Sins of Our Fathers | Author Blog

I stepped on the scale this morning for the first time in more than a month and I learned an important lesson about writing.

Not working the writer’s muscle means not fitting into the writer’s clothing.

I’ve been slipping over the last couple of months on my regular walking and exerisie routine. Injury beset me and it has been a slow recovery. But the biggest problem I’ve had to deal with is not the injury, it was the breaking of habit.

Habit is such a strong factor in what we do. Whether we get up every morning and drive the same route to work, or commit the same sin again and again, or take the time each day to spend in God’s Word.

In exercise, habit is a huge factor too, and mine is broke.

If you do a search on how many days it takes to break a habit, you will find a host of sites that say it’s twenty one days. Like this one, 21 Days to A Positive-Attitude Habit.

I tend to think it takes less then that for the good habits but maybe not. It really doesn’t matter. My habit of walking and daily exercise were broken and I got on the scale this Monday morning and found out why my pants were getting tight.

Twelve extra pounds.

So instead of stepping into the shower I dusted off the work out clothing and spent forty five minutes on the torture machine of my exercise bike.

And I was reminded about how this relates to writing. Because like my exercise routines, I’ve gotten out of the habit of daily writing. Though I can not use the excuse of injury. Indeed I could argue that my physical injury should have led to more writing.

That didn’t happen. Nope, I let life crowd in and steal time I normally set aside for writing and then, with a creeping silence, my writing habit ceased.

Which doesn’t lead to pants fitting tight or twelve extra pounds, but it does lead to poor writing, poor editing, and a poor man.

So I now find myself in the position of needing to break two bad habits and replace them with two good habits.

Life is fun that way. It leads to experience, wisdom, and writing fodder.

We do have fun we writing humans.

Do you know what the secret to being a good writer is?

A good publicist? A good software program? How about an education in writing? Oh, maybe it’s a super imagination?

Well all those are great but they are not the secret to becoming a good writer or even better, a master writer.

I’ve listened to writers at conferences and on the web and I’ve talked with other writers one-on-one on this very secret. In the end the concensus from some of the best living writers of our day say that the secret to becoming a master writer is writing.

It’s pretty simple. To become a good writer and then a master writer, one needs to write.

Write with consistence and persistance. Write when you feel like writing and write when you don’t feel like writing. Write during your free moments and by all means be like a Boy Scout and be prepared with a note pad when the ideas for writing burst like bubbles upon your brain.

Writing is a way of life. If you live it you will grow and mature in it.

I’m still waiting on news of my two book submissions to publishing houses. And I will admit that with the waiting I’ve not been as consistent in my writing. That is not a good thing. Writing has become a struggle and fight with other pressing life needs. Discouragement has even played a role in keeping me from the keys and that, given ground will only gain more ground.

But I’m not about to allow that to continue. I’m going to do something to gain back the ground. I’m going to write and I’m going to throw into the mix the value of persistence.

Let the writing begin. And let it start with me…. Okay, that’s just silly. Where else would my writing start.

What is the cost of being a writer?

Everything has a cost. But what is the cost of being a writer?

Isolation? Yeah, at times isolation is a cost. Getting away from people so that one can concentrate on shaping words onto the page.

Loneliness? Yeppers. With isolation can come loneliness. But for the writer that sometimes is a double edged pen. What do I mean? Well, many writers I know, including myself, are loners. We like to be alone with our thoughts, with our prose, with our muse. But we don’t like to stay there. Once those cravings for isolation are filled and the loneliness begins to eat at us instead of we eating at it, we struggle outward looking for companions beyond those that color our pages.

Dollars? Hmm…. Well, so far for me this is definitely a cost. Sacrifice for the ability to craft words has in many ways meant letting go of a bank account that is healthy. Of course there is this hope that shines just over the horizon that my writing will supply that account with some added food.

Hmmm…. All thiese food analogies are reminding me that I need to dig up some lunch.

Those are three that come to my mind.

Can you think of any other costs?

The English Major in me couldn’t help but groan and then laugh at this posting title I saw today while clicking through the want ads:

Three Year Old teacher Needed

Perhaps the class will be on discovering your inner child for forty and fifty somethings

Or on how to color outside the lines and use any surface for your canvas

Or how the loudest scream gets the most attention.

LOL I want to sit in on that class.

I’ve not heard anything since my last post on what the fiction editor who is currently reviewing my novel thinks of the manuscript.

And that’s okay. Such things move slowly. I know this.

But that’s doesn’t make waiting any easier

But that is the way of we humans, isn’t it.

At times I’m okay with waiting to hear anything. In the best of those times I could wait years. But then the seesaw of the human psyche changes and I itch with a need to know something.

Of course it doesn’t help that I am also waiting to hear on several chapters I sent to another editor on my current work in progress, a non-fiction book idea.

So when the seesaw tips it would seem I just can’t win

So the best thing to do is get off the seesaw and do some work and leave it all in God’s more than ample hands.

Well, I’ve got some good news on the path of getting my novel, “Sins of Our Fathers,” to publication.

News came at the first of the week from an editor to whom I sent the complete manuscript. It made it through the inital review for publication!

Now it’s headed for the fiction editor and an in-depth evaluation.

Woo-whoo!

It’s funny. I pretty much put the final touches on, Sins of Our Fathers, a number of months back. Well, what I consider the final touches. I’m certain that once I can convince an editor to adopt my baby, that the editor will likely want me to retool some things.

Since then I’ve been focused on my current WIP (work in progress). Which is a non-fiction book idea. I’ve written four chapters of it and am editing those chapters. Once that’s done I’ll be sending them to an editor I ran the idea by at this year’s FCWC.

So I’ve been rather focused on that WIP, but it’s funny to me how some of the main characters in, Sins of Our Fathers, keep popping into my head. Once given life I guess they want to continue to occupy my thoughts. Which is okay, they’re characters I like after all.

I guess at some point they will be wanting some more plots to play with. I’ll have to see what I can come up with for them. Maybe that’s why they keep popping in and saying, “Hey!”

Of course they need to realize that they aren’t the only characters desiring free range on the page. Too bad there’s just one of me and 24 hours in the day.

Just one.

I’m running behind today. Okay, truth is that is the normal state of my days.

I think I try to pack more into each day than is possible. Maybe I should pack my days using those Space Bags. You know. The ones where you use the vacuum cleaner to suck out all the air and scrunch everything up for storage.

That would be nice to do with not only my days, but the mess of my desk.

That’s as far off the path I was setting, that I wish to go.

Anyway, I was going to post just one little reason for joining a writers group.

Encouragement.

That’s it. Encouragement.

Yesterday I met with my monthly writers group and we went over the stuff we brought. I left very encouraged as a writer.

In part it’s because of the commonality of us all. We each have a desire for words and a desire to use those words to share the passions that Jesus placed in us.

And it is also because of the great feedback I got on my writing. By that I mean help to improve it.

So if you’re not part of a critique group. Find one. If you can’t find one, make one.

Okay. I’m a writer. And oddly enough, I appear to be human.

This duplicity often times leads to stress and frustration. The writer in me wants to write frequently and repeatedly. Yet the human in me often finds the storms of life troubling and burdensome to the body, mind, and soul. When that happens the writer just can’t seem to think clearly enough to string more than a couple of semi-coherent words into more than mere pixels on the screen.

That’s where I’ve been during the last several weeks. Stressful things happening in my own life and the life of my church family.

The writer wants to write, but the human that finds it necessary to eat, live, and breathe needs to scrape together some pennies. Not only that, but being a warm body with a pulse means there is a need to work in fields that God asks me to tend with my time and hands.

The good thing about these times, these storms, is that they are fodder for the writer to draw upon when the writing time is available.

That said, I guess there really isn’t a duplicity at work here.

I’ve been reading from Psalms almost every day and I so love that book because it so sings of being a human in love with the Lord God, a human fallen in nature, struggling in life under all kinds of pressures and stress, but still able to recognize and praise God.

I try to start my mornings with those scriptures. I take the date, for example today is the 5th, and I read that Psalm. Then I add 30 to that number and read that Psalm which would be 35. Add 30 and read 65, and so forth until I’ve worked through the entire book.

It’s a wonderful way to start the day.

Well, I’ve got some time, so I’m going to try and write for the next hour or so.

Until next time.

Greetings. I’ve got two updates. One on the novel and one on the software WordWeb, I mentioned in this post several days ago.

Oh, and here’s a picture of my favorite writing nook at my local Panera. It’s secluded enough to give some privacy and has a nice place to plug my laptop in. Plus it gives me a good view of people coming and going which I love because I can scribble notes for character reference when it comes to creating other people to populate my works. And best of all, the AC doesn’t freeze me out. The other location I sometimes sit at when this one isn’t available is right under a vent and it gets cold there quick.

Now, the update on my novel, Sins of Our Fathers. I mentioned somewhere, either in the eMail updates or on the site here, that I submitted a proposal to Tyndale. Well, I heard from the acquisitions editor last week and it was decided that it would be a hard sell to their market. She said my writing, the pacing, and the dialog were all good. So I’m waiting at the moment to see what decision Strang will make and I’m considering sending it to B&H Books as I just received in the mail an advance copy of Shade, by John B. Olson, and it looks to me have some content and intensity that is similar to my novel.

The second item on the free software, WordWeb. I’ve been using it and I like it. It’s quick and works as far as I can tell in pretty much every program where there are words that you may need to look up. I’ve used it in Word and FireFox without any trouble. So give it a shot. You may find you like it too.

Cheers.