Finishing Strong!

Last week I helped edit a friend's novel, and the story kept me in suspense all the way through 300+ pages. But the ending wobbled. He avoided the "everyone-lives-happily-ever" ending, which often seems fake. Yet, I wanted more than what he gave me. As we all do, he's struggling with the finale. Closure in relationships, in stories, and in life often generates angst. Because this is a Christian-based novel, my friend's ending must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's leading, neither too vanilla nor too dark.

If you're like me, I can start things with lots of enthusiasm and, on a good day, with a ton of creativity. But when the novelty fades and the hours accumulate, I often lose interest. Aren't we glad God's not like that? He never tires of our countless requests, failures, and concerns.  His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).

So how do we end a story? My best advice is to ask God for a strong finish. In fact, expand that to include your life’s story. That’s what I want!

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

2 Timothy 4:7, ESV [The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001] 

Writing Strong Endings 

You've Got Mail!

Somewhere in our attic there's a box. You're thinking, "Whoopee! Tell me something fresh, something I don't know about attics." Actually in our over-the-garage, folding-stepladder-entry attic, boxes rule--all sizes including boxes inside of boxes, boxes with legos, boxes of Golden Books ready to rot, boxes of school papers, and boxes of homemade blocks that my dad made for the kids. But this box is different. It's full of letters my husband and I wrote to each other during the dinosaur era of no cell phone, texting, or email, otherwise known as the 70's.


Someday our children will read those letters and smile. "How primitive of Mom and Dad! To communicate from Michigan to Indiana and vice versa via snail mail." But they will read them. They may even save them because in those letters we shared our activities, our thoughts, our hearts.


Now I'm starting to write our 26-year-old daughter and 28-year-old son a letter a week [both live a day's drive from us] because during a frigid January epiphany, I realized they have never in their entire life received a letter from their mother. Just emails, birthday card notes, and texts. They wouldn't have a cigar box full of letters like my grandmother had written my dad in 1942 when he was in Europe fighting the Nazi regime. When he died 68 years later, the letters were still there, a mother's heart shared with her child.


Imagine the apostle Paul twittering the Corinthians about some of their bad habits. "ur driving me nuts with your idols. stop!" Forget 140 characters or less. Instead he spent 500+ words just to tell them how much he cared. Then he wrote what they needed to hear and explained why. He often ended with personal notes. His letters encouraged, explained, and evoked response. The power of a heart-felt letter does that. And they last. Who can you bless with a letter?


Joyce


Check out the following link that encourages parents to write their children meaningful letters:


Letters from Dad

Following instructions from a great author!

I don't want to be rude, but I'm going to make this quick, so I can get back to reading the best book EVER!

A mere eighteen weeks ago I was hanging out with my buddy Jerry B. Jenkins — you know, the author or more than 175 books including that little 70,000,000-selling Left Behind series. J², as I like to call him behind his back because he has no idea who I am, also holds five state championships in tournament Scrabble. (Just a bit of book nerd trivia you can use to impress others.)

J², former editor of Moody Magazine, vice president for publishing, and now chairman of the board of trustees for the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, was the keynote speaker at the Indianapolis Christian Writers Conference last November.

Jenkins shared writing tips like:

1) “I try to read Strunk and Whites Elements of Style annually.”

2) Omit needless words

3) Write down good paragraphs

Jenkins also noted that he reads anything by Rick Bragg, former New York Times columnist and non-fiction writer of masterpieces like All Over But The Shoutin’.

I am currently reading Bragg's phenomenal work, and continue to reread his gorgeous phrases like pg. 85: "The old were of value. The old men could look at a leaf a younger man brought to church in his shirt pocket and tell him what kind of worms were gnawing at his tomato plants, and how to kill them. They could peek under the hood of a car that was running rough and, with a Case pocketknife, adjust the idling, reset the points and adjust the gap on the plugs, all before the first strains of "I'll Fly Away" drifted from the door."

Bragg's words are like hearing Bach or looking at Monet's paintings for the first time.

Gotta go...starting chapter 14!

Let me know if you've read his jewel printed on white paper?

http://www.amazon.com/All-over-Shoutin-Rick-Bragg/dp/0679774025/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Yeah!

Please, please go here to vote for Real Mothers, by March 31, 2011.http://www.ChristianBookAward.com. Thank you CrossLink Publishing for nominating this Bible study for the small Christian publishers annual award. May God get the glory and may mothers find encouragement in studying mothers from both The Old Testament and The New Testament.