consider these:

Einstein was four years old before he could speak and seven before he could read. He was turned down for a number of jobs in physics. His brilliant wife Mileva was rejected even more often and more thoroughly yet she helped him discover E=MC2

Beethoven's music teacher said of him, "As a composer, he is hopeless."

As a boy, Thomas Edison was told by his teachers he was too stupid to learn anything.

F. W. Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21, but his employers would not let him wait on a customer because he, "Didn't have enough sense."

A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he, "had no good ideas¬just not creative."

Caruso's music teacher told him, "You can't sing, you have no voice at all."

Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college, Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade, Isaac Newton did poorly in grade school, and Wernher von Braun flunked 9th grade algebra.

Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been retired from the Navy, as "unfit for service" until he flew over both poles.

Louis Pasteur was rated mediocre in chemistry when he attended the Royal College.

Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor she could never write anything that had popular appeal.

Fred Waring was rejected from high school chorus.

Abraham Lincoln, our nation's greatest leader, knew defeat throughout his life. His path to success looked like this: 1831 Failed in Business. 1832 Defeated for legislature. 1833 Second business failure. 1836 Suffered nervous breakdown. 1838 Defeated for speaker. 1840 Defeated for elector. 1843 Defeated for Congress. 1848 Defeated for Congress. 1855 Defeated for Senate. 1856 Defeated for vice president. 1858 Defeated for Senate. 1860 ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

There are hundreds of similar stories from all walks of life and certainly about writers and their path to success in publishing. Don’t give up on achieving your goals. Accept the gifts God has given you and make the most of them.

Natasha

Thank you, Natasha, for taking time to stop by our blog today. I know our readers feel encouraged by your stirring words.

All of us who write deal with rejections all the time. What keeps you persevering toward your goal of becoming a published writer?

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Author Interview ~ Leslie Gould

Leslie Gould is the author of Garden of Dreams, Beyond the Blue (winner of the 2006 Romantic Times Inspirational Reviewers’ ChoiceAward), Scrap Everything, six Guideposts novels, and The Amish Midwife, co-authored with Mindy Starns Clark and #1 on the EPCA Fiction Bestseller List for March 2011. She received her MFA in creative writing from Portland State University. Leslie lives in Portland with her four children. Her husband, Peter, is currently deploying to Afghanistan.

Did you see yourself becoming a writer as a child? If not, what did you dream of being?

I loved stories when I was little and by the time I was in preschool, I was making up vignettes about the letters of the alphabet, each with their own distinct personality. There were definitely stages when I wanted to become a writer, but also times when I wanted to be a fashion designer, teacher, astronaut, doctor, TV reporter, horticulturist, lawyer, etc.

How long did you write before you sold your first book?

I began writing fiction in 1991 and sold my first novel in 2001, so a whole decade! In the meantime, I published hundreds of articles and a couple of short stories.

Many of the people who follow our blog are aspiring writers themselves. Can you share your favorite writing tip with them?

Think of your first draft as the scaffolding, which must be erected to construct a building but afterward is torn down. You might not end up keeping much of that first draft, but you need it to write your novel. So write that initial draft with abandon!

Now for the readers…many times, it’s easy for them to connect with the characters in a book, but not so much the authors themselves. Share something about your day-to-day life that might help a reader to feel as though they know you a little better.

My day-to-day life right now revolves around my husband being deployed. He’s a colonel in the Army Reserve and is being sent to Afghanistan to command a field hospital. You can follow my blog “400 days, stateside” as I count down the days of his deployment at http://www.lesliegould.com. In the midst of all there is to do to get him and our family ready, I’m working on a Guideposts novel that’s due in April and the second in the Women of Lancaster County series that I’m co-authoring with Mindy Starns Clark, that’s due in the summer. (Editor's Note: Please join us in praying for the safety of Leslie's husband, and for all our troops serving overseas.)

Now that you are published, do you still experience rejections? If so, how are these rejections different or similar to the ones you received before becoming published?

Ah, rejection! Yes, I still experience it, but now it’s buffered by a very sweet email from my agent.

Tell us a little about your latest release:

The Amish Midwife, co-authored with Mindy Starns Clark, is about a nurse midwife from Oregon who travels to Pennsylvania to search for her birth family and ends up working with the Amish. It’s flying off the shelves right now and is getting great reviews. I’m absolutely thrilled with the story, and working with Mindy has been an amazing experience.

If you could only share one line from The Amish Midwife, which one would you choose and why?

“…God ordained the days of your life, just like it says in Psalm 139. The story you so desperately wanted to hear was written by Him.”

It’s a comfort to know that even through the biggest heartaches of our lives, God is at work, redeeming every situation.

Writers often put things in their books that are very personal—like a funny story that happened to them, a spiritual truth they learned through difficulty, or even just a character trait that is uniquely theirs. Is there something in The Amish Midwife that only people close to you know is about you or someone you know?

I had two of my babies at home, and our fourth child is adopted. It wasn’t until Mindy and I started working on the story together that I learned her youngest brother is adopted—which was one of those moments of serendipity.

What kind of research did you have to do for this book?

I read a long list of books on the Amish, Anabaptist history, and personal accounts written by Plain people. My husband, my two daughters, and I traveled to Lancaster County to do more research—which was a wonderful experience and included dinner with an Amish family.

Tell us what new projects you’re working on.

Mindy and I are currently finishing up The Amish Nanny, the next novel in the series, and starting the third story, The Amish Bride.

The most common thing I hear when people learned I’ve published a book is, “I’ve always wanted to do that.” Faced with this statement, what advice would you give to someone just starting out in this business?

Join a critique group, go to writers’ conferences, and read books on writing fiction, beginning with Randy Ingermanson’s and Peter Economy’s book Writing Fiction for Dummies.
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Leslie is giving away a copy of her book, The Amish Midwife. Stop by The Borrowed Book on Friday for your chance to win!

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Writing 101: In The Beginning. . .

you write the title of the book. At least that’s how I start a new manuscript. But the real preparation takes place in two stages, research and prep time. Once I am through those two stages, generally lasting a week or two each, then I begin my daily word count goal.

So what is prep time?

Just as you prepare or prep products for a meal, it means taking time to prep ideas, plot twists, character arc, and other elements. I use this time, along with research time, to nail the setting and time period and discover the backstory of my characters. During this process I inevitably write my proposal chapters and synopsis.

Many seat-of-the-pants writers pride themselves on winging their way through the entire manuscript. Before contracting the first cozy that led to publication, in which I had to submit a synopsis as part of a proposal, I used to be one of them. You see, the real value of prep time, of knowing your characters and their story arc before you begin writing IS the synopsis. The Dreaded Synopsis, some might call it.

The synopsis cured me of seat-of-the-pants writing, not because it was easy to write, but because it showed me the value of mapping out the general direction of the story. This eliminated my deleting-rewriting-deleting-rewriting clumsiness that never got me much further than the second or third chapter, when what I really needed was to finish the manuscript. As most of you know, it is essential to write an entire manuscript if you want to get published, and knowing where your story is headed, via Synopsis, is a critical piece of that puzzle. (We'll review writing the Synopsis at a later date.)

Research is self-explanatory. I use this time to settle on a time-period that is interesting and unique, gather my resources to support details, and read/highlight those elements for quick reference when I’m writing and need to double-check facts. Sometimes the setting becomes a catalyst for the characters’ epiphany, as in Promise of Tomorrow. In this book the Johnstown flood created a crucial moment for the hero, a time when he came face to face with his weakness. If you can manage to use the setting as a means to bring resolution to your story, I highly recommend doing so.

Beginning a story can produce some difficult obstacles, but one benefit of prep and research time is that the hurdles are already jumped when it comes time to do the actual writing. This always equates to an easier flow of words on a daily basis and helps me meet daily word count goals. Very important when you're on a deadline or have multiple books going at once.

What methods do you use when beginning a manuscript? Do you struggle, or do you have a tried-and-true method every time (in which case you *must* clue us in!).

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Do You Write What You Read?

It's a common tip for writers: "Read, read, read!" If you want to write a book that sells and gets readers' interest, it makes sense to read voraciously and know the market inside and out.

The Classics

I have a confession to make: I don't tend to read classics for fun. I may be an English major, but in spite of this (or perhaps--in part--because of this) I generally only read classics under compulsion. My first love is Christian fiction, and that's what I prefer to read. And yet, I've been finding recently that some classics really aren't that bad. (Maybe I just needed to grow up a little!)

There's a reason certain books become classics--they have a lasting appeal that extends beyond the time in which they were written. Right now I'm reading Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897) for my 19th-20th Century English Literature class. And even though it was written over a century ago, I actually am enjoying it. ;)

As I've discussed with my grandpa (who's been talking to me about Dracula and/or Frankenstein for years), Dracula is a very descriptive book, starting out with a beautiful, haunting, vivid setting. And the characters! Dracula is both an intriguing and almost comical (in a creepy sort of way) character, and Jonathan Harker's intelligence endears him to the reader even as the reader sympathizes with his entrapment and doom.

(If you've read the whole book already, please don't tell me what happens! I've only read a few chapters so far...)

Christian Fiction

As I mentioned above, my first love when it comes to reading is Christian fiction. (My favorite specific book, though, is the Bible.) I just can't seem to get enough of it! Plus, it's what I want to work with as my career.

So what is it that we love so much about Christian fiction? (I'm assuming at this point that most of you who are reading this post also enjoy Christian fiction.) ;)

Let's look at a specific example. The book I'm reading right now is Surrender the Night by MaryLu Tyndall, and I am loving it! Tyndall is a fabulous author. One of the best things about her work, and about Christian fiction in general for the most part, is that each book is meant to glorify God and encourage the readers' faith. Each book is hopeful while still being real, showing the evil that is now in the world but also the hope that believers have in Christ.

But as far as Tyndall's work and Christian romance goes, there's also another element to the reading experience. For us ladies, we just love to read about a strong, heroic man protecting his woman and cherishing her. We love those scenes where the hero gently caresses the heroine's cheek, holds her close and kisses her. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption. I should also add that in Christian fiction these scenes are tactfully written and clean!)

Also, we want those happy endings, don't we? (I haven't finished Surrender the Night, but I'm guessing the ending is happy!)

Writing What You Read

So where am I going with all of this? Well, I think the more we read the more we realize (even if we don't ever exactly voice it) what it is we want to read. We want stories with heart--stories with characters that are real and understandable. We want stories with soul--stories that speak to us and convey truth and something we can apply to our lives. We want stories that are beautifully written and excitingly told (which I think both Dracula and Surrender the Night are).

And yet how easy it is to forget our readers when we're writing! Perhaps we don't forget them totally, but I think sometimes it might be beneficial to consider a couple of things as we're writing:

1. What do my readers need?
   
2. What do my readers want?

If it is God's will for us to write, then He has some purpose in us sharing our stories. We're not just writing to entertain. But at the same time, people won't want to read stories that aren't satisfying. Reading should be fun!

Don't get caught in either extreme. We should strive to write both meaningful and enjoyable stories to engage and encourage our readers.

When you write, do you occasionally consider what you as a reader would want to see in the story? What kinds of books do you most enjoy reading, and how can you incorporate the elements that make reading powerful to you into your own writing?

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