Weekly Links!

~ LINKS TO SOME INTERESTING READING and WATCHING, FOR WHAT'S LEFT OF YOUR WEEKEND ~

FAITH

-"The Story of Those Little Communion Cups, Whatever Those Are Technically Called"


-"10 Reasons to Love Lent"


-"If Literature's Biggest Romantics Could Text" - the Odysseus one!


-"God's Omniscience as Law and Gospel": worth listening to:

FAmily

-"Solving the Autism Puzzle": This article from MIT Technology Review has research I haven't read elsewhere. You might be interested.

Fiction

-"Think Like a Pirate" - a very useful podcast episode, for you authors out there.


-"The Mad Truth of 'La-La Land'": I haven't seen this yet, but this review makes me want to see it more than ever.


-"How 'Weird Al' Eclipsed Almost Every Star He Ever Parodied": Not fiction, but art, so I'm putting it here.




I hope you have a lovely Sunday, full of worship and rest!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

a happy day years in the making

I got a book in the mail this week.

But not just ANY book.

You see, six years ago, I connected with a lovely woman named Susanne Dietze through the ACFW email loop. We both loved historical romance, and we also discovered that not only were we both Anglicans, but we both lived in California!

On the strength of these similarities, we exchanged our WIPs (works-in-progress) and gave each other critiques.

And we both went back to writing and revising.

But we've kept in contact all these long years*, and the book I got in the mail today?

It has Susanne's name on the cover!

I'm so excited. Congratulations, Susie!  I cannot wait to read it!


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell



*Here's an interview I conducted with Susanne here on my blog back in 2012.


This post contains an Amazon affiliate link; if you purchase a book from this link, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price.  (See full disclosure on sidebar of my blog.)

Weekly Links: good rules for eating, superheroes, and more!

"Simple Rules for Healthy Eating":

It’s much easier, unfortunately, to tell you what not to do. But here at The Upshot, we don’t avoid the hard questions. So I’m going to put myself on the line. Below are the general rules I live by. They’re the ones I share with patients, with friends and with family. They’re the ones I support as a pediatrician and a health services researcher. But I acknowledge up front that they may apply only to healthy people without metabolic disorders (me, for instance, as far as I know).

"Why Comic Book Nerds Hate 'Batman vs. Superman'":

Zack Snyder thinks about comic books the way that Peter Jackson thinks about Tolkien. All he sees are the battles and the fights and is completely blind to the themes and characterization that make those bouts of violence mean anything. 

"In Love with Small Towns: Author Interview with Jill Kemerer": I love reading about the persistence it takes to make it as an author - I find it so encouraging!

"The Power of Confession":

The beautiful thing about testimonies at their best is they're not meant to establish the speaker in a power relationship with the listener. Rather, they're an act of humility. Here is my life, the testimony-giver says. Please find in it your own path toward assurance. And please know that after today, I will go on living; this is not the end of the story.

"80's Free Range Childhood Was Not the Sam as 50's Childhood":

Surely we’ve learned something from the scandals in the church and all the conversations about rape culture and bullies–that abuse thrives where there’s silence and lack of supervision, where popularity is currency, where might is right, where blackmail keeps what happens on the playground on the playground. Children really can be quite naughty left to their own devices. Almost as naughty as grownups.

This article: "Why I Haven't Spoken Out on Gay Marriage Till Now"  and its follow-up, "Why I haven't Spoken Up: More Thoughts", I value particularly because they are from a tradition that is not my own, and take an approach that is different than many I've seen, yet clearly a path taken in both charity and obedience. I don't think I agree with all of it, but I found a lot of food for thought in her words.


Finally, skip this if you don't want the earworm, but this guy definitely has the right idea on how to have fun with singing in your car (love the looks on his friend's face):


Have a great weekend!
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: Prayer of the Hands, a good book review, and more!

Some good reading for your weekend:

"Why Women Make Blankets...and Prayer of the Hands":

I usually have work in my hands when I'm listening to speakers. I suspect that at least a few co-attendees think this is inappropriate. Busying one's hands can free up the mind to listen, though, and to pray. The repetitive rhythm of handwork has always been a conduit of prayer and of connection for me. You see, rosaries and prayer ropes are wonderful, but crochet works too! I always listen more attentively, and pray more deeply, when my hands are not calling me for something to do.  

"What 2,000 Calories Looks Like": a photo essay that was interesting not just for the restaurant food they show at the beginning but (what I really liked) the home-cooked meals at the end.

"The Legacy Journey": insightful review by Tim Challies of Dave Ramsey's latest book.

"How to Write Believable Children":  Useful stuff for my fellow authors.


Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Weekend Links: poetry, P. D. James, Lord of the Rings, and more!

Some good reading from around the Web for your weekend:

"Across the Grey Atlantic": a gorgeous piece of poetry from James Harrington:

Across the grey Atlantic,

Across Saint Brendan’s sea,

Is the land where the lairds wear sackcloth

And all the serfs are free . . .

Click through the link to read the rest.

"The Last Man and the First Man":

Scanning half a dozen major journals for obituaries devoted to the most important mystery writer of our time, P. D. James (1920–2014), I was astonished to find that not one of them mentioned her serious Anglo-Catholicism, much less its shaping presence in her fiction . . .

"Can you tell me why Frodo is so important in lotr? Why can't someone else, anyone else, carry the ring to mordor?"

but someone else could.

that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.

"Things I Love about the Things I Love. Part One: Knitting, Top Five":  this GIF-full post gets it exactly right.

"Ezekiel, 'Uncommon and Eccentric?'": I found this very helpful in understanding a bit more about this hard-to-understand OT prophet.

"SDfAoWOP: the Girl":

There is a God, she says, who can heal and save. How can this be? You wonder. How can a little girl, a child, know this God? How can she set aside the bitterness of abuse and loss? But her clear firm gaze, the strength of her words win you over and you go and tell your husband and he listens.

Interview with Rachel Telander

Hi folks! Today I have a treat - I got to sit down and talk to Rachel Telander, one of the contributors to Let Us Keep the Feast. 

Me: Hi Rachel - it's so good to have you here today! You’re the author of the Advent chapter in "Let Us Keep the Feast", so I wanted to start by asking you: what’s your strongest Advent memory, good or bad?

Rachel: My strongest Advent memory...that's a tough one. It's not very specific, but I'd have to say it's that very first week in December, when we take down the dusty storage containers from the garage and start to put up all the Christmas decorations. Just thinking about it, I can smell the cinnamon mixed with pine and see the empty Nativity set, waiting for the Christ Child. It always captured the spirit of Advent for me, and really drove home the excitement Advent should have.

Me: Now that paints a picture! And it leads well into my next question: What do you think the heart of the Advent season is?

Rachel: The heart of Advent season is expectation. Every year at this time, we prepare for Christmas - the coming of Christ. Advent is the time we remember that sense of expectation and waiting. It's like that moment when we hold our breath before someone unveils a masterpiece -  a breathless excitement as we wait for something incredible that is to come.

Me: That really resonates with me. It reminds me of my favorite part of your chapter, where you were talking about how we often skip over the important job of preparing for Christmas. You said:

“You wouldn’t throw a party without preparing the food and drinks; you wouldn’t visit a friend without getting ready. We are about to remember the most awe-inspiring thing that happened in the whole of history: God becoming man in the glory and mystery of the incarnation. We need to set aside time to prepare ourselves for this – internally and externally.”

I love how you put that – the way you juxtaposed this most magnificent event, the Incarnation, with a homely experience we’ve all had: preparing for the visit of a friend. It just really struck the meaning of Advent home to me.

And it’s about the writing of your chapter that I want to ask next: what surprised you most as you did your research into the season of Advent?

Rachel: Thank you! What surprised me the most as I researched was the symbolism that's infused into the simplest things, such as the Advent wreath. Before, I couldn't have told you about the symbolism of the colors or the shapes. Now I know there is so much more behind the simplicity - a depth that I hadn't seen before. And to me, that's intriguing.

Me: I love learning more about the symbolism of the church year! And you explain it all really well in your chapter. Okay, last question: which section of your chapter was the most fun to write?

Rachel: I enjoyed writing the Traditions section the most. I loved learning about all the different traditions that have been incorporated into this Church season - they really add life and bring out the best of the season.

Me: Thanks, Rachel! It’s been wonderful having you here today!

Interview with Regina Scott

Today I'm over at Regency Reflections, interviewing Regina Scott. Here's a snippet:

Was there any fun fact about the Regency period that you stumbled across in your research for this book that really fired up your imagination? Any little tidbit that prompted a plot point or a cool character moment?

I stumbled across an article written just after the Regency that laid out the specific rules for duels, contrasting them to those of the French. Because my hero, Vaughn Everard, has a reputation as a duelist, knowing some of the rules he could choose to keep or break really helped me write the main dueling scene in the book and keep it in his character. I learned to fence when I was in college, so I really wanted to get that scene right!

Go here to read the rest!

Interview with Inspirational Regency Author Susanne Dietze

Recently, I was thrilled to learn that a friend of mine in the ACFW, Susanne Dietze, had signed a contract for literary representation, the first big step on the road to getting published. Since I know other aspiring authors read this blog, I asked Susie if she'd be willing to answer some questions about her journey to signing with her agent, and she kindly agreed. Here's my interview with her:

Susanne, you recently signed with an agent who will be representing your inspirational
Regency romance. What made you want to write in this genre?

I find the Regency era to be quite romantic. While brief (around ten years, from around 1810-1820), England’s Regency period packed a punch, rich in art, literature, architecture, fashion, landscape design, and more. It was also a time of regimented social expectations and rules. I’m intrigued by that sense of structure and how people worked within it. I love the dukes, debutantes, deceptions and drama! And romance, of course, between a gently-bred miss in an empire-waist gown and an unsuitable gentleman in a pair of gleaming Hessians.

How did you choose which agents to query? And, what excited you particularly about the
agent you signed with?

I spent about three years doing laid-back research: peeking at agent websites, listening to friends’ experiences with their agents, reading articles and agents’ blogs, etc. It’s important to learn what genres an agent represents and what she expects from her clients. I thought about what I might need in an agent, but I also decided it was better for me to have no agent than the wrong agent. So I prayed for God’s will, kept writing, and paid attention.

For years, I’ve been familiar with Tamela Hancock Murray (my agent—wahoo!) because she’s also an author, and I have a few of her books on my shelves. Her agency, The Steve Laube Agency, is represents many authors I enjoy and respect. Tamela is knowledgeable, affirming, approachable, and professional. The idea of being on her team thrilled me.

What was the hardest part about getting your manuscript ready to query?

Finishing it! You may laugh, but I’m serious. I was at a crossroads with my writing, wondering what to do after a rejection. I decided to rework an old story. Aside from keeping the premise, I started over, writing two chapters and a synopsis. I entered the story into two contests to receive some feedback. I finaled in one contest and won the other—and received proposal requests from the final round judges, who were editors. I obliged, but I still had to finish the manuscript.

Do you have any advice for beginning writers - or any who aren't quite beginning, but who
aren't professional yet either?

First of all, write. Secondly, have a teachable spirit. Read books on craft. Enter contests for feedback: discovering your weaknesses is a gift, because you can work on those areas. Thank those contest judges for giving of their time to help you, even if you disagree with them (or felt they were mean). Attend conferences if you can. I know how expensive they are, so I can’t talk: I just attended my first national conference—RWA—in July. But it was wonderful to meet people and learn so much about writing. You can purchase workshop CDs from both RWA and ACFW conferences.

How did you feel when your agent offered to represent you?

I was thrilled and humbled. It’s hard to describe how humbled I still am.

Who were you most excited to tell about your offer?

My husband. He was in a meeting, so I couldn’t contact him right away, and it drove me nuts. Of course I was also excited to tell my kids and parents, who have been patient and encouraging.

How do you fit writing time into every day life?

There’s no easy answer to this one. I’m still figuring it out. Finding balance looks different to everyone. For me, evenings are family time. But other writers find they only have evenings available. You have to discover what works best for your family and be flexible.

What's next for you? and, where can the readers of this blog find out more about you and
what you're up to?

I’m working on a new Regency, and I just set up a website. Both projects have been fun, but both have a long way to go to be complete! The website may not be finished, but I’ve posted some articles on Regency weddings, currency, Christmas, and offered links to some fabulous research sites. I’m adding things all the time (up next, pages on Regency “cant” and fashion).

Links:
www.susannedietze.com
www.susannedietze.blogspot.com
www.inkwellinspirations.com

My thanks to Susanne for stopping by the blog. I encourage you to subscribe to her blog - she's one fun and encouraging lady, and you'll want to add her title to your to-read list once it has a release date!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: Localism, Doing It All, the Balanced Life, and more!

"Living Off the Land: Localism in the Regency":

. . . families in the Regency took local eating to a whole new level, especially in the large country estates. These estates, formed hundreds of years before there were safe and reliable roads and trade routes, grew almost all of their own food out of necessity, and even in the Regency, when importing food was more feasible, many of these large estates still produced most of what they ate right there on the property.

"a new school year, all fresh and shiny":

 A friend recently asked "How do you do it all!" with a generous measure of admiration and possible disbelief in her voice. I've thought about this often since she asked, nearly every day in fact, and I think I have an answer. First of all, I don't do it All. I do a lot, but I don't do it All. I do a lot more than when I had one and then two and then three and then even four children. With each child comes a greater capacity to work. You discover that getting up one more time with a vomiting child isn't going to kill you, its just going to make you very very angry and tired. And along with the capacity to work comes the ability to discover what you really care about. 

"The Secret to Living a Balanced Life":

One expert advocates for the best way to care for teeth, another expert advocates for the best way to treat allergies, a third for the best way to teach your child one subject, a fourth advocates for the best way to keep a clean organized home, and so on and so on. That is their job. Your job is to listen to all of this advice (politely and calmly, remembering that each is doing his own job in advising you narrowly) and figure out how much of each you can reasonably do in order to take care of your job -- which is neither teeth nor allergies nor history nor a clean house, but a whole family of whole persons.

 "Karnick on Carnage":

. . . that the big difference between violent movies and sexual movies is not a difference of morals but of appropriateness. Violence is essentially public, while sex is essentially private.

There's more on the Web worth reading, but this is my collection for the week. Feel free to add links of your own in the comments!

-Jessica Snell

Book Notes: "A Conspiracy of Kings" by Megan Whalen Turner

A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, I meant to go to sleep at 11 last night and made the mistake of picking up this book. Ended up getting to bed close to 3 in the morning, completely satisfied because I'd just swallowed a most excellent story in one delicious gulp. Golly, Turner is good!

View all my reviews

-Jessica Snell

Links! - charm, food, a new Liaden story, and more!

"Charmlessness unto Godliness":

My overwhelming impulse was to try and repair all damage, to make them like me—whether they liked it or not. For other reasons, I was not able to act on this impulse, which saved me from the sin of manipulation, and saved them from my attempts at controlling how they felt about me. It is only now, faced with a more complicated and nuanced relational problem, that I am realizing what it means to let people have the freedom to dislike me as much as they please. It kind of sucks.

"Food and Work":

So in some ways food is a reward. It’s the proper end to a day full of employment. It’s the proper preparation for a day full of good work. It’s both a reward and a necessity.

"Landed Alien": A new (free!) Liaden short story from the awesome Steve Miller and Sharon Lee.

"Museum Life":

My husband calls that old ideal, the life of perfect ease and freedom, a “museum life.” It’s a good description. I didn’t think of it this way at the time, but I basically wanted to live in a museum: Everything in place, everything controlled, no noise, no chaos, nothing messy. Just a bunch of interesting stuff surrounding me that I could enjoy at my leisure.

But the thing about a museum is that everything there is dead.

"I am Lazarus, come back to tell you all":

Those are my three big things. There was no room in my head for anything else. Just to really hit home how big those three things were, I had surgery in that same time frame and IT DIDN’T EVEN MAKE THE LIST. I had my tailbone removed right before I went on tour, and let me tell you how awesome it was to sit on an airplane every frakking day while still recovering from butt surgery: pretty awesome.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Book Notes: "World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War" by Max Brooks

TWorld War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was one of the most tightly-written, compelling books I've read in a good long while. Page-turning, riveting, interesting from beginning to end.

But I'm still not sure I'm glad I read it.

"World War Z" tells the story of a zombie pandemic and my favorite part of this book is the great detail with which Brook considers how such an event would affect different, wide-spread areas of the globe. It's an "Oral History" and so you get a picture of the catastrophic events through the words of many diverse characters and the picture that's painted is both horrific and fascinating.

The only reason I can give for disliking this book (other than the fact that I now have a few more dismaying mental pictures of violent death than I had before) is how oddly depressing it was, how empty it felt.

Some of that is just because there's so much violence, but when I got to the end, and asked myself, "so what was the point?", the only answer I could come up with was that the book was written to comfort.

Weird conclusion, I know, but look at it this way: how often have you thought, "what's the worse that could happen?" as a means to reassure yourself? I do it all the time. You ask, "what's the worse that could happen?" and then you imagine how you'd get through it. If you can imagine a happy ending to that question, well, then you're comforted. You think, "Even if X happened, I'd still have Y."

Brooks' novel seems to me to be saying, "Even if an unspeakable, global disaster happened, humanity would survive. Some of us would make it."

And I get that. But . . . I'm sorry, it didn't seem that comforting to me. There wasn't any transcendent hope and, frankly, once you've gotten used to the glorious hope of Christ, anything less strikes a duller note and can't quite satisfy.

I fully realize that Brooks probably doesn't share my beliefs, so this isn't a proper criticism, really. It's more like picking up an Amish romance and complaining there weren't enough vampires. :) I realize that and I don't want to come across as trashing a really excellently-executed novel. It totally succeeds on its own terms. This is just an explanation of why the part of the book that didn't work for me didn't, well, work for me. All the imaginative, detailed, fascinating, "what if" bits? Totally worked. Really spectacular book. I just didn't like the aftertaste.

View all my reviews

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Stephannie Tallent is apparently really cool

So, I picked my parents up from the airport this week, and, after telling me all about my cousin's wedding, my mom told me about a conversation she had with a fellow passenger.

She saw a woman knitting, and they ended up chatting about knitting. Turned out the lady was headed back from Stitches Midwest, and she wasn't just a knitter, she was in fact a knitting author. And she showed my mom her book, which mom said was lovely, and then opened her bag and showed my mom the sample knits that had been photographed for the magazine.

Mom told me that it was amazing to see these gorgeous photos, and then, a moment later, see the even more gorgeous finished objects themselves.

Then she started to describe the designs to me, how they were inspired by California art and architecture, and that's when I had something to add to the conversation. I asked, "Is her book California Revival Knits?"

Mom said, "Yes, that's it!"

I remember California Revival Knits because I looked up the book on Ravelry after I heard Stephannie Tallent interviewed on a podcast (Knit Picks' podcast, I think). I loved the designs - they're bright and vibrant and really do remind me of the things I love about my home state - but I didn't queue any of them because I'm a bit colorwork shy.

But my mom made her conversation partner sound so cool that I went back to Ravelry and looked her patterns up again. Ooh, not just colorwork. Very nifty wrought-iron inspired cablework. And I messaged Stephannie on Rav, and she was lovely, and kind enough to recommend one of her patterns as particularly good for beginners to colorwork. (I like the fingerless version.)

Anyway. Enough to say: suddenly I'm a fan.

Annnnnd . . . I feel like I've had the pleasantest sort of lesson about how to be the sort of author that attracts new fans. Step one: make something good. Step two: be friendly to interested people. Step three: don't be afraid to pass your card on to relatives of people in your target audience. :)

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

A Response from Lois McMaster Bujold about "Borders of Infinity" and Dante

Okay, I just barely resisted titling this post, "Because Bujold is Awesome, That's Why." :D

Earlier this year, I posted my theory that "Borders of Infinity" by Lois McMaster Bujold was at least partly inspired by Dante's "Inferno". A reader of the blog later encouraged me to send my thoughts to Bujold, and, eventually, I did.

She wrote me a fascinating response in return, and kindly gave me permission to share it here.

Here it is:

  Insofar as I can remember what I was thinking back in 1986 when I wrote this novella, yes, the shout-out to the Divine Comedy was intended -- but not entirely consciously, and_ certainly_ not in advance. It came glimmering up out of the material as I wrote, as such things do, and I took what fit and served the story. (As opposed to devising a story to embody some preselected template.) So a point-by-point analysis is bound to fail at some points.

  You can also get a glancing reference to Eurydice out of Beatrice, if you squint. (As, in the tale of Orpheus-and-.) I'm an equal-opportunity culture thief.

  There is certainly a... metaphor? parable? to be had out of the story, if one is inclined that way, about grace having to be something that breaks in from outside; you can't pull it out of your own ear unaided. Or the tale can be read on the surface, skimming along as a straight-up milSF adventure. What sort of reading each reader gets from it will depend sensitively upon the prior contents of each head. Sort of like a Rorschach blot, that way. But that very quality is just what makes books and stories so endlessly debatable.

  Good on you for spotting the Bunyan take. (That passage gave my French translators fits, by the way, Bunyan not being a common cultural reference in France at all. Nor, admittedly, among Americans, but let them hear who have ears and all that.)

  I have an amusing story about the Bunyan quote. I was hand-writing the first draft of this in the Marion Public Library, where I fled to work at this period of my life since it was not possible to do so at home with kids, and came upon that point where I needed something that sounded scriptural but wasn't actually Biblical. I bethought myself of Bunyan, whom I had read some years before, went to the shelves, found a copy (I don't think it had been checked out for quite a while), and flipped it open more-or-less at random to right there, or at least in the first few pages I glanced at. Stole it immediately, slapped it in where needed, and went on. But the story was already partly written and plotted at that point, so any homage was _ad lib_, not designed.

 My initial internal vision of the prison camp was more WWII barracks-like, but first, it wasn't very SFnal, and second, as a person who values and needs her solitude, my idea of hell is to be trapped with a gazillion people and be unable to get away from them. So that dome has to partly be chalked up to my personal taste, as well.

I did have a WWII veteran remark recently that "Borders" was the most perfect WWII story he'd ever read. Still thinking about that one.

Bujold has long been one of my favorite authors, and this thoughtful response just put me over the moon. My thanks to her for letting me share it.

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links: supermoms, comics, and podcasts

"Supermom":

I often get asked, "How do you do it all?" Usually I want to respond, "What do you mean by all?"

Schlock Mercenary: It's a space opera. In comic form. It has actual stories. It's awesome.

Do I Dare to Eat a Peach? Podcast -  I like listening to podcasts while knitting or doing the dishes. This is a new find for me - two author brothers discussing literature and other bits of pop culture.

Have a good weekend!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

In My Feedreader, Part V: Author Blogs

The next category of blogs in my feedreader are the author blogs. These are the ones that are hard to categorize any other way because of the variety of subjects they all tackle. But the one thing they have in common is that they all write books. So:

Sharon Lee - writes, along with Steve Miller, some of the best sci-fi out there.

Robin McKinley - writes fantasy, and blogs about English change-ringing, knitting, gardening, singing, and other misc. subjects.

Shannon Hale - writes both YA and romance.

Laurie Alice Eakes - writes Christian historical romance.

Ruth Axtell Morren - also writes Christian historical romance.

Naomi Rawlings - so does she! Naomi's blog also has a lot on being a working mom.

Kristi Ann Hunter - another Christian historical romance author.

Kaye Dacus - writes both historical and contemporary Christian romance (she's one of my career heroines).

Wil Wheaton - writes memoir and other interesting things.

John Scalzi  - writes sci-fi and has one of the best author blogs I've ever read. Always interesting.

Melissa Wiley - writes books for children, and has one of the most calm, humorous, fascinated-with-the-world blogger voices - she's a delight.

Linore Rose Burkard - another Christian historical romance author, who blogs about books and faith.

So, any good ones I missed?

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell

Links! work, stories, weight loss, epic fantasy, & more!

Anne Kennedy waxes wonderful about work - in all its repetitive monotony - and about the "very very few things . . . . that we do one time only for complete lasting satisfaction and joy."

Lars Walker writes about the Apologetic of Story (that's part one, and part two is here) and why - except for the witness of the actual lives of the saints - it is story that most compellingly convinces us of the truth of the gospel.

Betsy Barber writes about the Tale of Two Daughters in the gospel of Mark. I liked these two parts especially:

. . . she reaches out, and touches Jesus’ clothes and immediately the flow of blood stops and she feels in her body that she is healed of the disease. . . . Touching Jesus should have made him unclean, instead the touch made the woman clean! . . .

and then in regard to Jairus' daughter:

We are told in Numbers 5 that touching dead bodies defiles a living person. But again, the holy power differential flows the other way with the Lord Jesus.

(Hi, Mom!)

(The author is my mom.)

(Okay, I'm done with parenthetical statements; onto the rest of the links.)

This article explains why Ravelry is so awesome. It's the perfect cross-referencing. It really, really is.

Over at Learning As We Go, read about a huge study from the New England Journal of Medicine and what does and does not (statistically) lead to weight maintenance.

Annnnnnd, this is why I'm in favor of continuing to protect the second amendment. A story of a family fighting back against a home invader.

A guest blog by the awesome Elizabeth Moon on the subject of epic fantasy. I found this part particularly interesting:

Transformation, in epic, is as much bigger than the “growth” the usual story protagonist manages as the epic challenge is greater than the problems of ordinary characters. Transformation goes deeper, affects more of the character. At the end, the once lumpy and awkward caterpillar in the confining chrysalis breaks out, and has that triumph…but is so changed that it’s rare for an epic hero to go home and live a quiet life–sit by the fire, grow a few vegetables, settle down with the family, bore the grandchildren with familiar stories.

Frodo couldn’t. (Sam could, and that’s particularly interesting since without Sam, Frodo wouldn’t have been successful. Tolkien was showing something very, very interesting about character in that.)

Become An Email Jedi In 7 Steps. Love it! (Using it, too.)

This dance routine made me tear up; it's just beautiful. The story line is that they're two statues who can dance at night, but that have to become still once the sun rises, and it's a bit of a love story, and it's just amazing:

links

Patricia Wrede writes:

“I don’t have time to write” is one of the most common writers’ complaints, both from people who haven’t published yet and from seasoned pros.

The statement means different things to different people, but the most common meaning is “There are a lot of other things in my life that are more important to me than writing, so those are what I spend my time on.”

. . . But. Nobody gets more than 24 hours of time in a day, or more than 7 days in a week. That prolific professional who has six novels coming out next year (and four the year after that, and five more the year after that) has exactly the same amount of total time as the much-admired writer who produces one novel every eight to ten years, the newly sold author who’s trying to juggle editorial revisions and copyedit and galleys while producing his second book, the as-yet-unsold writer who’s struggling to persuade herself that her writing will sell one day in spite of the latest rejection letter, and the one-of-these-days-when-I-have-time “writer” who hasn’t produced two sentences in thirty years on account of having “no time to write.”

It’s not about having time. It’s about making choices.

Go read the rest, and the comments too, some of which are also by P. Wrede and even better (if possible) than the post itself.

And this is why I love Linda Holmes and her gorgeous, wonderful, analytical mind. She can take something as awful as the "Real Housewives" shows and come up with stuff like this:

"If you've never watched anything Real Housewives-related (and really, good for you), let me sum up most of the plotlines in the show's history: Someone Wants An Apology. Somebody did something to somebody else, and the somebody else just can't believe it, and they spend all of their time telling everyone to whom they speak that the lack of an apology is consuming their every thought to the point where they can barely sit through a mani-pedi without twitching. Usually there is a fashion show involved. (And yes, some of it is staged. At the same time, I am entirely convinced most of those who go to war absolutely do hate each other.)

"Meanwhile, Big Brother features a ridiculous amount of crying and emotional superreacting, which has recently included a couple who decided they were soulmates after about four days of making out, and then a guy who lay on a hammock (I think it was a hammock; I cannot bear to fact-check whether it was actually the chaise) crying to himself, all the while telling himself that it was, after all, only Big Brother — a point somewhat undermined by his position lying in the hammock/chaise, crying.

"At some point this summer, it all became clear: the rest of us are saved from becoming these people in part by the fact that we have to get up every day and do stuff."

I might get to a hundred this year!

I just added my latest few reads to my 2010 list, and I realized that I'm coming up on fifty books read so far this year, and it's not even halfway through the year! Maybe I'll get to a hundred this year. That'd be cool.

Here's the list so far, alphabetically by author, save the first entry*:

-The Holy Bible

The Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle

Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter’s Uncommon Year – Brodie, Laura

Winterfair Gifts – Bujold, Lois McMaster

Manalive - Chesterton, G. K.

Boundaries with Kid: When to say YES, When to Say NO, to Help Your Children Gain Control of Their Lives – Cloud, Dr. Henry and Townsend, Dr. John

Beholder’s Eye: Web Shifters #1 – Czerneda, Julie E.

Changing Vision (Webshifters #2) – Czerneda, Julie E.

Living by Fiction – Dillard, Annie

Knight’s Castle – Eager, Edward

How to Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably, and On Your Own –Farber, Barry

The Kitchen Madonna – Godden, Rumer

Princess Academy – Hale, Shannon

Marrying the Captain – Kelly, Carla

Marrying the Royal Marine – Kelly, Carla

-A Devilish Dilemma – Lansdowne, Judith

Learning How to Pray for Our Children

Fledgling – Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve

Out of the Silent Planet – Lewis, C. S.

The Problem of Pain – Lewis, C. S.

The World’s Last Night and Other Essays – Lewis, C. S.

The British Museum is Falling Down – Lodge, David

For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School – Macaulay, Susan Schaeffer

Open Heart – Open Home – Mains, Karen Burton

Reduced Shakespeare: The Attention-Impaired Reader's Guide to the World's Best Playwright – Martin, Reed and Tichenor, Austin

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School – Medina, John

The Shape of Mercy – Meissner, Susan

The Host – Meyer, Stephanie

Our Village – Mitford, Mary Russell

Nanny by Chance – Neels, Betty

Bachelorette #1 – O’Connell, Jennifer

-El Dorado: Further Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel – Orczy, Baroness

The No-Cry Potty Training Solution – Pantley, Elizabeth

Keeping House: the Litany of Everyday Life – Peterson, Margaret Kim

-One and the Same: My Life as an Identical Twin and What I’ve Learned About Everyone’s Struggle to Be Singular – Pogrebin, Abigail

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Like Them – Prose, Francine

Rapture Ready! Adventure in the Parallel World of Christian Pop Culture – Radosh, Daniel

Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication and Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams – Sellers, Heather

-7 Steps to Raising a Bilingual Child – Steiner, Naomi, M.D., with Hayes, Susan L.

-The Fellowship of the Ring – Tolkien, J. R. R.

The Return of the King – Tolkien, J. R. R.

The Two Towers – Tolkien, J. R. R.

Stardoc – Viehl, S. L.

“What Shall I Say?” A Guide to Letter Writing for Ladies

Family Worship – Whitney, Donald S.

Carry On, Jeeves – Wodehouse, P. G.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman  – Wollstonecraft, Mary

Definitely some hits and misses, but the good ones this year have been so very good (how could I have let so much time go by without rereading Lewis' The Problem of Pain? It's amazing! Lovely, even). Biggest hits so far were the classics: Lewis, Tolkien, Aristotle, Wodehouse, Orczy, Eager, Chesterton, and Wollstonecraft. But some of the ones that were new to me** were also very good, including Sellers, Pogrebin, Hale, Lee &Miller, Godden, and Faber.  Good year for reading. Such richness! I'm not worthy of it. 

I'm overwhelmed with the fact that I get to read so many good words. 

Does the easy access to literature ever overawe anyone else? It seems like such a blessing to me.

Peace of Christ to you, 

Jessica Snell

*Note: I list books by the year I finish them, not the year I start them (because who knows if you're going to finish each book you start? I certainly don't always finish 'em), so some of these books, including the Bible, were started last year. Also, I count unabridged audiobooks I've listened to on this list.

**Books that were new to me, that is, not necessarily authors.

my first writing conference

I had the pleasure of going to my first writing conference this past weekend. Someday I want to go to the big national ACFW conference, but that’s probably out of reach this year, and besides, I thought it would be good to go to a smaller, local one first.

Since I live in Southern California though, my small, local writing conference isn’t actually that small (or that local; I got to drive freeways I’ve never driven before, anyways); I would guess there were a couple hundred people there, at least.

The weirdest thing about it, for me, was how diverse it was. I don’t mean diversity of race or gender or age (though it had all of those), but diversity of purpose. I think I’ve gotten spoiled as part of the ACFW. In the ACFW, everyone is, first of all, a writer of fiction. Also, there is a strong, strong drive towards cultivating excellence of craft. The conference I attended seemed to cater more to non-fiction writers than fiction and it also seemed to emphasize message a bit more than craft.*

Though not across the board, by any means. My favorite workshops were put on by Jeff Gerke, and he had lots to say about writing well. He talked about point-of-view errors and shallow characters, but far and away what I have the most notes on from his lectures is showing-not-telling. He explained it better than anyone I’ve heard yet.

I also got to have a couple of conversations with Susan Meissner, which I really appreciated. She talked about editing and about publicity, and I found everything she had to say helpful. She was also lovely to everyone who asked her a question, no matter how aggressive or how uncertain they were. It was a pleasure to watch someone field so many hopeful people with such grace. So, even though the conference wasn’t heavy on fiction, the people they did have there to talk about fiction did a great job.

I was also glad that I got to go to my first writing conference before I had anything to sell. I’m not planning to query my novel till late this summer, at the earliest, so I was able to go to this conference just to listen. Whenever I sat next to anyone, I was able to ask, “What do you write?” and listen to the answer without feeling that interior urge to interrupt and tell them what I write. I’m hoping that when I do go to a writing conference with something to sell, should that ever happen, that I can remember how I acted at this one and act the same way, listening lots more than I talk. It was good practice, I think. And I got to hear lots of interesting stories, lots of other writers’ journeys. The funniest story I heard though wasn’t from a writer proper at all, it was from a woman who had come to the conference to find and hire a ghostwriter! Not a bad place to look, actually!

I also felt like I got confirmation that I’m on the right path. I heard a lot of things where I was able to say, “yes, I’ve done that” or “yes, that’s what I’m doing”. There was new stuff too (there’s always new stuff!), but there was also stuff I’d heard before, and that was, to me, a good thing. It’s good because it let me know I’m headed in the right direction, even if I’m not there yet.

So that was my first conference experience!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

*(It’s one of those old false dichotomies where the true answer is probably a balance of two not-so-opposing forces. But I have lots of sympathy for how hard it is to talk about without slipping into defending one side or the other – see me doing the same thing in this very entry! So I am not saying that people at this conference didn't care about craft. Just that the emphasis was different.)