Welcome to Joywriting! (New posts are below)

Whether you’re family, or a regular reader, or just accidentally stumbled on this blog while searching for a “paintball” or “termite” image, I’m glad you are here. If you especially enjoy any post you read, you can pass it along by clicking the Facebook “Share” button…. assuming, of course, that you have a Facebook account. (Button does not appear from the home page; only when you click on the title of a specific post.)

If you would like to receive an email notifying you of new posts as they’re published, enter your email address at the top of the sidebar, where it says “Want to ride along?” Then you won’t miss a minute of my exciting life a single post.

Here’s a little secret… If you see a captionless photo that I have included in a post, try hovering the mouse over it. Many of them have hidden captions.

Again, welcome, and I would love to hear from you either in a comment or via email (under the “Feedback Zone” tab at top).

Thanks for reading,
Jan

Caught In Its Claws

One nice crisp day when my car was in the shop, I took the loaner over to the nearest mall to hang out and work on my book. And maybe stroll around some shops a bit. Eventually hunger grabbed my attention, so I wandered around until I found the food court.

Let’s see… something with lots of veggies, not too high in fat… it’s a little chilly for a cold sandwich…

After circling three-fourths of the food court something snagged my subconscious. Not sure what it was, I stopped walking and turned my head. There, on a countertop easel not six feet from me, sat the little sign.

Lobster Bisque.

You must know two things:

1) Lobster bisque is my favorite soup, perhaps my favorite food, of all time.
2) I very rarely have any of this rich treat.

There I stood while the other options, the rest of the food court–in fact, the whole mall–
all faded away, along with any thought of my former health-conscious criteria. That ol’ crustacean had me caught in its claws. Nothing existed but me and a huge pot of
Lobster Bisque.

And maybe a nice glass of sweet tea.

Oh, yeah. It was delicious.

Brent and a couple of colleagues had flown to Houston that morning for a meeting. When would he get home? I could hardly wait to tell him about my exotic, ambrosia-like lunch. Of course, I only hoped it would not make him too envious.

Eventually the lobster-induced coma wore off, the dealer called, I collected my car and made my way back to Midlothian. The little town seemed so humdrum after having eaten Lobster Bisque for lunch.

Brent pulled in around seven. I rushed to the garage to meet him and gave him a big hug. “You’ll never guess what I had for lunch…”

“What was it?”

I grabbed him by the shoulders. “I had Lobster Bisque!” The magic words sparkled in the air between us.

“Huh–cool, that’s what I had for lunch too!”

Uhhh…

How does he do that?

Thanks for reading!
Jan
Today I am linking up with my Soli Deo Gloria sisters over at Jen’s.

Staff Meeting

As a writer I need structure, whether or not I want it at any given time. So I have a morning routine that is supposed to give me a good start to my day, energizing me for the segue into my “office” hours.

I start with a leisurely breakfast, complete with coffee and newspaper. Gotta work that Sudoku puzzle. Then I hop up, eager to get writing on my novel.

Oh, wait… I haven’t opened my Bible yet this morning. So I curl up on the sofa with Bible, journal, pen and another cup of coffee. Well, sometimes I do that. Many days I get sidetracked by anything from a load of stinky cycling clothes that need washing, to a stray piece of junk mail which engrosses me. Then I wander past the office, notice the computer, and sit down to untangle that character glitch or finish that half-done dramatic argument scene. Before I know it, it’s nearly lunch time, my Bible remains unread, and I have no idea what I’ve done with my coffee cup.

Yes, I get sidetracked and sort of forget about Bible study and prayer, but deep inside, a little part of me is actually… stalling. It makes no sense. If I want to write “Truth in Fiction,” my private motto, why am I so reluctant to settle down long enough to immerse myself in that Truth?

I suspect I’m not alone in my impatience to “get on with it.” I forget about the proverbial guy who has two hours to chop down a tree–heard about him?–He needs to spend the first hour sharpening his axe. So when I finally march myself over to my Bible and stuff, I may or may not really engage with my God. Often I feel more like a kid who begrudges having to finish her homework before she can play outside.

And when that happens, the writing that I was so eager to get to… um, let’s just say it doesn’t go too well.

The other day I was thinking about this and asked God how I could change my attitude. I asked the question more out of frustration than because I expected an answer. Nothing audible, anyway. Sure enough, everything remained quiet. But a phrase dropped into my mind, settling into place like a rose petal drifting down to float on a pool of water.

“Staff meeting.”

Huh? Then memory stirred–a pleasant memory, of my years on the support staff at our church. One morning each week we would meet with the pastors to discuss upcoming events, assign tasks and pray for each other and for our church members. It was cool. I always enjoyed being in on this behind-the-scenes preparation. Often our actions were pretty routine–Yes, I’ll design the flyers and print them, but don’t ask me to hang any in the men’s rooms–that sort of thing. But I always found it refreshing to hear the pastors’ dreams and goals, to see them brainstorm the challenges that faced us. Besides the camaraderie we all shared, these sessions generally gave me a sense of renewed purpose that I could take back to my desk.

The staff meeting never felt like an interruption to my work. Instead it was an important part of it.

Aha, I think I’m catching on. If I want to write fiction that conveys the truth and humor and wonder that life holds, fiction that blesses those who read it, then I am working for God. How can I work effectively if I don’t meet with the Boss? How would I know what to write? He sees the big picture; my random opinions add no value to the conversation.

And so this morning I ate, dashed off the Sudoku puzzle (Monday’s is the easiest one of the week) and headed straight for the sofa with my coffee. I read from God’s word, prayed for some folks, including myself, and thought about the story I am writing. Then I went into the office.

Most productive day in the last three or four weeks, thank you.

Long story short, it’s never a waste of time to sharpen your axe.

Thanks for reading,
Jan

I’m linking up with Jen for the Soli Deo Gloria blog party.

Complicated. Apparently, It’s the New “Simple”

This week I am linking up with Jen and the Soli Deo Gloria sisters.

Is it just me, or is there a conspiracy out there?

Our society keeps gaining more and more advanced technology, which was supposed to make our work easier and give us more free time. Instead, it just allows us to squeeze more and more work into the same 24 hours. Well…. work, AND Facebook, AND Words with Friends, which I persistently lose to my friend Jen but which I enjoy anyway. Most of us are plugged in every second, surrounded by nonstop noise, and by even more visual noise.

So we decide to fight back. “I will simplify my life,” we say.

Then what do we do? We have no idea how to live simply, so we turn to our electronic devices to tell us. We use search engines, prepare spreadsheets of solutions, take polls, read all the ads…

“You must buy ‘shabby’ home furnishings,” the ads say. “‘Shabby’ is simple. Order now.”

or

“You must fill your home with antique-replica ‘country’ stuff. ‘Country stuff’ is simple. Order now for free shipping.”

or

“You must cook all your food from scratch, using only whole-grain bell peppers and organic salt. Order our cookbook now for free shipping and a DVD showing you how to fix this stuff.” Okay, I’m honestly not making fun of raw / natural foods, because they really are healthy and delicious. The question remains, how does cooking from scratch save time over opening a few cans and drop-kicking the contents into the Crock Pot with a chicken breast?

But I digress. It just seems ironic to me that we have multi-billion-dollar industries growing up around our desire to simplify our lives. Is it possible we are being… played?

Case in point: Brent and I found a cookbook advertising “Seasonal, sustainable, simple, pure” recipes. It offered an appealing premise: meals can be flavorful and good for you. So we bought a copy and plunged into the entree section, looking for tasty, simple dinner ideas. Imagine our surprise when we found…

Many of the recipes actually consisted of three or four separate recipes.

Some of the sub-recipes called for one or more ingredients that you had to make from a recipe in a different part of the book. At least it gave page-number references…

We followed a couple of the remote sub-ingredient references, only to find that the sub-ingredient recipe referred us to yet another page, to make a sub-sub-ingredient.

Even the recipes that allowed us to stay on one page called for a daunting list of ingredients, many of which I have never heard of and cannot pronounce.

Footnotes eased our worry about those strange ingredients… They are available at exotic markets, probably only a 45-minute drive from our home, or we can simply order them online. (Really?)

At least we found these at a local store. Pretty local, anyway. Less than a half hour away.

Whew! We would flat-out starve to death.

As near as I can figure, we would all be less stressed if we quit listening to the “experts,” and just…

* spend less money than we make.
* eat real food.
* spend our time with the people we value most.
* spend the rest of our time on the things we value most.

And if an expensive designer “shabby” sofa pillow or a 47-ingredient recipe floats your boat, then go for it.

Thanks for reading,
Jan

The More You Do. . .

In the last few days, after weeks of mild North Texas spring-like weather, we found ourselves back in a cold-front funk. Howling winds, overnight freezes, the works. Or as Brent put it, “I’m ready for Christmas to be over.” So Saturday and Monday, instead of riding my bike out on the road, I got busted back indoors to use the trainer.

Me and my favorite cycling buddy.

Brent had left one of his Graeme Street training DVDs in the player and suggested I try it: “Lightning Leg Agility.” Lightning? Me?? Yeah, right. My pedaling cadence normally tops out at around 120.

I started the video anyway. Graeme explained he would signal short intervals of high-speed pedaling in an easy gear. One set would be thirty-second intervals with a rest in between, but most speed intervals would last only ten or fifteen seconds. Fifteen seconds? Welllll…. I’ll try anything for fifteen seconds. Then relax during the recovery intervals.

After a warmup set, we got down to business. I forget the exact sequence of times and speeds. My eyes were glued to my cadence meter.

In the first speed interval, Graeme egged me on to break 130 RPM… but I didn’t. I think I hit 128, though. I’m not sure because the vibration made the numbers hard to read. During the recovery, I told myself I would be cutting this workout short. I couldn’t keep up, so what was the point?

But each set provided four chances to hit the target RPM. By the third or fourth interval, I saw the second digit on my cadence meter turn to “3.” Wow!

Never satisfied, Graeme soon had me shooting for 140. Pffffft. As if. “Now, if you can’t do 140, don’t worry,” he advised. “Just go as fast as you can. Keep at it, and you’ll get better.” Like he read my mind.

Would you believe it, by the second set of 140s I had actually seen my own cadence hit the mark. It may even have been a little over 140, but I couldn’t read the number clearly because my lightning leg speed had my bike bouncing around.

But Graeme gave me no time to congratulate myself. “This time I want a max effort–150 RPM. C’mon, it’s just for ten seconds.”

Whaaaaat??

No way. Not 150. Can’t do it. Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen.

And it didn’t happen… until about the third fast interval. Honestly, my bike and I were both jerking around like a paddle-ball and paddle, only with a really short string. But never mind that. The point is, though I could barely read the numbers, I am positive I saw a “5″ appear in the middle-digit spot.

Euphoria or perhaps insanity kicked in, and I finished that whole stinkin’ workout. Not only that, once I recovered for a few minutes I stayed on to challenge myself with another minute of constant acceleration. Just to show myself I could.

I may have ambled into that workout room, but I strutted out. Panting, red-faced and Jello-legged, but victorious. Taking small, challenging steps toward an impossible goal had pulled that goal within my reach. Who knew?

As near as I can figure, this experience confirms my long-held suspicion that:

The more you do, the more you can do.

And somehow, today I found the gumption to complete my first blog post in weeks (the one you are reading) and work on my novel. Maybe tomorrow I’ll complete my next chapter.

You never know until you try. And push yourself a little.

Thanks for reading!
Tailwinds,
Jan
PS: I am linking up with my encouraging friends at Jen’s Soli Deo Gloria party.
PPS: You, too, can have Graeme Street yell at you to push yourself. Click here to visit his website.

“January Justice” (Book Review)

Dickson, Athol. January Justice (The Malcolm Cutter Memoirs). Author, Author, Inc., Laguna Niguel, CA, 2012.

First, here’s the plot synopsis from Amazon.com: Reeling from his wife’s unsolved murder, Malcolm Cutter is just going through the motions as a chauffeur and bodyguard for Hollywood’s rich and famous. Then a pair of Guatemalan tough guys offer him a job. It’s an open question whether they’re patriotic revolutionaries or vicious terrorists. Either way, Cutter doesn’t much care until he gets a bomb through his window, a gangland beating on the streets of L.A., and three bullets in the chest. Now there’s another murder on Cutter’s mind. His own.

And now for my two cents: I’ve read only a few of his books, but Athol Dickson has already become one of my favorite authors. Though different in style from the others, this story did not disappoint me one bit. I really like and respect protagonist Malcolm Cutter… despite his checkered past. Tight storytelling, palpable suspense and the complex, unpredictable plot make most of the book a real page-turner.

January Justice has plenty of hard-hitting action scenes for the guys, but still offers enough heart for us ladies. No major character, from Cutter himself to his admirable friends and questionable allies, are exactly as they seem. Yet, as you find out more about them, they all ring true.

Dickson uses lots of detail to paint mood and setting, perhaps a touch more than necessary at times. The only place I got lost, though, was when Cutter figured out some nagging questions near the end, and I failed to follow his logic. However, that was probably because I was reading at top speed, knocking narrative details out of my way left and right, trying to rescue the victim. Dang it, somebody had to help Cutter–it was a matter of life and death!

And now I can hardly wait for the next book in the series.

January Justice is available in paperback and Kindle editions at Amazon.com. Or visit Athol at his website: http://www.atholdickson.com/. You’ll want to see his other books, too.

I’m linking up today for coffee with Rachel Anne and the Company Girls.

Thanks for reading,
Jan

Blameless… Who, Me??

Those of you who know me well might be surprised to learn that during my senior year of high school, I got sent to the principal’s office. As a middle born authority-pleaser, I’ve always followed the rules, perhaps to the point of priggishness. I suspect Mother Teresa got in trouble more often than I did.

Normally the thought of having a teacher even mildly annoyed with me would tie my stomach in knots. I hated being guilty as much as I hated getting caught. And there I was, busted to the Big House. Yet, odd as it seems, while I waited for Mr. Davis to come decide my fate I didn’t feel at all upset.

Why not? Simple. I knew I was blameless. Here’s the case history: My friends and I were in the habit of playing the card game “Spades” in the cafeteria during lunch. We played for nothing but points and no one ever bothered us about it. That day, I had brought a deck of cards but we used someone else’s. A boy in my English class asked if he could borrow my cards. He would give them back in class. “Sure!” I handed them over without a thought.

Gamble? Who, me??

Turns out, my classmate had bigger stakes in mind. The guys got caught playing poker for money, with my cards, which were promptly confiscated. So I had to go retrieve them from Mr. Davis himself. First he tried to lecture me on the evils of gambling. It fell a little flat because I totally agreed with him. I wasn’t trying to be rebellious or anything, but I just didn’t feel guilty. Having loaned a classmate something in all innocence, I felt no more responsible for his behavior than I would if I had loaned him a pen and he used it to write a hate note to the Ag teacher.

Finally Mr. Davis shrugged, advised me not to let anyone else play with my cards, and gave them back to me.

I thought of this not long ago, while reading the New Testament book of Jude, verses 24 and 25. At only 25 verses, this punchy little letter is usually counted as the 4th shortest book of the Bible. A brief phrase in the last paragraph caught my eye. Jude, the writer, offers praise “…to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy…”

Blameless, with great joy.

Jude did not put together two random characteristics, like “tall, with a laptop” or “intelligent, with a spatula.” The laptop has nothing to do with a person’s height, and spatulas bear no relation to brain power. No, in Jude’s letter, experiencing joy in God’s presence has everything to do with being blameless.

God, our Creator, is sovereign over the universe, even more powerful than the high school principal. He gets to call the shots, which is great because he rules with perfect justice. Most of us want to go to his heaven when we die, but none of us can live a good enough life to qualify for a spot. Bad news, right?

Right, but the good news is that God does not expect us to qualify. Jesus came to earth as a human and lived a perfect, blameless life. When he gave up his life on the cross, he was not paying for any blame of his own, but for ours. Then God raised him from the dead, conquering death and dancing on its finality. When I acknowledged my guilt and trusted him, he paid the debt of guilt for me–and credited his perfection, his blamelessness, to my account. That same transaction is available to anyone who will simply ask him for it.

For me, guilt is the worst feeling in the world. A clear conscience is the best. I could never have cleared my own conscience, but Jesus is able to make me stand in the presence of his glory, without fear because I am blameless. And that gives me great joy.

I hope, if you have not already found the joy of blamelessness, this will be your year to do so.
And that you won’t even have to go to the principal’s office.

Thanks for reading,
Jan

PS: PARTY TIME! I am linking up with my sweet sisters over at Jen’s Soli Deo Gloria blog party, and with Rachel Anne and the Company Girls.

“Reinventing Leona” (Book Review)

Available on amazon.com

I’d been wanting to read this e-novel for quite a while, but did not have a Kindle. Yeah, I know you can download the Kindle software on your computer. I did that, but my hand-me-up laptop would not allow me to register it, so I could not actually buy any books. It’s bossy like that.

Anyway, I got a Kindle for Christmas and have been mulching through book after book, including Lynne Gentry’s Reinventing Leona. Now that it is on my virtual shelf, I’ll share my thoughts about it with you.

Gentry, Lynne. Reinventing Leona. Tyndale House, 2011.

Okay, I’ve tried to tell my friends how hilarious this book about a pastor’s wife is… even though in the first few pages, the main character’s husband drops dead right in the pulpit one Sunday morning. That’s when I see their eyes narrow just a little, and they start edging toward the nearest exit.

No, really, Gentry has the most entertaining way of showing the quirky and humorous side of situations, even tragic ones. Leona, the protagonist, finds herself thrown on her own devices, right in the middle of her crushing grief. Her resume as a longtime pastor’s wife has little to offer the marketplace. As one aspect of her life after another crashes down around her, she scrambles to adapt. All the while she has to dodge the arrows of church members’, um, well-meant advice.

The characters are real enough to touch, especially Leona, her children and her spoiled, eccentric mother. You’ll cheer for Leona and her faithful old friends… plus the new ones she finds in the most unexpected places.

Linking up today with Jen and the Soli Deo Gloria sisters, as well as Rachel Anne and the Company Girls. Many of these friends love a good story as much as I do!

Thanks for reading!
Jan