Advice To a Newbie Writer

This month the writers at Quills and Inkblotts are thinking back to their early days of writing, and sharing advice they would give themselves if they could.

I have to go back nearly five years, to Fall of 2011. That's when my husband listened to me falter, and shrug, and attempt to explain this writing "thing" which I didn't even fully understand. He was gracious to give me two full days alone to write (with three children under 7, that was an extravagant gift to me). I cranked out 10,000 words in those two days. When the weekend was over, I emerged from my cocoon smiling, exhausted, and excited about what I had created.

I've added hundreds of thousands of words to those first ones, in the form of four complete manuscripts (and one partially written one), two blogs, and pages and pages of journaling. 

If I could go back to that faltering, excited newbie writer, I would tell her three things.

1.  It's not ready yet. It's not even close.
Stop fantasizing about your adoring fans, and how much they are going to love your work. You think it's great. It's not. Don't waste a single second thinking about querying (silly me, you don't even know that word yet), contests, and publication. You're not there yet. 

This will be a long process for you. There will be starts and stops, and massive "life stuff" that suffocates the writing flame. Let it happen. The flame won't go out entirely. It will be a pilot light, fragile, blue, and flickering in cobwebby shadows in the basement of your mind. When the time is right, the flame will roar to life again. You will successfully knock the cobwebs away, and open the document. The story will change in ways your mind can't conceive right now. After all this time, you will have eyes to see how much you've learned about writing, about life, and about God. That has to happen. You can't rush it, so just keep pinging away on the keyboard for now, and know that it's not ready yet.

2. You are not alone.
I know you feel like the only person on earth who has had this crazy idea: I think I'll try to write a book. You walk past shelves at the library, lightly touching the cellophane-wrapped spines as you pass them, convinced those authors are mythical beasts. They don't exist in your world. Normal, suburban nobodies like you don't dream this dream. They don't devote copious isolated hours to this strange task which may never come to fruition. 

In a few short years (they will feel long to you, but they aren't), God will make you see that your greatest need as a writer is to have a reader. You will pray for that constantly for a while, feeling acutely lonely, and then He will direct you to ACFW. You will discover a whole world full of people exactly like you, the ones who dreamed this dream, devoted themselves to their creative labor, and came together online to encourage, critique, and remind one another that they are not alone. This will change everything for you. Remember to thank God for this when it happens.

3. Take the pressure off yourself. God is sovereign over this.
You will read Ephesians 4:1 "I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge to you walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called." And you will hope writing is what God has called you to do. You will wonder, what does it look like to walk in a manner worthy of it? A thousand words a day every day? A blog post every week? Post clicks, likes, and shares? Saving up for conference? The Almighty Book Deal?

This verse will weigh heavy on you as the years of striving pass with nothing much to show for your work. You will begin to doubt this is what God called you to do. "I'm trying!" your heart will cry out in shame that you were wrong, and in fear that you've wasted your time, your witness, your life.
 
Then one Spring day in early 2016 God will pry your eyes open and make you see the pride in all your striving. He'll show you how your heart was tangled up in self-righteous knots, and how your ambition, though it has always been sincerely to please him, was also bound up in your own glory, the work of your hands, the thing you would create. You hoped it would please him, but you also hoped it would please a publisher; that it would make you feel satisfied, productive, and accomplished.  

That's not your calling, my friend. Your calling is so much bigger than writing, so much longer-lasting. It is eternal.

Your calling is to live a life justified, in fellowship with Christ Jesus. It looks like patience. It looks like obedience. You don't need to strive. The striving is done. It was done by One more qualified and able than you.

But there is work. If your calling is to live in fellowship with Christ, then your work is that which builds up the body of Christ. This can be done through writing fiction; through creating characters who struggle with disunity, who learn, and who grow in their faith. It is right to use this writing gift to tell the story of a people who loved the Lord. It is a fitting labor.



This I know today, after five years of writing: I am at rest.
I still don't have it all figured out. I still have made very little of myself in the writing world. Truthfully, I am not worthy of this writing work. I confess that to you, Dear Reader, and to God. Yet the work continues, and will continue until God takes from me this dream, and sets my heart on another. Until that day, this work of my hands, this thimble of foam, I offer trembling to Christ, to do with what he will--to keep it hidden, or to give it wings--whatever would be to the benefit to his beloved people, the Church. I can rest in that.

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Love in Literature - Part Two

By Robin

I love stories about love. Love at first sight. Love that sneaks up quietly after years of friendship. Love that causes the heart to beat and the breath to draw short. Love that pulses, quivers, gushes, consumes, and overwhelms. 

I love those stories because they stimulate us, awaken us, and enrapture us. It is the tension that keeps us reading until the end; the sigh of satisfaction when we close the book.

These kinds of love stories will never grow old, will they?

Though I will always retain a sort of affection for happy endings, I find the older I get, and the more I learn about myself, my God, and my world, the more complex I need my love stories to be. The less satisfied I tend to be by wedding bells and the implied promise of Happily Ever After. 

That's why I've begun to appreciate and love a different type of love story over the years. These stories tell of love that rips, shreds, and leaves scars one must overcome to be whole again. Or love that is old, lacks romance, and goes on plodding long after the pulse slows and the excitement wanes. It's love that must be fought for, sometimes lost and grieved over, and other times it goes unrequited. There is something heartrendingly lovely and honest about a love story like that.

When my turn came to write the second part of "Love in Literature" (you can read Part One by Jebraun here), my mind consistently went to two surprising works of literature. Both tell love stories that are at times sad and painful, and both end in ambiguity.


Astrophil and Stella

Written over 450 years ago by a man who's life was tragic in its own right, Sir Philip Sydney, this sonnet sequence begins with one of my favorite lines of poetry. After falling helplessly, miserably in love, Astrophil pens: "'Fool,' said my Muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'"

He had considered himself above the throes and fancies of love, but finds himself undone by the lovely Stella. "Mine eyes (shall I say cursed or blessed) beheld Stella; now she is named, need more be said?"

But she won't return his favors--out of virtue, or ungratefulness--he cannot tell. But he feels scorned and disgraced. What's worse, she sees his woe but doesn't pity him. When he finally works up the nerve to tell her how he feels, she stops his mouth with a kiss.

The joy is short-lived however. He is forced to depart, and now it's Stella who mourns the bitterness of love. After some time apart, they find that they've changed. Stella admits to Astrophil,  

"'But the wrongs love bears will make 
Love at length leave undertaking."

Their love story, as near as I can tell, ends disappointingly for readers who rooted for them to be together in the end. There is no saccharine ending tied up with a bow. It's sad and frustrating. And yet there is still comfort for those of us who have discovered, in the reality of our own lives, the often confusing, unsatisfying, calamitous truth of love. 

And who of us hasn't? We live in a fallen world. We ourselves are fallen, and we love fallen people. We wound and we lash out to wound others in our pain. 

Sometimes we accept the pain, swallow the disappointment, and choose to love love anyway. That is the story of my second favorite literary love story. It's a tale thousands of years old. It's meaning has been debated for as many years. Is it an allegory? A literal love story between two actual people? Maybe it's both.We don't know who wrote it, when it was written, or who it was actually about. But without a doubt, it's a love story.

Song of Solomon

She loves him. He loves her. Their desire for one another is unmistakable. They enjoy the sight of one another, admire one another, and look forward with great anticipation to their union, which seems to come in the second chapter.

"Behold, he comes...and says to me:
'Arise, my love, my beautiful one, 
and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come."

The sexual imagery continues to the end of the chapter, according to some commentators, with ripe figs, blossoming vines, clefts, crannies, and grazing among the lilies.

But something is amiss in chapter three:

"On my bed by night
I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him, but found him not."

She goes out in the city looking for him, asking if others have seen him. She finds him, clings to him, and will not let him go. Then she begs the daughters of Jerusalem not to "stir up or awaken love until it pleases." (3:5)

Next comes the wedding, which seems a happy affair despite the events that have just transpired. They come together in the garden (not a coincidental location). She sleeps, but when she awakens, again, he is gone. Again she goes into the city looking for him, and gives the daughters of Jerusalem this message: "If you find my beloved...you tell him I am sick with love." (5:8)

Their response seems unhelpful at best. "What is your beloved more than another beloved, O most beautiful among women?" (5:9)

What's a girl to do when she's disappointed by love, and her friends are no help?

Her response is both sad and wonderful, I think. She praises him. It's as if she's saying, "He's my husband, for better or worse, and right now, even though it's hard, I choose love." It's sacrificial, mature, heart-breaking, and the story of most every marriage that has gone the distance in our broken, often disappointing world.

In the end, she longs for her husband as a wife should, despite her broken heart.

"Love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave...
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it."

Is it a happy ending? Well...it's complicated, as love so often is. And that's why I love it.

What are your favorite literary love stories? Please share in the comments and join the conversation.

4 Fictional Stories: How God Used Them To Teach Me About Himself

We're taking on The Power of a Story this month by choosing a few of those stories which have impacted each of us. Jebraun described hers last week.

When I began to compile a list of the stories that have taught me in the most profound ways, I noticed an interesting trend. Though they are wildly different, evenly split between male and female authors, spanning 131 years between the oldest and most recently published, and each from a different genre, they all did one important thing for me. Whether intentional or not, every one of them elevated my view of God.

1. 1984 by George Orwell. Published in 1949. Political Fiction.

God used this story to show me the beauty of his sovereignty.

I had just joined a new church when I read this book. My new pastor was seriously challenging my notions of God's sovereignty by bringing to light things I'd never considered before and exposing me to scripture I knew, but didn't fully understand.

It's a hard thing to grapple with: Is God really sovereign over everything? Like...even my choices??

I absolutely despised Big Brother, The Party, and the notion of an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful entity watching you, coercing you, accusing you, limiting you, taking away your choices. It forced me to ask myself some difficult questions.

Is The Party just a very warped metaphor for Christianity?

Does orthodoxy really mean unthinking?

Have we been cheated out of something we have a right to? Control over our destiny? The legitimacy of our human emotions?

SPOILER ALERT: When Winston is..."converted," shall we say, that event which should be the pinnacle of the Christian life, it is not a happy ending for him. It is a shock. The kind that makes you want to throw the book across the room and weep for humanity.

While I was reading this mind-bending fiction, my new pastor was simultaneously pointing me to scriptures like:

Romans 9:16-18 "So then [salvation] depends not on human will or exertion, but on God... He has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he will."

Wait...that sounds an awful lot like Big Brother, doesn't it?

Ephesians 1:4 "He chose us in him before the foundation of the world..."

But...what about our autonomy? Our choice? Our control?

Deuteronomy 31:21 "For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give."

"No!" my self-loving, self-centered, self-important soul cried out. "I am not Winston! You do not know how my story ends!" My sinful heart wanted to reject that kind of sovereignty.

Friends, the Lord worked on me during that time. I'll never, ever forget how he brushed the scales from my eyes, and used that incredible work of fiction, together with the teaching of my pastor, to show me his glory, his mercy, his boundless love for his people, and above all, the beauty of his all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful sovereignty.

Just before Winston gives in, disappointing us readers who rooted for him to resist Big Brother, he has a moment of clarity. He says, "To die hating them, that was freedom." I want to cry, reading that line today (pg. 281 in the Signet Classics Edition) because I know the truth. To die hating the Lord and his church is to perish, eternally separated from the God who pursued you. That is Hell! That is the opposite of freedom. That's why he pursues you! It isn't to coerce you, abuse you, scare you, or make you do anything you don't want to do. Christians aren't put in little rooms, bludgeoned intellectually, and fed propaganda until they go brain dead and give in.

In God's mercy, he does the work in our heart that makes us want his saving grace. We delight in his precepts. We desire his presence. We request a renewed mind. We long to be transformed to his image. 

What God is this? What marvelous, generous, sovereign-over-every-single-thing God is this, who, "being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ... For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2:4-8

Have any sweeter words ever been written? Sorry, George. Your story is powerful, but Jesus wins.


2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Published in 1985. Speculative, Women's Lit.
God used this story to show me the depravity of humans, and the corresponding depth of his mercy.

I wanted to hate this book. I began the story with my hackles raised, ready pick a fight, and fully prepared to slam the book shut and stew for days. But I found myself instead under Margaret Atwood's brilliantly written spell, aching for Offred, needing to know how her story would end.

It wasn't necessary, as the introduction led me to believe, that a reader be a feminist, or even have feminist leanings, to fully get the horror of Offred's life. It was enough that I am a woman. That I am a human being.

It would have been easy for me to dismiss this story if it was simply an indictment of God or Christianity. Surely that's what most readers are left with. Maybe that was Atwood's intention. I don't know. But I saw a more complex theme emerge halfway through the book, when Offred stumbles through the Lord's Prayer, struggling to make sense of why and how she ended up in this place. She prays, "I don't believe for an instant that what's going on out there is what you want." 

Bravo, Offred. 

God's word is never wrong, though it's often twisted and warped. History has shown us over and over again how power in the hands of men (and women), whether it's put there by the church or the state, corrupts. Atwood's story shows us the pain people are capable of inflicting--have inflicted--justifiably, they think, on their fellow human beings, given enough power. And while this story points the finger at those who would perpetrate evil in the name of a God they misunderstand, it's clear that the root of the evil is in man, not God.

Every dark period of church history has ended when the dawn of good theology has risen to take its place. We have seen, again and again, how God is merciful to allow civilization to right itself after a time.

Praise God for his mercy.


3. The Giver by Lois Lowry. Published in 1993. Young Adult Lit, Dystopian.

God used this story to show me the perfect wisdom of his plan.

This is the only book I've ever read three times. I first read it as a college student for my Young Adult Lit class in 2001. I read it again when I taught it to 8th graders during my first semester as a Language Arts teacher in 2003. I read it again when my kids were old enough to read it too, in 2014.

It never gets old. With every reread, I'm moved even more deeply to make sure my children know this truth: They need never doubt the wisdom of God in giving us a world filled with both good and bad.

They've asked the question of me, "Why would God let the serpent into the garden of Eden and mess everything up? Why didn't he just give us a perfect world to live in now?"

It's a difficult question to answer. I don't presume to know the mind of God. But I can remind them of Jonas; the first time he was cold, the first time he saw war, death, blood, famine, pain. He wanted to know why The Giver was showing him these things. It was hard. Upsetting. Exhausting. Unpleasant. It was awful.

But with those awful things came color, diversity, joy, beauty, creativity...love.

Without darkness there is no light. Things are hidden from us, and we are not better for not knowing. Never experiencing pain does not make us happy. It makes us dull, unknowing, unsympathetic. That's not what God has in mind for us.

This story also teaches us that human beings can never create Utopia on earth. We are too corrupt, too limited in our knowledge of ourselves. I want this story to inspire my children, the world's future adults, to resist the urge of political ideas and personalities that promise Utopia.

The adults in Jonas's world tried, and their intentions were good. They wanted to create for themselves a world where there was no racism, no poverty, no disease, no weakness, no hunger, no death, and no decay. It sounds wonderful, doesn't it? On the surface, they were successful. But in the absence of these things, there was also a tragic absence of compassion.

Lois Lowry skillfully and gently pulls the curtain back, exposing Jonas to the evil required to sustain his "perfect" world. The visceral reaction of readers when they discover what "Release" means is universal. No matter your age, faith background, or political ideology, you are repulsed, and rightly so.

Few books ever written can make such a claim.


4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo Published in 1862. Historical Drama, Classic.

God is still using this story to teach me about his grace.

Confession: I am still working my way through this massive novel. I've been at it for nearly two years. I'm 800 pages into an 1,100 page behemoth. I pick it up in stops and starts. It's too much to take in at once.

It's epic in scale and encompasses so much about the human life. Social injustice, grief, hopelessness, despair, perseverance, integrity, pity, suffering, faith, providence, war, love, unrequited love, and dozens more. But the theme that impacts me most deeply when I think of this story is God's grace, and how we are to respond to it.

Valjean, like Winston from 1984, is an "Everyman." We see ourselves in him. No matter our gender, our time in history, or our station in life, we were once filled with darkness, like him. We have all been without hope.

"During the years of suffering he reached the conclusion that life was a war in which he was one of the defeated. Hatred was his only weapon, and he resolved to sharpen it in prison and carry it with him when he left."

Valjean did not expect to receive grace from the bishop. He did not go looking for it, or asking for it. He most definitely did not deserve it. But it was given, freely and generously. After he steals the bishop's silver, he is caught by the police and dragged back to face the one from whom he stole.

"So here you are!" [the bishop] cried to Valjean. "I'm delighted to see you. Had you forgotten that I gave you the candlesticks as well? They're silver like the rest, and worth a good two hundred francs. Did you forget to take them?"

Thus, he is not thrown back into prison, as he justly deserves. Not only is he free, but he holds in his hands the means to begin his life anew.

"I was famished when I came in here. Now I scarcely know what I feel. Everything has changed."

Is this your response? You, the recipient of grace so lavish, so sacrificial, so undeserved, you can never repay your debt? 

Everything Valjean does over the next 1,000 pages is a response to this gift of grace. Becoming  a successful business man, fleeing Javert, adopting Cosette, saving Marius. This is his way to "present [his] body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God." Romans 12:1.

This heartrending story of grace has even been preserved in some measure in the many film and theater versions of the story. The producers can't help it. The message of grace is so pervasive, so lovely, so interwoven, there can be no Jean Valjean without the grace of God.

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The Power of a Story

By Robin

Stories have always been important to us. Long before they were on ipads, Kindles, and Nooks; before they were in paperback, hardcover, or leather bound with handstitched spines; before they were transcribed one painstaking word at a time on parchment and vellum, they wielded a sort of power in our lives.

In ancient days the most skillful Story-teller would gather his audience round a communal fire, and regale them with tales of the heroic warrior who left his maiden to fight a battle. And the audience would listen, rapt, shushing fussy babes, pulling loved ones close, wondering if the hero would ever make it back to his love.

That’s the enthralling power of a story.

Legends were born who are still with us today. Beowulf and King Arthur still hold us transfixed in our modern world. We still boo and hiss at their villains: the brutal Grendel, and the wicked sorceress Morgana La Fay. Even though we know how the story ends—we’ve known for twelve hundred years—we hang on till the end, wondering if good will prevail.

That’s the transcendent power of a story.

In the fourth century, the world changed forever. Rome converted, and with it, most of its territories, stretching far west, to include a little island nation full of Britons. “Before Christianity,” according to the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Edition 6, Volume 1, “there had been no books [in English].”

This is my decades old, frayed, taped, beloved Norton, read by every NWMSU student who majored in English during its tenure.

Time passed, invaders became residents, and the language, a jumbled comingling of Saxon (Germanic) and Norman (Italic) evolved into Middle English. That’s when the Story-teller harnessed his power by putting words onto a page. He became the Writer.

By the twelfth century, the Writer began to use the themes of love and war, which were so often connected in the world of the chivalrous knight, as a means of exploring psychological and ethical problems (again, according to the Norton Anthology). That's when men began to see themselves in the character of the knight. They watched as the knight navigated trials contrived by the Writer, and weighed the knight’s emergence as victor or downtrod against what they knew about themselves, their world, and their God, wondering what they would do in the place of the knight.

That’s the self-actualizing power of a story.

This has all been true since the first evidence we have of stories being told orally round the fire. It was true before, in the dark of cave dwellings where no remnant was left for us to study and marvel at. It’s true because our Lord is the ultimate Story-teller. It’s the medium by which he brings us to himself. “In the beginning,” begins the story of a bridegroom who goes after his bride.

We are enthralled by it, wondering if she will take his outstretched hand.

We read the same passages again and again in our study, captivated anew by the transcendent, never-changing truth.

We see ourselves in it. We are the bride, looking down at the bridegroom’s outstretched hand, a hand we don’t deserve. We come to know our own wretchedness by reading of his holiness. We take his hand, accept his mercy, and we are made new.

That’s the transformative power of THE story.

Stories born of human minds cannot hold the same power over us. We need not fear them, ban them, censor them, burn them, or hide them.

Even dangerous stories, terrible stories, and stories written by authors who hate God and his good gifts have the power to make us think.  

That, friends, is when the magic happens! That's when the Story-teller's power becomes the Story-hearer's power. The Hearer, gifted by the Creator already with the ability to reason and reflect, now possesses the power to revere or reject the truth of the Story-teller. 

It's an amazing power, isn't it? The power to think. Analyze. Critique. Decide. Whether the stories are good or bad, thinking about them makes us smarter, more mature, more aware, more compassionate, better human beings. It opens our eyes to new ideas--right ideas and wrong ideas. That doesn't matter. What matters is we use our power to think about what we're reading, and grow from it.

This is why we crave stories which do more for us than entertain. It's why our love of story has endured many thousands of years, and why it will continue long after our culture changes, our borders shift, and our language evolves all over again. 

We may not read our stories on Kindles and ipads in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years, but we will, in some way, be gathered round the communal fire to hear the skilled Story-teller weave us a compelling tale.

Unlike us, the story will endure. It will never die.

That's the power of a story.

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Writing for a Sovereign God

By Robin

I have a journal in which I write almost exclusively about writing.

This is the story (told partly in retrospect) of my life, my work, my heart, over four and a half years of writing. It tells the story of why I started. It tells of my victories, frustrations, insecurities, triumphs, and doubts as I've walked this writing path. It tells of my great love for God and for the craft of writing fiction.

It's interesting to thumb through the pages I've filled so far (a hundred or so) and see the same theme pop up about every other month. I cruise along for weeks, writing, making progress, pleased with my work, and then--screech--the same niggling questions slam on the breaks.

What am I, that the Lord should be mindful of me?

What is my mouth, that it should speak?

My hands, that they should write?

My words, that they should be heard?

I have to spend a day, or two, or a week, working them out for myself before I can take my foot off the break and ease into traffic again. You would think, after all this time, after all the pencil-scrawled words poured out attempting to answer these questions, I'd have figured it out by now. I haven't.

I still find myself wondering if I'm not actually His most unfit servant. I am beset by pride every day, at every turn. I am wrong about so much. I don't have some special access to God that isn't available to every other believer in His creation. I didn't actually hear or sense His specific words to me: "Here is a story from Me to you. Go forth. Do well."

Some days my countenance is brought so low, I'm so convinced my writing is terrible, and nothing will come of this, and I was crazy to ever think it would, the only thing that keeps me from giving up is the sight of all the empty pages in my journal yet to be filled. I can't bear to think that my writing story is over yet.

It was begun in 2011, during a season of personal and professional chaos, before I fully understood what I was doing, where I was going with it, or why I was doing it. But it was begun. In the canvas of my life, a thread was knotted behind the scenes, the first stitch was laid, then the second, then the third.

Not by me. I am nothing on my own. Like the Psalmist who also asked, "What is man, that you are mindful of him?" (Psalm 8:4) I know from whom my life, my breath, my worth, and my work comes.

The sovereign God who brought the universe into existence, the Author of history, the Redeemer of mankind, the Beginning and the End--that same God--took the time in 1979 to breathe into being a new life, one chosen before the foundation of the world, predestined to love and worship Him. (Ephesians 1:3-5)

And that I do, just as He ordained.

It's when I think I've got to have all the questions answered that the magnitude of His sovereignty becomes paralyzing. How do I know if I'm supposed to be doing this? If I'm the one to be doing this? If my labor will ever yield fruit in this life?

Because it may not. 

That's not up to me, no matter how hard I work, no matter how many revisions I sweat and cry over, no matter how much I try with my own power to make it good enough.

It's. Not. About. Me.

How wonderful, the thought. How freeing! 

The future is not mine to know or manipulate. My destiny, on earth or in heaven, is not in my hands, thank God. How I would screw it up if it was.

He's the One who chose me.

He's the One who made my mouth to speak.

He's the One who strengthens my hands.

He's the One who gives me words.

God will do what God will do. I am simply to follow the thread.  

My dear writer friends, the cry of my heart is that you too would cling tightly to the thread that was begun in the canvas of your life, even if you don't yet understand what to do with it. Even if you can't see how there will ever be fruit from it. Even when doubt and insecurity slams on the breaks. Work diligently, knowing the thread was laid by a sovereign God, and He knows what He's doing.

All Things New

There’s something magical about the word new, isn’t there?

New shoes.

New book.

New path.

New Year.

There’s the promise of a fresh start, a clean break with the past, a shiny future. Whilst the old can be comfortable, something new excites and intrigues us. 

As a child I especially enjoyed a new box of crayons. Sixty-four gorgeous hues, all waxy with pointy perfection. It would seem a shame to color with them, and sometimes I would use my old crayons for a while and simply gaze at the new set until I couldn’t stand it any longer.

Now, as an adult, I still like to savor the new, be it bamboo cooking utensils (seriously, I have a brand new set in the mesh bag from Bed, Bath & Beyond in my drawer that I bought over a year ago!) a new document in Microsoft Word, or the beginning of 2016.

I love this time of the year after the fireworks have gone off, the holiday decorations are getting tucked away, and the New Year stretches before us, its pages bright with possibility. I’m a natural optimist, and I can’t help but think this year will always be better than last year. Every season has its challenges, of course, but I always look forward to what the next one holds. 

I believe there’s something in us that craves newness. We like the idea of something unspoiled and unwrinkled. 

We don’t get this attitude by happenstance. 

Our God is the God of the new. Of the innovative. Of the second (or third or fiftieth!) chance. 

One of my favourite verses in the Bible comes from Revelation 21:5 where He who sits on the throne says, 

"Behold, I am making all things new.” 

I’m a bit of a grammar nerd, and I love how in the English translation, it’s in a present, progressive tense. That means it’s happening and continuing to happen right now. I’m not a Greek scholar, but Blue Letter Bible tells me that this verb is present tense (happening right now!) active voice (the subject – or God, in this case – is the one performing this action) and indicative mood (a simple statement of fact of an action that really occurs.) 

I read this verse and picture God fashioning, and refashioning, and refashioning yet again our lives into something beautiful.

Because this is who God is, isn’t it? Throughout the Bible and all the rest of history, we can see Him making things over, giving hope where there was none, taking sinners and turning them into saints. Building a new temple, not of stones but of men and women who love Him and are called by Him. He gave us a new covenant where we get to be called sons and daughters of God. And His grace continually goes beyond our sin and shortcomings. As Lamentations 3:22 & 23 tells us, 

"His mercies are new every morning."

Perhaps last year was a difficult one. Perhaps you’re in need of a new beginning. Perhaps you’d like a brand new box of crayons to color your life with fresh creativity, more joy, and greater victory. 

Be of good cheer because God would tell you He is doing a new thing and will make a way for you in the wilderness and provide rivers in the desert.

This day and every day is the perfect time to reset our thinking to embrace the new. 

Be blessed,

Part Two of Four Interviews

This world is a remarkable place. We four writers met through ACFW, which is to say we only know each other electronically. Though our commonalities (the Lord and our passion for writing) brought us together, we are distinct. We live all over the world. Our paths to and through this writing life vary. You're invited to get to know us better as we get to know each other better through a series of four interviews. You can read the first here.

This week Jebraun Clifford is interviewing Robin Scobee.

What inspired your current project?

The group we now call Pilgrims always seemed cartoonish to me. Big black hats with yellow buckles above the round brim. White coifs, stiff collars, Puritan sternness. Only Squanto, with his fish and corn and generosity brought a warmth, a humanness, to this cardboard group of people.

That is, until I read a nonfiction book called The Light and the Glory by Peter Marshall and David Manuel, lent to me by a friend at church. I learned more American history in two days of reading that book than in years of public school and undergrad education.

I learned that these stalwart people were exiled first to Holland before they traveled on the Mayflower. I learned about one of their leaders, William Bradford, whose words are preserved in letters and journals. I read a portion of his letter in which he gave his reasons for leaving Holland in 1620. The hardness of the life they had chosen was so extreme almost none were coming from England to join them. Their labor was debilitating, especially for the aged, who were being so worn down, he feared they might not be able to physically remove when the time came. But most alarming (to me) is what this lifestyle was doing to their children. In Bradford's words, "many were being drawn away by the lures of the world around them." (p. 109)

I read that sentence over and over. How odd, I thought. How...human. That's my struggle as a parent.

What if...  Those wonderful words that are the foundation of all stories danced in my imagination.

What if...a young woman...raised by faithful parents (who were stern to a fault) found herself in Holland, but...but she didn't want to be there? What if she rebelled? What if she found love outside the fold of her faithful community? What would they do? How would she get free from them? What would become of her? Would she miss out on that wonderful destiny of being a Pilgrim?

And a story was born.

I understand your series is about sisters who came to American on the Mayflower. It must be challenging to write about a real event. What kind of research have you done for your novels? And are your characters built on any real person?

Research is difficult. Many traditional reference materials have been written with an anti-Christian bias, and I don't feel they accurately portray who these people were. I seek out materials that quote the journals and letters written by actual Mayflower passengers. There is a surprising archive of primary source writings; much of it accessible for free on the web.


The Smithsonian offers an excellent source of trustworthy information.
This website for the Pilgrim museum in Leiden is my absolute favorite. It is a dream of mine to visit Leiden and meet Dr. Bangs to hear him tell this history he knows so well.


I also like to study works of art painted during that time period. Jan Steen, who was born in 1626 in Leiden, and educated in Leiden University (as well as one of the fictional characters in my novel!) offers a fascinating picture of every day Dutch life. We can see the way people dressed, what they ate, what their musical instruments looked like, how their homes were decorated, what animals they kept as pets. He shows us people praying, sleeping, laughing, "merrymaking," even little boys getting their hands smacked by their schoolmaster. What a treasure! I use so many details from his paintings in the pages of my writing.

"Peasant family at Meal-Time (Grace Before Meat)" 1665

My main characters are not based on real people. I could have given them names of actual Mayflower passengers, but I chose not to out of deference to the estimated 20 million people who claim to be descended from them. My characters are complex, rife with flaws as well as strengths, and it seemed rude to ascribe imaginary flaws to ancestors of living people.

Real people do occasionally make appearances in the story (Bradford, for instance), and I generally try to make them seem flattering based on what I know of their actual character.

Are you a pantser or a plotter?

Definitely a pantser! I have paid for this in whole chapters having to be deleted during revisions, but I can't seem to do it any other way. My characters grow and change and surprise me during the writing, so I let them. Perhaps as I continue to learn about writing, and become more skillful, I may evolve into more of a plotter.

Describe your ideal writing environment (music you listen to, snacks to nibble on, at home? in a cafe? morning? evening? midnight, lol?)

Ideally, I like to have my mini-HP netbook in my lap, sitting in my cushy recliner, feet out, coffee on the bookshelf next to me, blinds raised so I can stare at the goings on outside, as I often do while I write. I can't have food near me. I munch instead of write.

When life is normal, I limit my writing to the quiet hours while my husband is at work and the kids are at school. My husband is in the Army, so he is away from home sometimes for weeks or months at a time. Although my life is better when he's home, I get a lot more writing accomplished when he's away because I can write morning, noon, or night. Or all three. Whatever. My muse is not picky. I have trained my mind to prepare for those quiet hours, whenever they happen to come.

Music is tricky. Sometimes it helps me know a character better. Sometimes it distracts. If I listen to anything, I pick an artist I like and listen to their playlist on Youtube, or their channel on Slacker Radio.

Who's an author who has influenced you?

I have to say Laura Ingalls Wilder. My mom read the "Little House" books to my sister and me when we were young, and I've read them to my daughters. I didn't realize until I was an adult that she lived in a small town not far from where I grew up. I had an opportunity to visit her home last summer when we went back to Missouri for a visit to my family.


I saw her writing desk, Jebraun. A little unassuming thing, probably built by Almanzo, with a tablet of paper and a pencil positioned on it, as if she had been just been there.


She was just a woman, like me, a former teacher, a Midwestern wife and mother, a nobody, who thought it would be a good idea to beginning writing things down. That makes me think maybe I'm not crazy to sit in my cushy chair, with my laptop open in my lap, staring out the window, imagining stories.

You write historical fiction, what's your favourite genre to read? 

I do love historical fiction probably more than any other. I grew up on it. My sister and I devoured historical romance during our teen years. I also tend to seek out literary fiction because I appreciate complexity and brilliance. I learn the most about writing from it.

Favourite scripture and why?

Ecclesiastes 7:13-14 "Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what he has made crooked? Enjoy prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Remember that nothing is certain in this life."  I latched onto this verse during a difficult time for our family. My husband had lost his job 10 days before I gave birth to our third baby. A month later he wrecked his car on the way to a job interview. A month later my middle child was hospitalized with pneumonia. It seemed like everything was crooked, and I was weary from trying and failing to straighten things out. I couldn't make sense of the chaos. I found this verse, wrote it on a little white domino, and carried it around with me until that difficult season was past us. It did end, and God showed himself to us in remarkable ways. I still have the domino (it's faded now) displayed on a shelf near my writing chair.