Writing the Perfect Book: A Bridge

At the beginning, the hero is not yet on the scene, but only exists in the mind of the reader, suggested by the urgency of the entire plot.

The heroine is the perfect touch of helplessness and womanly strength and beauty. She embodies the hopes and fears of women everywhere.

The setting is a stellar combination of your finest dreams haunted by your worst nightmare. It is both a place you have been and a place you hope you never have to see, a bridge between your life and your imagination.

The pace is leisurely when you are enchanted, but galloping when the suspense is ratcheted up.

When the hero arrives, he is everything you want him to be. Vulnerable, totally capable, and in the nick of time.

The ending comes far too soon.

The lingering taste in the palate is satisfaction, with a mouth-watering thirst for more.

Insert  description, characters and dialogue here.

books rethunk

I've been gradually opening my mind to the concept of e-books taking over the publishing world. The biggest barrier for me is one I find it hard to verbalize. I suspect this is the case with many people. How do you describe the difference between holding an actual book with a cover and pages in your hand, compared to holding an electronic device?

But, I have tried.

The day I knew 'they' were winning was when I entered a contest to win a Kindle. So, I wasn't as against the device itself, but rather the expense, perhaps? Since I normally don't buy books at the usual new price, but rather review books for free,borrow from the library or my mother's extensive book collection, I object to being locked into reading at a cost higher than my current one.

But this was before I found myself surrounded by a sea of children and parents waiting to go into the Storytime Hour at my local library.

I saw toddlers, and babies, preschoolers and kids in strollers with moms, dads and grandparents. The library had provided books in baskets in the foyer where they were waiting. Adults knelt on the floor and sat in chairs with children on their laps. Kids were lifting the flaps of flap books, pointing to colorful pictures, drooling on books, listening to the adults read, and prattling about the pictures.

Instantly in my mind, I replaced each scenario with an e-reader. It was not a pretty sight.

All that work. Gone in an instant. I wasn't going to be able to keep up the pretext of going with the flow into a new generation of e-reading. And now I had one solid reason why.

What's your opinion on books vs. e-readers?

My Bucket List...For Now

Hire a weekly maidservice

Go to Italy, France and Germany

Be published and sell copies internationally

Live to be a great=grandmother

Waltz again

Act in a Shakespearean play

Hear Keane in concert

Meet Sir Ken Robinson, Julia Cameron, Ray Bradbury, Jerry Lewis and Martha Stewart

Have my house finished, walls and floors

Get a masters degree in literature

Become debt free

Get my nails done

Work on a BBC film

Have a girl’s weekend with my best friends/daughters

Take Mom to the Shakespeare Fest in Ashland

Go to dinner and a movie complete with popcorn and soda

Visit the Hearst castle

Go to Solvang

See the Getty museum

Review (do anything that gets published) for Wall Street Journal

Pay for a vacation for my mother

Christmas shopping in San Francisco

Cruise the Caribbean

Wear a sequined dress, well

Have all my teeth fixed, while sedated

Drive through Ohio Amish country in late September

Sabbath: The Perfect Day

If seven is the perfect number, then the seventh day should be the perfect day.

That’s the point Dan B Allender is trying to make in his book Sabbath. Far from the dry scolding I expected, Allender’s nearly scandalous prose paints a picture of a day spent in the delight of the presence of the One who created us for wonder. Calling us from the busy, despairing grind of a workaholics anonymous existence, God’s purpose for the Sabbath was never to bore us, Allender insists.

Posing the idea that many of us prefer the predictability of sorrow to the serendipity of mysterious delight, the book may turn off the traditionalist who may insist, “Sundays were made to focus on God”, Allender reminds of Jesus’ words, “the Sabbath was made for man.”

At one point he even describes a Sabbath as more like hanging out in a French Bistro with the Savior than what most of us envision for the Lord’s Day. Ways to spend your Sabbath are suggested, and they vary from foot washing to smoking a stogie with a friend. Most center on food and time with people you care about.

This book should be read by every person who has ever spent a Sunday in drudgery, whether in church, or anywhere else. I won’t spend the seventh day of my week the same as I used to. This gentle voice has transformed my thinking!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson Publishers in return for my honest opinion of the book.

The Green Room: The Presence

The Green Room: The Presence: "How do you practice the presence of God?"

The Presence

How do you practice the presence of God?

Scattered

I am having a lot of trouble with focus. Perhaps wearing several different hats doesn't help.

I just counted seven.

So cutting out something is becoming the only answer to sanity. Should I cut out the money making activity, or the things that I do for fun?

As I write this, my daughter is attempting to pull me into her new venture - decorating cupcakes. Eight, if my resistance gives way.

The irony is giving me a metal taste in my mouth.

I sometimes think that the famed Renaissance men were proficient at so many things because they simply couldn't choose. Isn't there an app for that? Over curious, under decisive creatives who say no to a new thing only on their death beds, and even then...

I am the equivalent of a pellet gun. Lots of little things flying in many directions. Kind of dangerous. Those of you who know me can just shake your heads and go back to your housework, and day jobs. It never will be that cut and dried for me.

I could stop and take myself in hand and order my day rationally. But, I rarely do.

I must like it this way.

How do you stay focused?