Change

Last spring I wrote a post about why I write in my pajamas. Who was that woman? Surely someone I used to know.

It is now 7:00 a.m. Dressed in jeans and a black long-sleeved polyester-blend blouse with white collar, no shoes, I've been at the computer for most of the past hour. I've proofed a manuscript I want to send off today and have searched Sally Stuart's Christian Writers' Market Guide for possible markets for a piece about the process of writing. I've had coffee with my husband, and we've talked about the day's plans and the morning headlines. Duke defeated Butler. Bummer.

I'm not sure when the change occurred, when I started dressing to write, but I made the change out of consideration for my husband. When he walks out the door for work, I'd like him to have a better image of me than sitting at the computer with pink plaid sleep pants topped with an ancient pink fuzzy shirt. Over the past few months, I got a new hair style. I bought a few new outfits. I've "spruced up." Maybe it's spring. Maybe I'm coming out of a depression. Maybe I no longer have reason or time to stay in my pajamas.

That, and I overheard a woman in the water color class I'm taking make a confession. Most days, she says, she stays in her pajamas until about an hour before her husband gets home, then she puts it in high gear, dresses, rips through the house picking up, starts supper, and probably meets him at the door with a drink in hand. She didn't mention the drink, but if she can get all that done in an hour, my hat is off to her. And she's not a writer.

The myth is shattered. Ordinary people can dress like writers? What is the world coming to? Are there no boundaries?

Reading Betty

Recently when my writer friend Betty and I got together for lunch, I asked her read two articles I wanted to submit. The first piece of 250 words took her a very long time to read. Maybe she was searching for the words to tell me the article was a little off, in her opinion.

The second piece I wasn't too sure about, but Betty liked it. "Submit this one," she said. I did, and just got notice that it was accepted for publication in October, 2011. And the other piece? Well, let's just say I get a chance to find another editor who might like it better than the first one I sent it to.

Writing What I Need

You've probably heard the encouragement to write what you like to read. What about write what you need to read?

Many of us have a calling. I know a man who preaches grace. Grace grace grace grace grace, the same message week after week after week. I've had one word that has motivated my life: love. Love love love love love in word and action.

The writing I've done has primarily been to encourage the church. I've written/published devotionals, inspirational stories/encouraging word tracts. By "church," I mean the body of Christ, not a particular group, denomination or building.

Encouragement must be my calling. I'm here on the side-lines cheering others on. You can do it! I know you can do it! I believe in you! Whoa, great pass! Go, team! Then, just a few weeks ago, I heard a pastor say, you know, what the church needs is more encouragers. More encouragers? That's something I can do. Here I am, ready for action, sir.

I do what I need, I think. I need a lot of encouragement. Sometimes I need someone to stand close to my right ear and scream, YOU CAN DO IT! I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT! YOU GET OUT THERE AND GO, GIRL! Encouraging others is a way to encourage myself.

You know the hell fire and brimstone preacher who rails against sexual impurity making the front pages because, well, you know. He hasn't been practicing what he preaches. I think his sermons are calls for help. Maybe my writing is a call for help. Help me! I need some encouragement here!

We all go through stuff. And in the muddle, we need something good to read, like a book on how-to-get-out-of-this-mess-I've-created, written by someone who's already been there. Who doesn't need a good laugh? Who doesn't really need to see themselves more realistically or see others more compassionately? I do. And who doesn't need to write a really bad book to inspire others to do it better? I saw a movie like that two nights ago. They call that a plot? I could do better. So . . . ?

If you are an encourager, a how-to-er, a make-'em-double-over-in-laughter-er, one who inspires, then somebody needs you. Don't just sit there. Write something brilliant.

The Big Why

Why do we write? Many write because it's their job, their source of income. They have deadlines to meet, time pressures. And we're envious. Some write out of their passion. But there are many of us who may be tempted to think our words on the page aren't significant because we're not disciplined enough to write that novel or persistent enough to see what we've written gets in print. So why do we write?

Here are a few reasons I've come up with:

• for our own pleasure
• for our own health
• for the enjoyment of others
• to entertain
• to tell a story
• to share an opinion
• to record history
• to right a wrong
• to make others laugh
• to give an update
• to be light in darkness
• to teach
• to leave a legacy
• for the children
• for our children
• for our families
• to comfort
• to lift up
• to encourage
• to edify

Some of those reasons may not give you a ready market, but if the impulse to write reverberates in your heart, yield to it. You can have a reading audience of one --or two, or two thousand, and still be significant. Your words might be just what others are waiting for -- evidence that they matter, that there is a God who knows their need and meets that need through someone else's words.

Bridge the gap. Fulfill your destiny. Write, even if at times it's just for your own edification. I've been surprised to find my own words written for another purpose come back home to encourage me.

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From an e-mail received this morning in response to a note written to comfort: "You know how God does things. I just happened to be sitting in front of our computer when your e-mail popped up. What a glorious revelation. There is a smile on my face even now as I type this. Thank you so much for sharing it." The memorial service for this man's son was a week ago.

first published 11/07/08

An Excellent Gift

More than thirty years ago Marc and Gayle Bellomy gave my husband a little book for graduation that still has us turning pages. We've lost contact with the Bellomys, but we still have their gift. The spine of the book is broken, the red cloth is pulled away in places from the cardboard cover, and a few of the pages didn't survive the nine moves our family made since 1978. This 52nd printing of Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest, first published in 1935, with marginal notes in my handwriting, is one of the items I'd hope to be able to pull from a house fire if we ever had one. Though tattered, this bound copy is one of my treasures.

Consider this message appropriate for writers from the December 15th devotional, "Approved Unto God":

"If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. . . Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily. . . . The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance."

Can you imagine your words making others rich, living on to encourage some person eighty years down the road?

What's Food Got to Do With It?

I can be easily distracted. I searched foodnetwork.com for a chicken and rice dish and ended up drooling over a Paula Deen recipe promising to produce the best chocolate gooey butter cookies ever. Then I read the reviews from people who actually made the cookie. Some agreed it was the best chocolate cookie they'd ever eaten. They loved the rich chocolate flavor and the soft, gooey centers. Others claimed the cookie was too soft, too bland, too ordinary, a waste of cream cheese.

I'm going to give you the recipe, but I want you to keep the opposing cookie reviews in mind when you face publication. Some readers will give your absolutely delicious work rave reviews. Others may think your writing is flat, uninspired, ordinary.

To encourage yourself, go to Amazon.com and read customer reviews of your favorite books. It's amazing, isn't it, how some folks don't get what you get? They're just at a different place, and that's okay. Negative (and positive) reviews may have more to do with the reader's experience and personal tastes than with your writing. People are different, and it takes some of us a long time to come to that understanding.

Our family has traditional dishes we prepare for holidays. I could be offended because my son-in-law passes on my mother's ambrosia salad. He doesn't like coconut. But when my mother-in-law's coconut cream pie is served, I'm happy to know I'll get dibs on his slice. He's still the best of dads and a beloved elementary school principal. His dislike for that one food ingredient doesn't effect his job performance. Though I enjoy coconut in family recipes, you can have my Almond Joy. I don't like coconut that compact. Readers, like eaters, can also be fickle.

Our preferences determine what we read and write. Our readers have preferences. I once worked with a young woman who read horror, watched horror movies, and became very animated as she talked about what she'd read and the movie she'd just seen. She and I got along, even though I don't read or watch anything scary, vulgar, explicit, graphic, or violent. I prefer gentle reads. I like to see character development. But that's just me. That's my preference. Remember the movie, Good Will Hunting with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck? I saw the movie based on Oprah's rave reviews. She loved the movie, and I was disappointed. Why did every other word have to be the F word? Couldn't the story be told without profanity?

You don't have to please everybody with your writing, though you do have to please the person who wants to help you put your work in print. An editor who read a first chapter of a children's book for me as a paid critique said I couldn't say my main character's mother lit a cigarette. I could say she smelled like smoke, but showing someone in the act of lighting up wasn't something she wanted to see presented to impressionable young readers. One publishing house, one editor, one opinion. But if that one editor had shown interest in my whole manuscript, you'd better believe my main character's mother would have quit smoking or at least crushed her cigarette before the chapter began.

Say what you must, but stay within editorial guidelines. Also, try to stay away from too many of those best ever chocolate comforts that serve to both celebrate and console. You don't necessarily need to console yourself with chocolate, though it works for me.

~ ~ ~

Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies
from http://www.foodnetwork.com/

1 8 oz. brick cream cheese, room temp.

1 stick butter, room temp.

1 egg

1 t. vanilla extract

1 18 0z. box moist chocolate cake mix

confectioner's sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in the egg. Then beat in the vanilla extract. Beat in the cake mix. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours to firm up so that you can roll the batter into balls. Roll the chilled batter into tablespoon-sized balls and then roll them in confectioner's sugar. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 12 minutes. The cookies will remain soft and "gooey." Cool completely and sprinkle with more confectioners' sugar, if desired.
~~~

Some reviewers of the recipe said they also used cake mixes other than chocolate. This recipe reminds me of a bar cookie I used to make. I don't bake much any more because my doctor has gotten a little snooty about my cholesterol.

Cream Cheese Cookies

Mix 1 pkg. lemon cake mix, 1 egg, and 1 stick butter and pat into a large rectangular cake pan. Top with the following filling: 1 pound box powdered sugar, 1 egg, and 8 oz. cream cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

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When you get through drooling over the recipes, back to work. And it's okay to have your main character's mother eat something calorie-packed and gooey in the first chapter, I think. But in this age of health consciousness, I could be wrong.

Back in the Saddle

This handsome reclining man is my husband. For years, he was an avid bicycle rider. He doesn't ride as often now, but this particular day when he came upstairs and got in this horizontal position, he confided, "I'm thinking about riding."

This, dear hearts, is the difference between thinking and doing. You know how sometimes we think about writing? I've been thinking about working on that young adult novel I started eons ago. And lately with a writers workshop a week away, I've been thinking about looking over the rough draft of a manuscript I want to take to get some help on. Will I think about or write, think about or edit? Hmm. I probably need to think about that. But I can guarantee which action is more profitable. By the way, the snoozing man did ride later that day, after cutting a few Z's.

What are you thinking about working on? And when will you do it? Take a nap if you must. Clears the head.