Ramblings-n-Writings

Archive for September, 2008

Are you like me and have a million little piles of paper around? You know the junk mail pile, the look-at-it-later pile, the magazine pile, the bill pile, the not-sure-what-this-is-but-better-keep-it-for-now pile and all of their offspring piles.

Trixie at Farm Home Life wrote a great post today about how to tackle the piles and gain more organization. Check it out!

Something happened to phone and DSL service in our area around 6 p.m. yesterday. Everything stopped working – no phone, no internet! It’s a very weird feeling knowing that if anything went wrong, there was no way to contact someone else (cell phones don’t work in our area).

While I wasn’t particularly thrilled about my forced sabbatical from all things online, I survived. I like to spend one day preparing all my blog posts for the next couple of days and then preschedule them. Of course, Monday evening was when I planned on doing that! But I got creative and wrote my posts in Word and just need to copy them over today. =)

I’m a winter person – I love the snow, cold weather, the holidays, layers of clothes, mittens and hats. However, this year I’m getting really excited for fall to come. Why? I think it’s because our new house has a gorgeous fireplace that smells wonderful and takes a little bit of the bite out of the cool mountain evening air.

Yep, we already used our fireplace one evening last week. Don’t worry – the temps dropped to the 40s that night so it was quite appropriate. Now I’m dreaming of drinking hot chocolate piled with marshmallows, gazing out the window at the fall colors, and listening to fire crackling. Oh, and most importantly, curled up in my blanket reading a good book!

What books are on my Fall Reading List?

• A Passion Most Pure by Julie Lessman
• A Passion Redeemed by Julie Lessman
• The Bride Bargain by Kelly Eileen Hake
• Waiting for Summer’s Return by Kim Vogel Sawyer
• Where the Heart Leads by Kim Vogel Sawyer
• In the Shadow of Lions by Ginger Garrett
• Courting Miss Adelaide by Janet Dean
• John 3:16 by Nancy Moser
• Washington’s Lady by Nancy Moser
• Just Jane by Nancy Moser
• That’s Not Exactly Amore by Tracey Bateman
• Revealed by Tamera Alexander
• Remembered by Tamera Alexander
• From a Distance by Tamera Alexander
• An Unexpected Love by Tracie Peterson
• A Promise to Believe In by Tracie Peterson
• Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson

Those of you who participate in CFBA will recognize some of those titles. Your good reviews enticed me to add them to my list since I joined a little too late to receive a review copy. =)

Just in case anyone thinks I spend all my time reading fiction … Wait, I think I might … I do have a few non-fiction titles on my list:

• The Grand Weaver by Ravi Zacharias
• Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in the Tabloid World by Lynne Spears
  
• Write His Answer: A Bible Study for Christian Writers by Marlene Bagnull
• Plot & Structure by James Scott Bell
• An Introduction to Christian Writing by Ethel Herr
• The Complete Guide to Writing & Selling the Christian Novel by Penelope Stokes
• And whatever other writing books I can get my hands on =)

Jump on over to Katrina’s Callapidder Days to see what others are reading as part of the Fall into Reading challenge.

I love our fireplace!!! This is an “older” photo so the decor changed a little – the fake fire is gone now and replaced with a real one. The fireplace is awesome!!!

I also love my big kitchen and dining area. The living room is open to the kitchen, so it’s really about 30 ft x 25 ft of open space. Totally awesome!

Then there’s the sliding glass door in the dining room that looks out the back and up a small valley.

And our huge bedroom and master bath, my office, the pantry… All things we didn’t have in the old place. Thanksgiving is approaching and I am soooo thankful for the things the Lord did for us this year!

I’m making slow, but steady, progress on my WIP. The first major change is a new title. I’ve been calling it “Uncertain” partly because I knew my character was uncertain about her new life in America and partly because I was uncertain of the title. Now that I have a better idea of my story, I’ve settled on a new title – “Oceans of Hope,” symbolic of the ocean crossing and the hope an immigrant carries.

I’ve written slightly under 6,000 words so far or about 5% of a hopefully completed manuscript. =) However, what I have is somewhat disjointed. I have a collection of conversations between my characters in little snippets. I need to go back and add descriptions and the meat of the scenes.

When I write, I feel the necessity of recording what’s happening on the “movie screen” of my mind. I see the characters and hear what they say. It’s almost like writing down a dream. My goal is to get the “meat” of the scene on paper and add the props (specific details) later.

I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to work on “Oceans of Hope” or even blog in the next week. Between now and next Thursday, we have two doctor and two orthopedist appointments scheduled. Not too bad except by the end of the week we’ll have traveled about 450 miles just going to and from the appointments. I’m cringing to think of the dent that gas will put in our budget. Hopefully prices will drop soon!

I read a great article, The Story Crucible, on character development in fiction writing. The author, Camy Tang, blogs here and here.

According to Camy, the crucible is that thing that keeps our main character in trouble. The crucible is the main reason why characters make certain choices throughout the story. In a sense, I guess it’s like the overall motivation behind the character, but it’s a motivation the character can’t control. (Bet that made a lot of sense, huh? Camy explains it a lot better with her examples!)

After reading the article, I realized I need to work on developing my characters’ “crucible” a little better and making sure they are clearly defined. I’ll post an update on my writing progress tomorrow!